The judge refrained from issuing a ruling on whether the administration had defied his order stopping deportations of alleged foreign criminal gang members.
WASHINGTON—U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to provide additional information on its implementation of the president’s decision to speed up deportations of purported Venezuelan gang members by applying a centuries-old law known as the Alien Enemies Act.
The order came alongside a March 17 hearing in which Boasberg scrutinized whether the administration had complied with an order he issued two days beforehand that prohibited deportations authorized by Trump’s March 15 proclamation, which invoked the Enemies Act. A group of anonymous Venezuelan nationals sued in anticipation of the proclamation and later alleged that the administration had flouted Boasberg’s March 15 order.
Boasberg requested that the administration provide, by noon on March 18, sworn declarations of the government’s estimate of how many individuals subject to Trump’s proclamation were still in the country, clarifying when the proclamation was signed and went into effect, and stating that no individuals were removed pursuant to the declaration after Boasberg issued a written order at 7:25 p.m. E.T. on March 15.
The administration had attempted to prevent the March 17 hearing from taking place. In a motion filed before the hearing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said the court should “de-escalate the grave incursions on Executive Branch authority that have already arisen.”
Boasberg denied the motion and suggested during the hearing that the DOJ was underestimating his authority over deportations that had extended beyond U.S. airspace. He also refrained from issuing a ruling on whether the government had defied his order.
The dispute arose in response to Trump’s proclamation that targeted members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, which the State Department designated as a foreign terrorist organization in the preceding month. Trump accused the gang of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion of the United States” and proclaimed that all gang members older than 14 years of age were liable to be removed as alien enemies.
By Sam Dorman
