Obama Judge Blocked from Receiving Deportation Info, 'Lacks Competence' to Address National Security
A federal judge has been slapped down in his effort to gain information about deportation flights to El Salvador in which members of the violent Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang were deported after President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, has sought details about the flights, which he ordered to turn around while he considered whether using the 1798 law was constitutionally sound.
The flights did not do as he ordered, and on Monday, the Department of Justice argued that due to “state secrets privilege,” it did not have to divulge the information, according to the Associated Press.
Boasberg also issued an order preventing further flights, which the Trump administration is appealing.
The Alien Enemies Act allows for deportation without a non-citizen’s case being reviewed by a federal judge.
In a Monday court filing, the Department of Justice said Boasberg’s court “has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it,” according to Newsweek.
“Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address,” the filing said.
“Accordingly, the states secrets privilege forecloses further demands for details that have no place in this matter, and the government will address the Court’s order to show cause tomorrow by demonstrating that there is no basis for the suggestion of noncompliance with any binding order.”
The filing continued, “[T]he information sought by the Court is subject to the state secrets privilege because disclosure would pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs.”
Boasberg had been seeking details about the timing of the flights, according to Fox News.
In parrying a demand from Boasberg last week, the Justice Department said Boasberg should focus on the big issue of the law Trump used to deport gang members, not the details of whether Boasberg was obeyed as he wished.
“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,” said the filing, co-signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and others.
“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 DOJ 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,” last week’s filing said.
“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.”
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