A federal judge lashed out at the Trump administration Monday for refusing to answer questions about flights deporting Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act after he ordered them to turn around the planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a remarkable hearing in which a Justice Department attorney repeatedly declined to provide details about the flights that landed in El Salvador on Saturday evening, saying he was \u201cnot authorized\u201d to do so, a rare instance of an attorney rebuffing a judge\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg\u2002<\/u><\/a>called the hearing after a Monday morning filing<\/u><\/a> from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) arguing the government may have violated a court order halting the flights \u2014 apparently refusing to turn them around after the judge barred them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Monday\u2019s hearing, Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli contended the judge\u2019s oral command wasn\u2019t binding because the judge didn\u2019t include the instruction about airborne flights in his written order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI memorialize it in shorthand, but you\u2019re telling me that very clear point, that you could disregard it, because it wasn\u2019t in the written order?\u201d pressed Boasberg, an appointee of former President Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWouldn\u2019t it have been a better course to return the planes around the United States as opposed to going forward and saying, \u2018We don\u2019t care, we\u2019ll do what we want\u2019?\u201d Boasberg asked later in the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour Honor, that\u2019s not the approach that we\u2019ve taken in this argument,\u201d Kambli responded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The arguments from Kambli were in lockstep with assertions from the White House<\/u><\/a> earlier in the afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll of the planes subject to the written order of this judge departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory before the judge\u2019s written order,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt\u2002<\/u><\/a>told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She added the White House has \u201cquestions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a written order, and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Judges routinely give oral orders from the bench, and they are binding, just like written orders posted to a court\u2019s docket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ACLU on Monday said Boasberg issued an oral order to turn around the planes at approximately 6:45 p.m. EDT. Those instructions were also posted to the court\u2019s docket at 7:26 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ACLU included flight information it received from the government, indicating the planes did not land in Honduras until 7:36 p.m. EDT and 8:02 p.m. EDT on Saturday. The group suggested the planes later took off again before ultimately landing in El Salvador, arriving hours after each of Boasberg\u2019s orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ACLU has also disputed the Justice Department\u2019s insistence that none of the flights took off from the U.S. after Boasberg\u2019s rulings, citing a media report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At one point in the hearing, Boasberg questioned why the flights were arranged at all, noting that the government knew Saturday morning they would face a hearing on the legality of the flights at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which it said grants the power to deport without hearing any Venezuelan it deems to be a member of the Tren de Aragua gang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n El Salvador has agreed to house the 361 deported migrants removed on the flight, though 137 were deported under the Alien Enemies Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At various points during his exchange with Kambli, Boasberg expressed surprise at the refusal to answer questions or disclose the information to a jurist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He noted if the flight information couldn\u2019t be shared publicly they could use the \u201chusher\u201d to block out sound when he approached the bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also noted that Kambli did not seem to assert the information was classified, pointing to his background on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and offered the chance to share the information with him in a secure setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the administration simultaneously seeks to appeal Boasberg\u2019s ruling, it has looked to remove the judge<\/u><\/a> from the case, saying he has employed \u201cunusual and improper\u201d procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of Monday\u2019s hearing, the judge ordered the administration to provide information about the flight timelines, or provide justification for refusing to do so, by noon EDT on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m going to detail this in a written order since apparently my oral orders don\u2019t carry much weight,\u201d the judge quipped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n