The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to dissolve the orders he put in place this weekend barring it from deporting suspected members of a Venezuelan street gang from the country under a rarely invoked wartime statute called the Alien Enemies Act.
The Justice Department also doubled down on its efforts to avoid giving the judge, James E. Boasberg, the detailed information he had requested about the deportations, asking the federal appeals court that sits over him to intervene and put the case on hold.
Taken together, the twin moves — made in separate sets of court papers filed late on Monday — marked a continuation of the Trump’s administration’s aggressive attempts to push back against Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, who temporarily halted one of President Trump’s signature deportation policies.
The Justice Department has now effectively opened up two fronts in the battle: one challenging the underlying orders that paused, for now, the deportation flights and another seeking to avoid disclosing any information about the flights that could indicate they took place after the judge’s orders stopping them were imposed.
Mr. Trump attacked Judge Boasberg in a social media post on Tuesday morning, albeit without naming him, as “a troublemaker and agitator,” and called for his impeachment. Mr. Trump’s remarks came days after he declared during a speech at the Justice Department that criticizing judges should be illegal.
The late night filings and Mr. Trump’s verbal assault followed a day of extraordinary tension between the Trump administration and Judge Boasberg, both inside and outside the courtroom.
At a hearing in Washington on Monday, a Justice Department lawyer tested the judge’s authority and patience by flatly refusing to provide any details about the timing of the flights that removed dozens of suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang from the United States to El Salvador.
Citing “national security” concerns, the lawyer, Abhishek Kambli, said the only thing he could give Judge Boasberg was his assurance that the flights had occurred before a written version of his directive stopping them was formally entered onto the docket.
In an even bolder move on Monday afternoon, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to remove Judge Boasberg from the case, citing the “highly unusual and improper procedures” he has used. That effort was preceded by another act of defiance as the administration sought to have the court hearing canceled altogether less than two hours before it was supposed to begin.
In its filing to the appeals court late Monday, lawyers for the Justice Department kept up the pressure on Judge Boasberg, accusing him of “judicial micromanagement.” The lawyers asked the appellate judges to freeze the case before the government had to disclose any “national security information” about the deportation flights.
“The district court is thus continuing to press for details that are sensitive and, in many cases, not relevant to any issue presented,” the lawyers wrote. “The order and inquiries continue to underscore the need for a stay pending appeal in this case.”
Early Tuesday morning, lawyers for five of the suspected gang members fired back, telling the appeals court that Judge Boasberg had bent over backward to accommodate the government’s concerns by offering to consider any sensitive or secret information in a classified facility.
The lawyers also suggested that the government was simply trying to avoid being held accountable for having potentially violated the judge’s rulings.
“If the government’s position is that it will not under any circumstances disclose to the court highly relevant information regarding whether it deliberately violated a federal court order, there is no good reason why it should not explain why it believes its position is lawful,” the lawyers wrote.
In a parallel move, the Justice Department asked Judge Boasberg to dissolve the temporary restraining orders that had started the entire squabble.
The first of those orders, both of which were issued at a hastily convened Zoom hearing on Saturday evening, barred the Trump administration from removing from the country any of the five suspected gang members who filed the underlying case. Judge Boasberg then issued a second, more expansive order, saying that no suspected Tren de Aragua members could be expelled under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
In seeking to dissolve the orders, Justice Department lawyers argued that Judge Boasberg had no authority to issue them in the first place because “the presidential actions they challenge are not subject to judicial review.”
The lawyers also claimed that Mr. Trump’s decision to deport the suspected members of the gang — which was recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization — was lawful under the Alien Enemies Act. The statute allows the government during an invasion or a time of war to round up and summarily remove any “subjects of the hostile nation or government” who are over the age of 14 from the United States as “alien enemies.”
The administration has repeatedly claimed that the suspected gang members should be considered subjects of a hostile nation because they are closely aligned with the Venezuelan government and the leadership of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. The White House has also insisted that the arrival to the United States of dozens of Tren de Aragua members constitutes an invasion.
But all of those claims are likely to face tough scrutiny as the case moves forward.
Lawyers for the deported Venezuelans are scheduled to submit a filing to the appeals court on Tuesday evening, challenging the government’s request to put the case on hold. The lawyers will also soon have a chance to make their case directly to Judge Boasberg, reaffirming why they believe Mr. Trump’s deportation plans did not comply with the Alien Enemies Act.
