White House's defense for not recalling deportations 'one heck of a stretch', says judge
Source: The Guardian
White House’s defense for not recalling deportations ‘one heck of a stretch’, says judge
Administration claims it didn’t stop flights despite judge’s instructions because he did not write it in the formal order
Hugo Lowell in Washington
Tue 18 Mar 2025 00.11 GMT
Last modified on Tue 18 Mar 2025 00.21 GMT
The Trump administration claimed to a federal judge on Monday that it did not recall deportation flights of hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members over the weekend despite his specific instructions because that was not expressly included in the formal written order issued afterwards.
The administration also said that even if James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, had included that instruction in his formal order, his authority to compel the planes to return disappeared the moment the planes entered international airspace.
The extraordinary arguments suggested the White House took advantage of its own perceived uncertainty with a federal court order to do as it pleased, testing the limits of the judicial system to hold to account an administration set on circumventing adverse rulings.
An incredulous Boasberg at one stage asked the administration: “Isn’t then the better course to return the planes to the United States and figure out what to do, than say: ‘We don’t care; we’ll do what we want’?”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/trump-judge-venezuela-deportations
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Related: Judge incredulous in Trump deportation case as administration lawyers argue verbal court order isn’t binding – as it happened (The Guardian)