CNN —
A group of migrants the Trump administration sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador earlier this year must now have an opportunity to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act, a federal judge ruled Wednesday .
The ruling from US District Judge James Boasberg said that US officials had “improperly” loaded the migrants on to flights in mid-March and sent them to El Salvador’s CECOT prison without giving them a chance to challenge their designation as “alien enemies” subject to President Donald Trump’s use of the sweeping 18 th century wartime law.
As a result, Boasberg wrote, officials must find a way to “facilitate” the migrants’ “ability to proceed through habeas and ensure that their cases are handled as they would have been if the Government had not provided const