Judge rips DOJ's 'woefully insufficient' response to questions about Alien Enemies Act case
A federal judge on Thursday blasted the Justice Department’s latest response to his demand for more information about deportation flights that were carried out under a wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act, calling it “woefully insufficient.”
A federal judge on Thursday blasted the Justice Department’s latest response to his demand for more information about deportation flights that were carried out under a wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act, calling it “woefully insufficient.”
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in a three-page ruling that the government “again evaded its obligations” to provide information that he had been demanding for days about the timing of the Saturday flights. President Donald Trump had invoked the rarely used law to deport people the administration claimed were members of a Venezuelan gang deemed a “foreign terrorist organization.”
At an emergency hearing on Saturday, the judge had directed that any deportation flights being carried out under the AEA authority immediately return to the U.S. Two flights landed in Honduras and El Salvador within hours of the judge’s order.
The DOJ response was submitted under seal, but Boasberg said the department told him he could disclose the contents. It comprised “a six-paragraph declaration from the Acting Field Office Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Harlingen, Texas, Field Office” that did not include any new information about the flights, the judge wrote.
The Justice Department later released its filing.
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