Judge Questions Admin Over Deportations03/18 06:01

   A federal judge on Monday questioned whether the Trump administration 
ignored his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador, a 
possible violation of the decision he'd issued minutes before.

   (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday questioned whether the Trump 
administration ignored his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to 
El Salvador, a possible violation of the decision he'd issued minutes before.

   District Judge James E. Boasberg was incredulous over the administration's 
contentions that his verbal directions did not count, that only his written 
order needed to be followed, that it couldn't apply to flights that had left 
the U.S. and that the administration could not answer his questions about the 
deportations due to national security issues.

   "That's one heck of a stretch, I think," Boasberg replied, noting that the 
administration knew as the planes were departing that he was about to decide 
whether to briefly halt deportations being made under a rarely used 18th 
century law invoked by Trump about an hour earlier.

   "I'm just asking how you think my equitable powers do not attach to a plane 
that has departed the U.S., even if it's in international airspace," Boasberg 
added at another point.

   Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli contended that only 
Boasberg's short written order, issued about 45 minutes after he made the 
verbal demand, counted. It did not contain any demands to reverse planes, and 
Kambli added that it was too late to redirect two planes that had left the U.S. 
by that time.

   "These are sensitive, operational tasks of national security," Kambli said.

   The hearing over what Boasberg called the "possible defiance" of his court 
order marked the latest step in a high-stakes legal fight that began when 
President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 wartime law to remove immigrants over 
the weekend. It was also an escalation in the battle over whether the Trump 
administration is flouting court orders that have blocked some of his 
aggressive moves in the opening weeks of his second term.

   "There's been a lot of talk about constitutional crisis, people throw that 
word around. I think we're getting very close to it," warned Lee Gelernt of the 
ACLU, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, during the Monday hearing. After 
the hearing, Gelernt said the ACLU would ask Boasberg to order all improperly 
deported people returned to the United States.

   Boasberg said he'd record the proceedings and additional demands in writing. 
"I will memorialize this in a written order since apparently my oral orders 
don't seem to carry much weight," Boasberg said.

   On Saturday night, Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport anyone 
in its custody through the newly-invoked Alien Enemies Act, which has only been 
used three times before in U.S. history, all during congressionally declared 
wars. Trump issued a proclamation that the law was newly in effect due to what 
he claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

   Trump's invocation of the act could allow him to deport any noncitizen he 
says is associated with the gang, without offering proof or even publicly 
identifying them. The plaintiffs filed their suit on behalf of several 
Venezuelans in U.S. custody who feared they'd be falsely accused of being Tren 
de Aragua members and improperly removed from the country.

   Told there were planes in the air headed to El Salvador, which has agreed to 
house deported migrants in a notorious prison, Boasberg said Saturday evening 
that he and the government needed to move fast. "You shall inform your clients 
of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to 
take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States," Boasberg 
told the government's lawyer.

   According to the filing, two planes that had taken off from Texas' detention 
facility when the hearing started more than an hour earlier were in the air at 
that point, and they apparently continued to El Salvador. A third plane 
apparently took off after the hearing and Boasberg's written order was formally 
published at 7:26 p.m. Eastern time. Kambli said that plane held no one 
deported under the Alien Enemies Act.

   El Salvador's President, Nayib Bukele, on Sunday morning tweeted, 
"Oopsie...too late" above an article referencing Boasberg's order and announced 
that more than 200 deportees had arrived in his country. The White House 
communications director, Steven Cheung, reposted Bukele's post with an admiring 
GIF.

   Later Sunday, a widely circulated article in Axios said the administration 
decided to "defy" the order and quoted anonymous officials who said they 
concluded it didn't extend to planes outside U.S. airspace. That drew a quick 
denial from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said in a 
statement "the administration did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order."

   The administration argues a federal judge does not have the authority to 
tell the president whether he can determine the country is being invaded under 
the act, or how to defend it.

   After Boasberg scheduled a hearing Monday and said the government should be 
prepared to answer questions over its conduct, the Justice Department objected, 
saying it could not answer in a public forum because it involved "sensitive 
questions of national security, foreign relations, and coordination with 
foreign nations." Boasberg denied the government's request to cancel the 
hearing, which led the Trump administration to ask that the judge be taken off 
the case.

   Kambli stressed that the government believes it is complying with Boasberg's 
order. It has said in writing it will not use Trump's invocation of the Alien 
Enemies Act to deport anyone if Boasberg's order is not overturned on appeal, a 
pledge Kambli made again verbally in court Monday. "None of this is necessary 
because we did comply with the court's written order," Kambli said.

   Boasberg's temporary restraining order is only in effect for up to 14 days 
as he oversees the litigation over Trump's unprecedented use of the act, which 
is likely to raise new constitutional issues that can only ultimately be 
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. He had scheduled a hearing Friday for 
further arguments, but the two organizations that filed the initial lawsuit, 
the ACLU and Democracy Forward, urged him to force the administration to 
explain in a declaration under oath what happened.

   As the courtroom drama built, so did international fallout over the 
deportations to El Salvador. Venezuela's government on Monday characterized the 
transfer of migrants to El Salvador as "kidnappings" that it plans to challenge 
as "crimes against humanity" before the United Nations and other international 
organizations. It also accused Bukele's government of profiting off the plights 
of Venezuelan migrants.

   "President, I respectfully say to you, are you going to support this 
cruelty, this injustice ... of imprisoning noble, hard-working migrants, good 
people, without trial, without having committed crimes in El Salvador, without 
any kind of sentence issued by a Salvadoran court?" President Nicols Maduro 
said on state television. "Is this legal? Is it fair? Is it humane?"

   Trump's proclamation alleges Tren de Aragua is acting as a "hybrid criminal 
state" in partnership with Venezuela.

   Families of some Venezuelans in U.S. custody scrambled to find out if their 
loved ones had been sent to El Salvador. Multiple immigration lawyers said they 
had clients who were not gang members who were being moved for possible 
deportation late Friday.

   Franco Caraballo was held by immigration authorities during a routine 
check-in Feb. 3. His immigration lawyer, Martin Rosenow, said Caraballo not 
been accused of a crime. Caraballo's wife believes he's been wrongfully accused 
of belonging to the gang because of a tattoo he got marking his daughter's 
birthday,

   He called his wife Friday night in a panic because he was being handcuffed 
and put on a plane to an unknown destination in Texas, from where flights to El 
Salvador departed.

   That was the last the family heard of him and he's disappeared from the 
federal immigration detainee locator system. "I've never seen anything like 
this," said Rosenow.