Attorney General Pam Bondi and other DOJ officials are asking a federal judge to pause a deadline on providing more information on the deportation flights.
President Donald Trump will continue his mass deportations of illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on March 19.
This comes amid an ongoing legal battle between the Justice Department and a federal judge who ordered the flights to cease this past week.
During a briefing at the White House on Wednesday, Leavitt said that Trump will continue with the mass deportations, and there are no new flights slated yet.
“Americans can absolutely expect to see the continuation of the mass deportation campaign,” she said. “We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. … We will continue to comply with these court orders [and] we will continue to fight these battles in court.”
Trump signed a proclamation on March 15, invoking a 227-year-old law known as the Alien Enemies Act to hasten the deportations of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
After a group of anonymous Venezuelan nationals sued the administration in anticipation of Trump’s proclamation, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the deportations to cease at 7:25 p.m. ET on March 15.
The White House moved forward with the flights, and
On March 16, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration had sent more than 250 Venezuelans accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang to a prison in El Salvador.
Boasberg then ordered the administration to provide additional information on its deportation plans. This included sworn declarations of the government’s estimate of how many individuals subject to Trump’s proclamation were still in the country and confirmation that no individuals were removed after the judge issued his order on Saturday evening.
Boasberg gave the administration until noon on Wednesday to provide the information under seal.
On March 18, U.S. officials said in sworn statements that they did not violate Boasberg’s order, saying that the Venezuelans who left on a flight after 7:25 p.m. on March 15 were deported for other reasons.
Robert Cerna, an acting field office director for the Enforcement and Removal Operations office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said two planes carrying Venezuelans exited U.S. airspace and embarked to El Salvador before Boasberg’s order.
Cerna said a third flight departed after the order was released but consisted of passengers with removal orders from immigration judges, and none was removed “solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue.”
By Jacob Burg
