A federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration’s request that President Donald Trump halt court hearings, including the use of wartime laws to deport hundreds of Venezuelans.
The Justice Department application comes shortly after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered his lawyers on Monday for a “fact-finding hearing” for Trump, which included the use of the war-era alien enemy law in 1798.
The law has only been used three times in US history, but has recently been used during World War II.
During a hearing on Monday, which lasted about 45 minutes, Judge Boasberg appeared occasionally irritated as he asked his government lawyers to ask for more details on Saturday’s order and to immediately return all planes, including alleged Venezuelans and Tren de Lagua members.
“My orders don’t seem to have much weight,” Jude Boasberg said near the end of the hearing. The parties returned to court Friday for a hearing over the Trump administration’s demand to vacate the case.
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Playing cards and DOJ logos. Getty Images. (Getty Images)
During the hearing, the Trump administration repeatedly refused to provide Boasberg to judges on the number of flights carrying immigrants on Saturday, citing national security protections.
“These are operational issues and I have no freedom to provide information,” a Trump administration lawyer told the court.
In response, Judge Boasberg ordered the Justice Department to provide more information in writing to the court by noon Tuesday.
In granting Saturday’s emergency order, Boasberg recognized plaintiffs, Democracy forwards and allies of the ACLU. He argued that deportation was likely to cause immigrants’ immediate “irreparable” harm under the proposed time.
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Judge Boasberg also ordered the Trump administration to immediately suspend a planned deportation Saturday, and notified clients that “we need to take off or return the planes to the US, including these people in the air.”
However, the decision appears to have been too late to stop a plane filled with more than 200 migrants deported to El Salvador.
White House press chief Karoline Leavitt told Fox News in an interview that planes containing hundreds of migrants, including more than 130 migrants, under the alien enemy law, had already “departed our airspace” by the time the order was handed over.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt speaks during the Daily White House Press Briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images))
She also pointed out the Trump administration’s intention to appeal, suggesting that the order itself was not “legal.”
In response, the ACLU asked the court to order the government to file a declaration under oath.
“Regardless of whether the plane wiped out US territory or not, the US held custody at least until the plane landed and the individual was handed over to a foreign government,” the ACLU said in its filing.
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Obama’s appointee, Judge Boasberg, appears a bit incredible that the Trump administration has chosen to move forward with the deportation of hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador, and is pushing for Justice Department lawyers on whether he believes there is a better option than complying with the decision he filed Saturday.
“Then, instead of a better course, we’re going to go back to the US and know what to do rather than say, ‘We don’t care, will we do what we want to do?’,” he asked.
Breanne Deppisch is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, covering the Trump administration, focusing on the Department of Justice, the FBI and other national news.
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