Three top officials in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet have used the “state secrets privilege” to refuse to give the judge more information about flights to deport hundreds of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act.
On March 15, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg tried to stop deportation flights, but two seemed to take off between his spoken and written orders. He asked that information be made public about how many people were on the flights, when they took off, when they left U.S. airspace, and where they landed, while he thinks about whether the administration disobeyed him.
Lawyer General Pam Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, all said in court documents late Monday that the information could not be made public because it could hurt national security or relations with other countries.
Trump called the Venezuelan crime group Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization and told people who are thought to be part of it to leave the country, USA Today reported.
“The is a case about the President’s plenary authority…to remove from the homeland designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion and predatory incursion into the United States,” Bondi said in a filing. “The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it.”
“Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address,” Bondi said in a filing.
Boasberg said again that he would not allow any deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act until the people who are accused of being members of Tren de Aragua have been given a chance to deny being members of the gang, which several have already done through court documents.
“As the Government itself concedes, the awesome power granted by the Act may be brought to bear only on those who are, in fact, ‘alien enemies.’” Boasberg wrote. “And the Supreme Court and this Circuit have long maintained that federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such.”
Lawyers for the government said they could make another case on Tuesday for why they haven’t broken Boasberg’s orders. Lawyers have said in the past that Boasberg’s spoken order could not be enforced and that no flights took off after his written order.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ripped a federal district court judge on Wednesday after he ordered flights carrying deported suspected Venezuelan gang members who were in the country illegally returned.
Leavitt’s remarks came on the heels of President Donald Trump’s criticism of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg as a “radical left lunatic” following a temporary order blocking deportation flights.
In addition to labeling Boasberg an “activist” judge, she also took a verbal shot at his wife over her political donations to Democrats.
“The judge in this case is essentially trying to say the president doesn’t have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil. That is an egregious abuse of the bench,” she told assembled reporters during a press briefing.
Earlier this month, Trump designated the Venezuelan-based Tren de Aragua gang a terrorist organization. He ordered hundreds of them removed from the country last week under authorities vested in him by the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act, but Boasberg claimed in his ruling that Trump didn’t have the power to do so.
“This judge cannot, does not, have that authority. It is the opinion of this White House and of this administration. And that’s why we’re fighting this in court. And it’s very, very clear that this is an activist judge who is trying to usurp this president’s authority,” Leavitt continued.
“Under the Alien Enemies Act, the president has the power, and that’s why the deportation campaign will continue. And this judge, Judge Boasberg, is a Democrat activist. He was appointed by Barack Obama,” she added.