Administration’s Details on Deportation Flights ‘Woefully Insufficient,’ Judge Says
A federal judge in Washington edged closer on Thursday to holding the Trump administration in contempt for possibly having violated his ruling pausing the deportation of scores of Venezuelans under a rarely invoked wartime statute.
In a sternly written order, the judge, James E. Boasberg, told the administration to explain to him by Tuesday why officials had not violated his instructions when they allowed two flights of immigrants to continue on to El Salvador even after he directed the planes to return to the United States.
Judge Boasberg also called out efforts by the Justice Department to repeatedly stonewall his attempts to get information about the timing of the flights over the weekend.
“The government again evaded its obligations,” he wrote, adding that the Justice Department’s most recent filing about the flights was “woefully insufficient.”
Judge Boasberg’s three-page order was a remarkable display of frustration with an administration that has sought not only to use the extraordinary powers of the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to pursue its immigration agenda, but has also stubbornly refused to provide even the most basic information about the deportation flights.
The New York Times