WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal judge said on Thursday that the Trump government may have acted in bad faith “by trying to hurry out Venezuelan migrants before a court could block their deportations to El Salvador.
Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg in the US in Washington pushed a lawyer from the Ministry of Justice to explain the government's actions in a high bet hearing to determine whether the administration ignored his orders to reverse aircraft that deported to El Salvador.
The judge said that he could give a decision as soon as next week or there are grounds to find someone contempt from the court for the figure of the judicial order.
The case has become a flash point in a fight between the judiciary and the Trump government in the midst of increasing frustration of the White House about the court that blocks the most important parts of the President's radical agenda. Trump has called for the judge's accusation, while the Ministry of Justice has argued that the judge exceeded his authority.
Boasberg ordered the administration last month to deport anyone in detention under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 Wartime law that called Trump about what he claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang tren the Aragua. The judge also ordered that all aircraft with Venezuelan immigrants who had already been sent back to the United States. That didn't happen.
Boasberg, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama to the Federal Bank, said it seemed that the government had tried to get the deportees out of the country as soon as possible before a court could intervene. He told a lawyer from the Ministry of Justice that he suspects that the government acted in bad faith all day. “
“If you really believed that everything you did that day could survive a court challenge, I can't believe you would have operated the way you did,” said Boasberg.
The Ministry of Justice has said that the administration did not violate the order of the judge, with the argument that it did not apply to aircraft that had already left us Airspace by the time his command came down. The Ministry of Justice has noted that the written order of the judge said nothing about flights that the US had already left and that the judge did not have the president to force the president to return the aircraft.
The Trump government has refused to answer the questions of the judge about when the planes landed and who was on board, and claims that they are considered 'state secrets'.
Deputy Assistant -Procurer -General Drew Ensign told the judge that details about the flights could be diplomatically sensitive, because the migrants were sent to a third country that had agreed with the US to keep them in their prison. Ensign also said repeatedly that he did not know 'operational details' of those March 15, decorative flights.
“I had no knowledge of my client that was the case,” Ensign replied when he was asked if he knew that day that planes were already in the air or were about to rise.
At the Supreme Court, the Trump government is responsible for permission to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador among the rarely used Alien Enemies Act. The Ministry of Justice says that federal courts should not disturb with sensitive diplomatic negotiations. It also claimed that migrants should argue their case at a federal court in Texas, where they are held.
