WASHINGTON (AP) — Top leaders of President Donald Trump’s administration are debating whether to invoke a “state secrets privilege” in response to a judge’s questions about deportation flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, a Justice Department official informed the judge on Friday ahead of a hearing.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a court filing that there are “ongoing Cabinet-level discussions” about Chief Judge James Boasberg’s demand for more information. The district judge ordered the Trump administration to either provide more details about the flights or assert a claim that disclosing the information would harm “state secrets.”
The Republican administration has largely resisted the judge’s request, calling it an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition. Boasberg dismissed its response as “woefully insufficient,” increasing the possibility that he may hold administration officials in contempt of court.
Government lawyers filed Blanche’s sworn statement hours before the judge was scheduled to hold a hearing for the case on Friday in Washington.
The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law. Flights were in the air on March 15 when Boasberg issued an order temporarily barring the deportations and ordered planes to return to the U.S.
The Justice Department has said that the judge’s oral directions did not count, that only his written order needed to be followed and that it couldn’t apply to flights that had already left the U.S.
Trump and many Republican allies have called for impeaching Boasberg, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat. In a rare statement earlier this week, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
In a separate development on Friday, a federal judge in Colorado ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other Trump administration officials not to deport immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra — or even move her out of state — until her petition challenging her detention is litigated.
ICE officials detained Vizguerra on March 17. She is currently being held in the agency’s detention facility in Aurora.
Elsewhere, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered immigration officials not to deport Indian national Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown scholar who was detained by the Trump Administration and accused of spreading Hamas propaganda in the latest battle over speech on U.S. college campuses.
Giles ordered that “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order.”
Twenty-six states urged a federal appeals court to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members using a war powers act.
The filing, led by the South Carolina attorney general, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, asks the appeals court to overturn a nationwide injunction issued Saturday by James Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court in D.C.
Last week, Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a dedicated supporter of Trump and his immigration policies, said in a news release that “left-wing judicial activists” are interfering with Trump’s immigration policies and endangering the lives of Americans.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
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