Judge demands flight details as Trump administration defends deportations
World
The incident has fueled concerns that Trump is setting up a constitutional clash with judiciary
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A US judge on Tuesday demanded more details from the Trump administration on two deportation flights that took off this weekend despite his order temporarily banning the removal of people from the United States under an 18th-century law.
US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., on Saturday imposed a two-week halt to deportations under President Donald Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to declare that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua was conducting irregular warfare against the United States.
The judge asked the Justice Department to address why the flights went on to land in El Salvador anyway. The incident has fueled concerns that the Republican president is further pushing the boundaries of executive power and setting up a potential constitutional clash with the judiciary.
Trump on Tuesday called for Boasberg to be impeached, prompting a rebuke from US Chief Justice John Roberts.
In response to Boasberg's question, Justice Department lawyers said in court papers on Tuesday the two flights had left US airspace before the judge's written order was issued at 7:25 pm EDT (2325 GMT), and said his earlier spoken orders in court were not enforceable.
That prompted further questions from the judge.
Boasberg ordered the government to tell him by noon on Wednesday when exactly the planes took off, when they left US airspace, when they landed, when the people on board were transferred out of US custody, and how many people on board were deported solely based on the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
He said the government could submit the information under seal. The government has said that publicizing precise details could compromise its operations.
In an earlier court filing, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Robert Cerna said a third flight – which took off after Boasberg's written order hit the public court docket – contained only deportees subject to separate removal orders, meaning they were not deported under the Alien Enemies Act alone.
SANCTIONS THREAT
The Trump administration used the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act – which was used by the US to justify the internment of Japanese, Italian and German nationals during World War Two – to justify the deportation of alleged gang members without final removal orders from immigration judges.
In blocking the deportations, Boasberg said the Alien Enemies Act did not provide a basis for Trump's assertion that Tren de Aragua's presence in the US was akin to an act of war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday threatened to impose additional sanctions on Venezuela if the country's socialist government, a longtime foe of Washington, does not accept its citizens deported from the US Venezuela has called US sanctions part of an illegitimate "economic war" designed to cripple the country.
At a government-organised march in the capital Caracas, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said the deportations were "completely illegal" and that the migrants' rights had been violated.
Millions of Venezuelans have fled the crisis-stricken South American country. President Nicolas Maduro's government has long been accused by the political opposition, the United States, and rights groups of arbitrary arrests of political opponents.
Venezuela's government regularly accuses the opposition of conspiring with the United States to attack Venezuela, which the opposition and US have always denied.
Family members of Venezuelan migrants who suspect their loved ones were sent to El Salvador are struggling to get information about their whereabouts.
Aida Diaz said her husband Darwin Hernandez, 30, called her on Saturday from a migrant detention center in Texas to tell her guards had told him he would be sent home. Diaz said she does not know where Hernandez is now.
"They are not investigating case by case," Diaz, 31, told Reuters before the march in Caracas. She said her husband is not a gang member.
IMPEACHMENT CALLS
In a post on Truth Social earlier on Tuesday, Trump called for the impeachment of the judge in the case, who he described as a far-left "troublemaker and agitator." The post did not identify Boasberg, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, by name.
In a rare statement issued by the US Supreme Court, Roberts rejected the idea that impeachment is the answer for a disagreement with a jurist's rulings.
"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," Roberts said. "The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."
An assistant to Boasberg said he declined to comment when asked about Trump's criticism.
Boasberg, a former prosecutor who was previously appointed by Republican President George W. Bush to serve as a judge on a local Washington, D.C., court, was confirmed by the US Senate in 2011 by a 96-0 vote. Trump's current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was among the senators who voted to confirm him.
Trump's post marked the first time during his second term as president that he has called for a judge's impeachment. Congressional Republicans, the billionaire Elon Musk, and other Trump allies have called for the impeachment of federal judges or attacked their integrity in response to court rulings that have slowed the administration's moves.
Key members of the US federal judiciary warned last week of a rising number of threats directed at their colleagues, and described calls to impeach judges over their rulings as “concerning."
Hours after Trump's call to impeach Boasberg, Republican lawmaker Brandon Gill said on X that he had introduced articles of impeachment against the judge in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
To remove a judge from office, the House must pass articles of impeachment by a simple majority vote and then the Senate must vote by at least a two-thirds majority to convict the judge. Republicans control both chambers of Congress but do not have a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
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