Trump administration response on Venezuela deportations 'woefully insufficient,' judge says

By Luc Cohen, Ted Hesson

(Reuters) -President Donald Trump's administration's response to a judicial request for more details on timing of deportation flights carrying hundreds of Venezuelan migrants was "woefully insufficient," a judge said on Thursday, accusing officials of evading their responsibilities under an order he issued.

Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is weighing whether administration officials violated his March 15 order intended to temporarily block the expulsions. In a new order on Thursday, the judge told Justice Department officials to explain by next Tuesday why the administration's failure to bring the deported migrants back to the United States did not violate his order. 

Boasberg's order on Thursday escalates his dispute with the administration that has raised concerns among Trump critics and some legal experts about a potentially looming constitutional crisis if the administration defies judicial decisions. 

Under the U.S. Constitution, the executive and the judiciary are co-equal branches of government, along with Congress, in a system devised for checks and balances among the three. 

Trump has said he would not defy any court orders. 

The judge said the administration had "evaded its responsibilities" in responses submitted on Thursday to questions he asked about the timing of the flights.

The administration's response came in the form of a statement from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, official submitted to the judge outside of public view, the judge said. It repeated information that the administration had already given about the flights, and did not directly state whether the government would invoke a legal doctrine involving state secrets to avoid sharing those details, the judge added. 

Instead, Boasberg wrote that the ICE official said unspecified cabinet secretaries were still deciding whether to invoke the state secrets privilege, and said the 24 hours the judge had given the administration to respond was not enough for a matter of national security.

"This is woefully insufficient," the judge wrote.

The judge previously expressed skepticism that the state secrets doctrine - which protects sensitive national security information from being disclosed in civil litigation - was applicable, given that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted details of the deportation flights on social media.  

It is common in cases involving sensitive matters for material to be sent to judges outside of public view, but Boasberg said the administration had told him some contents could be disclosed.

Boasberg had previously said he was trying to determine whether the administration had violated his orders, but gave officials the chance to provide further details about the flights. 

Thursday marked the first time the judge directly ordered officials to address whether they had violated his order by issuing what is known as an order to show cause.

A CALL FOR IMPEACHMENT

  On Tuesday, Trump called for Boasberg's impeachment by Congress - a process that could remove him from the bench - drawing a rare rebuke from the U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts.    "I'm just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!" Trump wrote on Tuesday, also calling Boasberg a "Radical Left Lunatic." 

Boasberg was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011 in a bipartisan 96-0 vote. 

On Saturday, the judge imposed a two-week ban on any deportations under Trump's invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Trump said the law allowed him to deport alleged members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without final removal orders from immigration judges.

Boasberg found that the law did not provide a basis for the president to assert that the gang's presence in the United States was akin to an act of war. 

After Boasberg's order hit the public docket on Saturday, three plane loads of deportees landed in El Salvador, where the migrants are being held under an agreement with Trump-aligned President Nayib Bukele's government. 

In court filings late on Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union -  which brought the challenge to the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act - cited five cases of Venezuelan migrants whose attorneys or a family member argued they were wrongly labeled as gang members before apparently being deported to El Salvador.

One of the deportees was Jerce Reyes Barrios, a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth coach with an active U.S. asylum case. In a sworn declaration, his attorney said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had wrongly labeled him a gang member based on a tattoo of a crown that was meant to reference the logo for his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.

Barrios' name was on a list of 238 Venezuelan deportees deported to El Salvador published by CBS News on Thursday. 

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder)