‘Woefully insufficient’: Federal judge accuses Justice Department of evading ‘obligations’ to comply with deportation flights request

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg accused the Justice Department of evading “its obligations” to comply with his order for more information on flights of alleged undocumented migrants who were sent to El Salvador over the weekend, per a new filing on Thursday.

Boasberg said in an order Thursday that after a noon deadline, Justice Department attorneys filed a written declaration from an acting ICE field officer, which repeated general information about the flights and that Cabinet secretaries were still weighing whether to invoke the states secret privilege.

“This is woefully insufficient,” Boasberg said in response.

Boasberg said he is requiring the government to show cause by March 25 on why its responses thus far and the failure to return the undocumented migrants to the U.S. did not violate his temporary restraining orders.

Additionally, he asked the government to file a sworn declaration by 10 a.m. Friday by an individual involved in Trump’s Cabinet discussions over the state secrets privilege — and to say by March 25 whether they plan to invoke the privilege.

Boasberg on Saturday blocked the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens — Venezuelan immigrants that it alleges are members of the gang Tren de Aragua — without due process. The administration carried out the deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime authority, and Boasberg ordered that they turn around two flights the administration said were deporting the alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador.

After officials failed to turn the flights around, Boasberg demanded that they provide more information about the flights, under seal, but Department of Justice attorneys refused, citing national security concerns.

The Trump administration has not yet released the names of the alleged gang members who were deported.

According to a court filing on Wednesday, Justice Department attorneys said they were considering invoking the state secrets privilege, a move that allows the head of an executive department to refuse to produce evidence in a court case on the grounds that the evidence is secret information that would harm national security or foreign relation interests if disclosed, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. Doing so would deny Boasberg the information he requested.

In his response, Boasberg gave the government a one-day extension — until noon Thursday — to either provide the information he requested or invoke the state secrets doctrine and provide an explanation as to why they are invoking it.

On Thursday, ABC News’ Karen Travers asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt why the administration won’t turn over the information regarding the deportation flights if they are confident that they complied with the judge’s order.

“We are confident that we’ve complied, and as I’ve said from the podium, all of the flights that were subject to the written order of the judge took off before the written order was pushed in the courtroom,” Leavitt said. “And the president is all within his article, his Article II power and his authority under the Alien Enemies Act to make these decisions.”

Earlier this week, Trump and some House Republicans called to impeach Boasberg, with Trump calling the judge “radical left.”

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts issued a rare statement on the impeachment threat, signaling a stark difference in opinion between the judicial and executive branches.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in the statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”