‘One heck of a stretch’: White House argues judge’s verbal orders don’t count

Prior to those comments, Trump’s senior policy aide Stephen Miller launched a hyperbolic attack on Boasberg, telling reporters the judge was engaged in the equivalent of trying to direct American troops overseas.

“It is the most outrageous thing I have seen from a District Court judge in my lifetime, but frankly going back multiple lifetimes,” he said. “The judge’s order was patently unlawful. Beyond unlawful, it was an outrageous assault on the Constitution, an outrageous assault on the sovereignty of the nation, and on democracy itself.”

Miller foreshadowed more executive action on deportations in coming days. “You will see the full suite of presidential authorities used to extirpate this gang, this terrorist organisation, from our soil,” he said.

Trump’s hard-line border tsar Tom Homan gave an incendiary interview to Fox News in which he said the administration did “exactly what we should have done” and would not be stopped by “some radical judge”.

“I don’t care what the judges think, I don’t care what the left thinks, we’re coming,” Homan said. The judge may have “made some comment about returning the flights”, he acknowledged, but “once you’re outside the border, it is what it is”.

In February, Trump designated the gangs Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations. However, the law used to deport the alleged terrorists without a hearing has only ever been used in times of war, as declared by Congress.

Lee Gelernt, lead counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued outside court the government had violated due process by not giving people the chance to demonstrate they were not part of the gang.

He said the administration had potentially violated, “perhaps even knowingly violated”, the law by refusing to turn the flights around.

“There’s a lot at stake here,” Gelernt said. “It is also a fundamental question of the separation of powers. The president is simply thumbing his nose at Congress.”

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump argued the country was effectively at war because criminal migrant gang members were illegally crossing the border.

Loading

“That’s an invasion. They invaded our country. In that sense, this is war,” he said. “In many respects, it’s more dangerous than war because in war they have uniforms.”

More broadly, Trump and his administration are growing frustrated with blockages and delays by US judges, including orders by multiple courts to reinstate thousands of fired federal workers.

“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Trump said. “It’s a judge that’s putting himself in the position of the president of the United States who was elected by close to 80 million votes. You’re having more and more of that, it’s a very dangerous thing for our country.”

Yale University law professor Bruce Ackerman said the designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organisation did not make the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act legal or appropriate.

“We are not at war with Venezuela. Moreover, we have not even deported these people to Venezuela,” he said. “The question of whether they had the constitutional, legal authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act in this case – the answer is clearly ‘no’.”

with AP