A federal judge said Friday that President Donald Trump's use of a more than 200-year-old wartime law to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members from the United States was "incredibly troublesome." James Boasberg, the chief judge of the US District Court in Washington, ordered a temporary suspension of the deportation flights last weekend in a move that put the court on a collision course with the administration.
At a hearing on Friday, Boasberg questioned the legality of using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to summarily send the more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador last weekend.
"The policy ramifications of this are incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning," Boasberg said.
He noted that the only previous uses of the AEA were "in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when there was no question there was a declaration of war and who the enemy was."
Boasberg's order halting the deportation flights earned Trump's ire and the Republican president called on Tuesday for his impeachment, branding the judge a "troublemaker and agitator."
Trump's remarks drew a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who said "impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision."
Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit against the deportations along with other rights groups, noted during the court session that even during World War II "people got hearings."
"It was not this summary removal," Gelernt said.
"You have to be able to contest," he said. "Otherwise anyone could be taken off the street."
Boasberg issued an emergency order on Saturday against the deportation of the Venezuelans as they sought legal recourse and said two flights already in the air needed to turn around.
The Justice Department has claimed the planes were in international airspace when the judge issued his written order directing them to return and his jurisdiction no longer applied.
"The government's not being terribly cooperative at this point but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order," Boasberg said at Friday's hearing.
Attorneys for several of the deported Venezuelans have said their clients were not members of the Tren de Aragua gang, had committed no crimes and were targeted for deportation only because of their tattoos.
'A bad group'
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump defended the deportations under the AEA, which was last used during World War II to intern Japanese residents.
"I was told that they went through a very strong vetting process," Trump said. "This was a bad group.. killers, murderers, and people that were really bad with the worst records you've ever seen."
The New York Times reported meanwhile that nearly the entire civil rights branch of the Department of Homeland Security was fired on Friday.
The department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was responsible for oversight of the administration's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
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