The ruling doesn’t apply to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man whose deportation became a focal point of Democratic resistance to Trump's immigration policies.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven’t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges.

The decision set up another showdown between the Trump administration and the courts over the use of a wartime law to remove hundreds of people.