The Justice Department questioned the timing of the court’s order on the deportations of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang
The Justice Department followed the judge’s order to give a sworn declaration about the landing of the planeloads of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The hearing on Monday centered on whether the government complied with Judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order, and it included a debate about when exactly the order was issued and where U.S. custody over deportees ends. The same weight is attached to an oral and written order when it comes to restraining government action.
It came after Boasberg’s emergency order Saturday that told the administration to stop using wartime powers to immediately deport people it said were part of the Tren de Aragua gang, and turn around any planes already in the air. Senior Justice Department officials in a filing on Sunday argued that the order came too late to stop the deportations, as planes were already outside U.S. territory.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward had sought to block the deportations of five Venezuelan men for 14 days and later broadened the request to all people who could be deported under Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation concerning Tren de Aragua.
Some gang members were already out of the US by the time the judge’s written order was issued, according to government lawyers.
But lawyers from the civil rights groups argued that even though the judge’s written order came at 7:26 p.m., the judge had actually issued an oral order between 6:45 p.m. ET and 6:48 p.m. ET that directed the government to turn around any planes carrying people being removed under the Alien Enemies Act. And that oral order should hold the same weight, they said.
“Plaintiffs remain extremely concerned that, regardless of which time is used, the government may have violated the Court’s command,” the groups wrote in a filing on Monday. They said that the U.S. government retained custody of people until the planes landed and they were turned over to El Salvador — and that it didn’t matter whether the plane was over international waters or not.
In response to Trump’s criticism of social media, the Justice Department warned against a federal judge impeachment over the weekend flights that deported alleged Venezuelan gang members
Trump complained in a post on his truth social platform that the Judge was appointed by Barack Hussein Obama and it was a troublemaker. Trump did not mention Boasberg by name. But said that “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge is pushing the Trump administration for more details about weekend flights that deported hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members, despite his order to turn the planes around.
The incident is adding to concerns among Trump’s critics that the administration is openly defying the authority of federal courts, and moving the nation closer to a constitutional crisis.
Chief Justice John Roberts stated that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreements concerning a judicial decision after the president criticized it on social media. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
At a hearing on Monday, lawyers for the Justice Department did not answer repeated questions from the judge about when the deportation flights took off, and exactly who was on board the planes.
The Justice Department lawyers wrote a defiant note, asserting that they had no reason to request more information about the deportation flights.
Three deportation flights left the US on Saturday, one day after it was announced that President Donald Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which gives the president power to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation.
The Alien Enemies Act can only be used by Congress for immigration enforcement, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The statute said that it could only be used against a foreign government. It has never in our country’s history been used during peacetime, much less against a gang,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU’s lead attorney on the case, in an interview with NPR.
In a court filing late Monday night, the Trump administration insisted it had good reason to believe that the men deported to El Salvador over the weekend are gang members.
” Agency personnel carefully screened each individual alien to make sure they were in fact members of the [Tren de Arugua],” Cerna said in the declaration. “ICE did not simply rely on social media posts, photographs of the alien displaying gang-related hand gestures, or tattoos alone.”
Cerna also conceded that “many” of those Venezuelan men who are now being held in a supermax prison in El Salvador do not have criminal records in the U.S. They have only been in the U.S. for a short period of time.
The lack of a criminal record does not mean they pose a limited threat, according to the declaration. “The lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. They are terrorists with regards to whom we don’t have a complete profile.
Trump attacks on the control of federal agencies: The perkins Coie law firm lost its security clearance in the run-up of the White House
The Perkins Coie law firm, known for representing Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats, lost its security clearance from the Trump administration. Without security clearances, the firm would not be able to represent its clients as well as it could.
These are cases that concern the administration’s efforts to make life much more difficult for lawyers who bring cases against the administration, and news organizations that cover them.
Related, but somewhat different are cases concerning Trump’s attacks on the control of federal agencies. For instance, the president is trying to fire a member of the National Labor Relations board who has three years left on her five-year term. The Supreme Court of the U.S. said in 1935 that the president could only dismiss agency commissioners for cause. The court’s current conservative supermajority, however, has been eating away at the outer edges of that precedent, so the Trump administration has a decent chance of prevailing when and if these cases get to the Supreme Court.
Other challenges seek to prevent the administration from gutting agencies and Cabinet departments by summarily firing tens of thousands of federal employees.
Many cases involving Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, allege that Musk, who was hired by the president as a special government employee, may not take actions that Congress has not authorized, such as halting funding to federal agencies. Some cases cast doubts on the ability of DOGE to gain access to sensitive federal records, which has been done in agencies like the IRS.
Source: Trump calls for the impeachment of a judge, as lawsuits pile up
The investigation of a lawsuit by the Trump administration against the Associated Press and the New York Times about a student’s alleged support for Hezbollah
Automatic citizenship for people born in the United States is an effort by the administration that has not been successful. This is a right pretty explicitly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution for all people born or naturalized in the U.S.
Trump has ordered the deportation of a Columbia University graduate student for participating in a student-led protest last spring. A person who is of Palestinian descent is a lawful permanent resident in the United States. Days after Khalil was taken into custody, immigration officials sent Rasha Alawieh, a doctor who was legally working in the U.S., back to Lebanon, citing her alleged support for Hezbollah.
The executive order signed by Trump restricted the ability of the government to retain Paul Weiss because of the firm’s connection to one of its former lawyers who was involved in leading an investigation into Trump.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has targeted 20 major law firms in an investigation, but this investigation has not yet been challenged in court.
The Associated Press was not allowed to go to the Oval Office or Air Force One because they failed to change their style guide to comply with Trump’s order. The AP sued the administration to regain access after it warned that the administration would penalize it for its independent journalism.