(C) Common Dreams
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DOJ seeks to boot judge questioning Trump deportations, lawyer warns of 'constitutional crisis' [1]
['Chloe Atkins Dan Mangan', 'Chloe Atkins', 'Dan Mangan']
Date: 2025-03-17
James Boasberg, incoming chief judge of the US District Court, in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 13, 2023.
The Department of Justice on Monday asked a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., to replace the district court judge overseeing a case challenging the Trump administration's deportations of hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
The request, which cited Chief Judge James Boasberg's alleged "inappropriate exercise of jurisdiction," came as Boasberg conducted a hearing where he pressed a top-ranking DOJ lawyer about the circumstances of the deportations conducted over the weekend.
The DOJ earlier Monday asked Boasberg without success to cancel that hearing.
Boasberg in an oral order on Saturday had told the DOJ to order the return of any deportees who were still airborne on flights that originated in the United States.
The DOJ in a court filing claimed that "an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction" and said that it had complied with Boasberg's written order issued hours later blocking any more deportation flights of Venezuelans.
Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli told Boasberg on Monday that he was not at liberty to talk about details of the controversial deportation flights in a public setting in U.S. District Court in Washington.
At the same hearing, Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for five Venezuelan men who sued to challenge their feared deportations, told Boasberg that he wanted to be careful about his language, but said, "There has been a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about a constitutional crisis."
"I think we're getting very close to that," said Gelernt, who argued that two deportation flights took off from the United States after Boasberg's oral order.
Gelernt appeared to be referring to Kambli's refusal to answer questions by the judge about the flights, and to the Trump administration's argument that the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act were not subject to judicial order after the flights left U.S. airspace.
"It doesn't matter if you're in U.S. airspace or not," Boasberg said during Monday's hearing.
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[1] Url:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/trump-deportation-order-venezuela-gang-judge-alien-enemies.html
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