The Trump administration will get a one-day reprieve from having to reveal details of the timeline relating to when it removed detainees under Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation — but there’s a catch.
D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg issued the order hours after receiving an insult-laden demand from the Trump administration to retract the deadline.
In his subtly snarky Wednesday response, Boasberg told the DOJ that it could take another day to provide critical information about when two planes carrying people deported under Trump’s Alien Enemies Act left the U.S., how many people deported under the proclamation were onboard, and when they were transferred to foreign custody.
The information is key to determining whether the administration violated a Saturday order from Boasberg directing the government to return the planes and stop further removals under the proclamation.
But Boasberg made clear in his order that he’s not buying the Trump administration’s arguments for why it does not have to supply the information. He ordered DOJ lawyers to provide the information by noon on Thursday, or to invoke the state secrets doctrine, citing an accompanying justification.
It gives the DOJ yet another opportunity to comply (or not comply) with the court’s orders. Boasberg noted off the bat that he found the government’s grounds for the delay “not persuasive,” and remarked that it’s the first time the administration has suggested that disclosing the data — behind closed doors, to the judge only — might qualify as a state secret. The Trump administration has not claimed that information about the flights are classified.
“It thus appears to be an uncommon occurrence for the disclosure of unclassified information to threaten state secrets,” Boasberg wrote.
He added that it was similarly odd to see the government claim that releasing information to Boasberg could compromise national security interests. That, he wrote, is surprising in light of Secretary of State Marco Rubio having publicly “revealed many operational details of the flights, including the number of people involved in the flights, many of their identities, the facility to which they were brought, their manner of treatment, and the time window during which these events occurred.”
“The Court is therefore unsure at this time how compliance with its Minute Order would jeopardize state secrets,” he wrote.
The judge also referenced the basic process by which cases are resolved in the U.S. courts system. They go up on appeal to a circuit court — and then to the Supreme Court, as Chief Justice John Roberts reminded the country on Tuesday.
“As the Supreme Court has made crystal clear, the proper recourse for a party subject to an injunction it believes is legally flawed — and is indeed later shown to be so flawed — is appellate review, not disobedience,” Boasberg wrote.
