Applicants in a trial brought to interrupt the deportations under a Right rarely used from the 18th century Invoked by President Donald Trump asked a federal judge on Monday to force officials to explain under oath if they violated his court order by eliminating more than 200 people from the country after his program and celebrating it on social networks.
The movement marks another climbing in the battle on the aggressive opening movements of Trump during his second term, several of which were temporarily interrupted by the judges. Trump’s allies raged on the holds and suggested that he did not have to obey them, and some applicants said he seems that the administration makes the court orders flout.
On Saturday evening, the district judge James E. Boasberg ordered the administration to deport anyone under his custody with regard to the law on newly mentioned extraterrestrial enemies, which was only used three times before in American history, all during the wars decorated with the congress. Trump published a proclamation that the law of 1798 was newly in force due to what he claimed to be an invasion of the Venezuelan gang, Tren of Aragua.
The invocation by Trump of the act could allow him to expel any non-citizen who, according to him, is associated with the gang, without proposing or even identifying them publicly. The complainants submitted their trials on behalf of several Venezuelans in police custody who feared being falsely accused of being members of Tren of Aragua and of moving badly from the country.
Said there were plans in the air heading towards El Salvador, who agreed to host migrants expelled in a notorious prison, Boasberg said that he and the government had to move quickly. “You will immediately inform your customers of it and that any plane containing these people who will take off or in the air must be returned to the United States,” Boasberg told government lawyer on Saturday evening.
WATCH: The United States deports hundreds of Venezuelans in Salvador less
According to the file, two planes that took off from the Texas detention center when the hearing started more than an hour earlier was in the air at that time, and they apparently continued in El Salvador. A third plane apparently took off after the hearing and the written order of Boasberg was officially published at 7:26 p.m. East time.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, tweeted on Sunday morning “Oopsy … Too late” above an article referring to the order of Boasberg and announced that more than 200 deportees had arrived in his country. The White House communications director Steven Cheung, republished the Bukele post with an admiration gif.
Later Sunday, an article widely circulated in Axios said that the administration had decided to “challenge” the order and quoted anonymous officials who declared that they had concluded that it did not extend to planes outside American airspace. This pulled a rapid denial from the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, who declared in a statement “the administration did not” refuse to comply “to a court order”.
Leavitt also said that the administration thought that the order was not “legal” and that it was on appeal. The administration maintains that a federal judge does not have the power to tell the president if he can determine that the country is invaded under the law or how to defend it.
The Ministry of Justice also filed a declaration in the trial saying that some people who were not in the United States territory “at the time of the order had been expelled and that if its appeal failed, it would not use Trump’s proclamation as a reason for deportations.
Boasberg planned an audience at 4 p.m. on Monday and said the government should be ready to answer a series of questions on the flights presented in the plaintiff’s request.
Boasberg’s order is only in force up to 14 days, because it oversees the dispute over the unprecedented use of the law by Trump, which is likely to raise new constitutional questions which can only be decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. He had planned an audience on Friday for other arguments, but the two organizations that filed the initial trial, ACLU and democracy, urged him to force the administration to explain in a statement under oath what happened.
Government’s statements wrote the complainants: “Strongly suggests that the Government has chosen to deal with this court as an application only to individuals still on American soil or on flights that had not yet erased American airspace at 7:26 p.m. (written order).”
“If this is how the government proceeded, it was a blatant violation of the court order,” they added.