A federal judge slammed the Justice Department on Friday for rushing to invoke an 18th-century wartime law during the night last weekend, questioning whether it was done to accelerate deportations while skirting potential legal challenges.
The high-stakes immigration case is testing the power of the executive versus the judiciary branches and could heavily influence President Trump’s deportation agenda.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is weighing whether the government violated his order when it failed to turn around planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members after invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport them.
Boasberg said during a hearing Friday that the move was “an unprecedented and expanded use” of a law that has only applies when “there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation,” which there is not.
“The policy ramifications of this are incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning,” he said.
The law allows the government to detain and deport people without due process, like court hearings or asylum interviews.
Boasberg expressed concern that the people being deported had no way of objecting to the administration’s allegation that they are gang members.
“Why is this proclamation essentially signed in the dark on Friday night, early Saturday morning, when people rushed on the plane?” he asked. “To me, the only reason to do that is if you know the problem and you want to get them out of the country before a suit is filed.”
“I don’t have knowledge of those operational details,” DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign responded.
Boasberg said he’d continue to investigate whether the White House allowed the two flights in question to proceed despite his order barring it, and who was responsible for making that decision.
“The government is not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order and who was responsible,” the judge said.
The judge did not issue a ruling during Friday’s hearing.
The judge earlier this week gave the DOJ a Tuesday deadline to provide additional information on the Trump administration’s defiance of a court order halting deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The administration defended its decision Tuesday to follow through with the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789.
Boasberg then scolded the department for having “evaded its obligations” to give him the requested information.
Trump has attacked the judge, even calling for his impeachment — which prompted a rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Trump administration has continued to insist they were within their rights to conduct deportation flights after the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act in an executive order.
Boasberg ordered the flights return to the U.S., which the White House ignored.
The administration argues the planes were already in international waters at the time and the ruling did not apply.
