The judges showed some frustration this week with the way in which the Trump administration has defended himself in court, and one said he seemed to have used “bad faith” tactics, another accusing him of using “false” arguments and a third who said he was making “inaccurate” statements.
One of the judges, the United States district judge, James Boasberg, suggested that he could retain the contempt procedures so that the government explains not to fulfill their orders.
In a separate but related case, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the government to return a sports car he recognized was accidentally sent to a notorious megajail in El Salvador.
Here is a look at some of the greatest legal developments of the week:
‘The government acted in bad faith’
At an audience on Thursday, Boasberg demanded detailed responses on the breach of the administration to comply with his order to stop deportations under the invocation of President Donald Trump of the Alien Enemies Law used rarely used.
He did not get them.
After the Deputy Attorney General of Immigration Drew Ensign said “it is our position that the government’s actions fulfilled” with their two restriction orders that prohibit the alleged to the members of Venezuelan gang members who left the country on March 15, the judge let his frustration be shown.
“It is fine. Then it seems to me that there is a good probability that this is not correct and, in fact, that the government acted in bad faith throughout that day,” said Boasberg.
“If you really believed that everything you did that day was legal and could survive a judicial challenge, I cannot believe that you would have once operated on the way you did,” he added.
He also referred to the deportation of a Maryland man that the administration recognized was sent by mistake to El Salvador.
“Then, what I was willing to do trying to do this as quickly as possible and prevent the court from being ordered was to risk putting people on those planes that should not have been on the planes first,” Boasberg said later at the hearing.
The judge pointed out that Trump had signed the AEA on Friday, March 14, but did not make it public until Saturday afternoon, when the preparations to send the deportees to a prison in El Salvador were already underway.
He suggested that the moment was intentional, so the deportees could be “removed from the country before it was possible to legally challenge it.”
Ensign said: “I have no information about that.”
The lawyers of the plaintiffs, who deny that they are members of the gang, learned of the executive order on March 14 and filed a lawsuit during the night to block deportations. Boasberg ordered an emergency audience for that Saturday afternoon.
During that hearing, the judge ordered that any deportation under the AEA to stop temporarily, and ordered that any flight that was underway was returned to the US sainter, said at that time that it was not aware of any, a position that reiterated on Thursday.
“I had no knowledge of my client that was the case,” said Ensign, and “I made diligent efforts to obtain that information” from the Department of National Security and the State Department.
It was later revealed that two of these flights were in the air at that time. The Government has refused to disseminate details about the exact moment, labeling it as a “state secret.” The lawyers of the Department of Justice affirmed that the flights were outside the American airspace at that time and, therefore, did not have to return.
Boasberg pressed Ensign on who made the decision not to change the planes. “I don’t know,” Reign replied.
“I am certainly interested in discovering it because as we move forward with possible contempt procedures, that can be relevant,” said the judge.
He said that he will probably issue an order on whether there is a probable cause to find the government in contempt next week.
At an unrelated press conference on Friday, the United States Attorney Pam Bondi was asked if “was involved in the decision to challenge” the Basberg order.
“I don’t think anyone has challenged an order from a judge. That is pending in court at this time,” he said.
On Tuesday, the parties will return before Boasberg for arguments on the center of the subject in the case, if the Trump administration should be ordered indefinitely to deport the alleged members of the Aragua train under the AEA.
The administration already appealed its current restriction order to the United States Supreme Court, claiming that it violates the president’s powers.
Judge Rules in favor of Maryland’s man deported to El Salvador
The United States District Judge, Paula Xinis, ordered on Friday that Kilmar Abrego García, who is a legal resident of Maryland, was returned to the United States on Monday after a lawyer from the Department of Justice acknowledged that he should not have been sent to El Salvador.
An immigration judge had specifically forbidden Garcia, whom the government alleges that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, if sent to El Salvador in 2019, finding that “it is more likely to be persecuted” there.
Xinis asked the lawyer of the Department of Justice, Erez Reuveni, why the administration could not ask El Salvador to return Garcia. Reuveni said he had asked his client the same and, “I have not yet received an answer that seems satisfactory.”
Reuveni also said he did not know why Garcia had been arrested, how it was determined that they would send him to El Salvador or any detail about the administration agreement with the prison there.
“The Government made a decision here not to produce evidence,” he said.
‘False’ arguments in a California case
A federal judge in California issued an order temporarily on Monday that the Trump administration ends a temporary protected status for more than 350,000 Venezuelan nationals.
The United States District Judge Edward Chen said that the plaintiffs in the case may succeed with their statements that the “unprecedented” decision of the Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem to put an early end to their TPS protections, which allow them to live and work in the United States, “not authorized by the law, arbitrary and chitose and motivated by a non -concentrated angle.”
Noem had directed the TPS protections, which had been scheduled to expire at the end of next year, to be fired on April 7.
The administration is appealing Chen’s decision and asked him separately to remain his own ruling, arguing in part that ending the protections does not mean that they are deported.
“[T]Hat is a false argument, “Chen wrote on Friday, rejecting the request for the administration of a stay.
He pointed out that during an interview where she announced the decision, Noem said that “the people of this country want to leave these land bags.”
He said that the “whole point” of Noem’s early termination decision “was to allow the elimination of Venezuelan TPS holders during a time prior to the established schedule” by his predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas.
“Nor has the government stated that, if the court remained in its postponement order, it will not immediately advance with the elimination of any Venezuelan TPS holder,” Cen added.
He pointed out the recognition of the administration in the case of AEA that one of the deportees should not have been eliminated as another reason not to stop his ruling.
The “Government erroneously deported an individual, who has legal status to be in the United States, to El Salvador, but has essentially taken the position that he cannot do anything to address that error,” the judge wrote, showing any elimination in his case “it probably could not be” undo “if the plaintiffs finally prevail.”
‘Inexact’ claims
The Department of Justice also sought a suspension of a federal judge in Washington, DC, asking him to stop his preliminary court order, which prohibits the administration from closing the consumer’s financial protection office.
The March 28 decision of the US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, which grants the court order included some hard words for the administration, finding his statements that he was not trying to close the “unreliable” agency.
The “attempt to eleventh government to suggest immediately before the hearing that the work stop order was not really a work stop order at all was so false that the court stayed with little confidence that you can trust the defense to tell the truth about anything,” Jackson wrote then.
He was also impressed on Thursday with his arguments for a suspension of his order.
“[T]The description of the heir to the order disagrees with the terms of the order, and its description of the ruling that promoted it is also inaccurate, “he wrote, denying the request.
That same day, the 4th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit granted the Government a partial temporary suspension of the order.
“The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court a sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for the pending stay and should not be interpreted in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the ruling said.
