A bare-knuckle legal brawl is taking place between the Department of Justice and a federal judge who is miffed that criminal illegal immigrants were deported to El Salvador.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to rid America of members of the violent Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang. Deportation flights then took off to take criminal illegal immigrants from Venezuela to a prison in El Salvador.
Meanwhile, legal advocates for Venezuelan criminal illegal immigrants went to court, with the result that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered planes in the air to turn around and bring the criminal illegal immigrants back while he considered whether using the 1798 law was constitutionally sound.
Although the Justice Department told Boasberg Tuesday that the flights that landed in El Salvador did not violate his order, he then demanded information about the flights, according to Fox News.
Boasberg sought answers to five questions by noon Wednesday. They were: “1) What time did the plane take off from U.S. soil and from where? 2) What time did it leave U.S. airspace? 3) What time did it land in which foreign country (including if it made more than one stop)? 4) What time were individuals subject solely to the Proclamation transferred out of U.S. custody? and 5) How many people were aboard solely on the basis of the Proclamation?”
The Justice Department responded, but it was with defiance more than deference.
“The Court has now spent more time trying to ferret out information about the Government’s flight schedules and relations with foreign countries than it did in investigating the facts before certifying the class action in this case,” the filing, co-signed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and others, said.
“That observation reflects how upside-down this case has become, as digressive micromanagement has outweighed consideration of the case’s legal issues,” the filing said.
“Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case,” the filing said.
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The filing said that the major issue at stake is the legitimacy of Trump’s actions.
“The distraction of the specific facts surrounding the movements of an airplane has derailed this case long enough and should end until the Circuit Court has had a chance to weigh in. The Government respects this Court and has complied with its request to present the Government’s position on the legality of the Court’s [Temporary Restraining Order] and the Government’s compliance with that TRO,” they wrote.
The filing said Boasberg was guilty of judicial overreach.
“The underlying premise of these orders, including the most recent one requiring the production of these facts ex parte today at noon, is that the Judicial Branch is superior to the Executive Branch, particularly on non-legal matters involving foreign affairs and national security. The Government disagrees. The two branches are coequal, and the Court’s continued intrusions into the prerogatives of the Executive Branch, especially on a non-legal and factually irrelevant matter, should end,” the filing said.
The filing said state secrets should not be divulged and also said that “disclosure of the information sought could implicate the affairs of United States allies and their cooperation with the United States Government in fighting terrorist organizations” and “such disclosure would unquestionably create serious repercussions for the Executive Branch’s ability to conduct foreign affairs.”
Boasberg extended the deadline for his answers to noon Thursday, and fired back at the Justice Department in his response, according to NBC.
“To begin, the Court seeks this information, not as a ‘micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition,’ but to determine if the Government deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be,” Boasberg wrote.
“The Government’s Motion is the first time it has suggested that disclosing the information requested by the Court could amount to the release of state secrets. To date, in fact, the Government has made no claim that the information at issue is even classified,” he said, noting that information about the flights has already been made public.
He said if the Justice Department wants to review his authority for issuing the restraining order, the correct step is “appellate review, not disobedience.”
He said the Justice Department could either get him answers by noon Thursday or “invoke the state-secrets doctrine and explain the basis for such invocation.”
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