President Trump cloaked himself in core national security powers Monday as his attorneys told federal courts to butt out while he deports suspected gang members.
The administration, over the weekend, sent nearly 250 Venezuelans purported to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador, drawing scrutiny from a federal judge who had ordered the planes to be turned around and from immigrant rights defenders who said Mr. Trump was trampling on fundamental constitutional rights.
The Justice Department said Mr. Trump had declared Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization and was acting under his powers as commander in chief and the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 when he ousted the suspected gang members.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign asked a federal appeals court to step in and derail the judicial inquiry and take Judge James Boasberg off the case. He said Judge Boasberg was allowing terrorists to mount a class-action lawsuit without heeding national security.
“The district court’s hasty public inquiry into these sensitive national security matters — with no contemplated protections against disclosure of operational details — underscores the urgency of immediate relief from this court, including an immediate administrative stay,” Mr. Ensign said in a filing asking Judge Boasberg be kicked off the case.
The fight goes to the heart of Mr. Trump’s biggest claims of his second term, including that his national security powers are virtually unfettered, that the country has seen an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, and the result has been a border emergency and an influx of terrorists in the form of cartel and transnational gang activity.
In a hearing Monday, Judge Boasberg grilled the government’s attorneys, demanding to know the timing of the administration’s actions and whether they ignored his oral instructions.
Two planes appear to have been in the air during his hearing Saturday. Another seems to have departed the U.S. airport after the hearing. It’s unclear whether it left before the judge issued a written order.
Judge Boasberg wanted to know whether any people he was trying to block from deportation were on that third flight and said he wanted the information fast.
He asked how many potential targets there are for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act and asked the administration to say whether it would reveal particulars about the flights and their timing.
“If the government takes the position that it will not provide that information to the court under any circumstances, it must support such position, including with classified authorities if necessary,” he wrote in an order Monday night.
He gave the administration a deadline of noon Tuesday and told them they could file part of their answers under seal if necessary.
He is the latest judge to sharply question the veracity of Trump administration claims amid a flurry of lawsuits challenging the president’s executive actions.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who is being paid about $20,000 per person per year to hold Tren de Aragua members in his Terrorism Confinement Center, mocked Judge Boasberg’s order.
“Oopsie… Too late,” he posted to social media with a laughing emoji. The post was promoted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
He released a video of his new guests, showing men being manhandled off the plane, having their hair and beards shorn off, dressed in white T-shirts, white undershorts and white sandals, shackled and taken to cells.
Mr. Bukele said the deal was good for all sides.
“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” he said. He also said the MS-13 deportees on the flight would help his own country, where the gang has been based, to root out the gang’s money, weapons, drugs and collaborators.
Judge Boasberg, an Obama appointee to the district court in Washington, quickly became a target of conservative outrage.
A House Republican said over the weekend that he would introduce articles of impeachment to try to remove the judge.
The White House has embraced the fight over deportations, believing it has strong legal and political ground.
“There were violent criminals and rapists in our country. Democrats fought to keep them here. President Trump deported them,” said Vice President J.D. Vance.
Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar and head of his deportation agency in the first Trump administration, said the U.S. ousted 238 members of the Tren de Aragua gang, based in Venezuela, and sent 21 MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.
“With each criminal illegal alien being deported, neighborhoods are becoming safer,” he said.
Congressional Democrats were far less excited about the way the situation is playing out. They accused Mr. Trump of violating the deportees’ “due process” rights.
“This attempt to use an archaic wartime law — not used since World War II — for immigration enforcement is yet another unlawful and brazen power grab,” said a joint statement by Sens. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Alex Padilla of California, Cory A. Booker of New Jersey and Peter Welch of Vermont.
They said the U.S. is “not at war, and immigrants are not invading our country,” so there is no justification for using the 1798 law.
They said the danger is Mr. Trump will deport U.S. citizens “or people who haven’t committed a crime.”
Judge Boasberg isn’t the first to order a deportation flight to turn around.
In 2018, in the wake of Mr. Trump’s attempt to stiffen asylum standards, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered a plane headed for El Salvador to be returned and threatened contempt of court on U.S. officials who defied him.
The flight wasn’t turned around, but a mother and child who were the plaintiffs in a case before Judge Sullivan were kept on the plane as it flew back to the U.S.
The Tren de Aragua deportees aren’t the only case testing Mr. Trump’s powers.
A Lebanese doctor was blocked by Customs and Border Protection officers as she tried to enter the U.S. on a guest worker visa last week.
Dr. Rasha Alawieh has been working in the U.S. for years on an H-1B visitor’s visa and is a professor at Brown University, but CBP officials say when she flew into Boston’s Logan International Airport on Thursday, she had images of Hezbollah figures on her phone.
She was put on a plane out of the U.S. on Friday, about the same time a judge ordered her to be kept in the country pending a decision.
CBP said the order didn’t reach its staff at the airport until the plane had departed.
In court documents Monday, CBP justified the decision to block the doctor.
“With the discovery of these photographs and videos CBP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” the documents allege, according to The Providence Journal.
The judge had scheduled an emergency hearing for Monday morning but canceled it after CBP’s new information and amid a change in attorneys for the doctor’s cousin, who filed a lawsuit to try to block her deportation.
