Trump administration ‘evaded’ deadline for deportation flight information, judge says

A US federal judge said the government “evaded its obligations” to answer his questions about this weekend’s deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

James Boasberg, the top federal judge in Washington DC, gave justice department lawyers a Thursday deadline provide information on the government’s deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador by plane.

They provided a six-paragraph declaration from an immigration official saying cabinet secretaries are considering invoking the state secrets privilege and did not give the flight information he requested.

Judge Boasberg ordered the government last Saturday to halt the deportation flights, but the White House said the planes had already taken off.

Thursday’s declaration from a regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official also repeated previously shared information.

In the government responses they said they needed more than 24 hours to carefully consider whether “to invoke the state secrets privilege”, which allows federal authorities to withhold sensitive national security information in lawsuits.

But Judge Boasberg appeared frustrated by that defence.

“To begin, the Government cannot proffer a regional ICE official to attest to Cabinet-level discussions of the state-secrets privilege; indeed, his declaration on that point, not surprisingly, is based solely on his unsubstantiated ‘understand[ing],'” he wrote.

He gave the Trump administration a Friday deadline to provide an update from someone who was directly involved in the discussions about the deportation planes.

Trump this weekend invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act and deported more than 200 Venezuelans, alleging almost all were members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

An immigration attorney working on behalf of one of the deported men told a court on Thursday that her client was a professional soccer player in Venezuela without a criminal record, CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, reported.

The man, Jerce Reyes Barrios, had applied for asylum to escape political persecution, his attorney argued, saying that he was falsely accused of being connected to Tren de Aragua because of a tattoo on his arm.

The attorney said the tattoo honoured the football team Real Madrid.

The flights – which Mr Barrios and others were aboard – were halted by Judge Boasberg verbally over the weekend. Any flights currently in the air were to be turned back.

But the White House said the planes were already in international airspace, arguing that the judge’s order was therefore invalid.

On Monday, Judge Boasberg asked to hear from the Trump administration’s lawyer about why the flights had not returned to the US.

He will also hold a previously scheduled hearing on the use of the Alien Enemies Act on Friday.