Donald Trump’s administration is refusing to answer any questions from a federal judge about deportation flights to El Salvador’s notorious prison under the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.
Judge James Boasberg had ordered government attorneys to answer a series of questions — including when those planes left the United States and entered El Salvador — to determine whether administration officials intentionally defied his court orders, which were delivered in court and in filings hours before the planes landed March 15.
For more than a week, the judge has pushed the administration for answers and extended deadlines for a response.
But in a late-night filing Monday, Trump administration officials and government lawyers said “no further information will be provided” in response to the judge’s questions “based on the state secrets privilege,” a rarely invoked claim that effectively allows the executive branch to block evidence in court over national security concerns.
“The court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it,” officials wrote. “Further intrusions on the executive branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the court lacks competence to address.”
The move escalates a volatile conflict between Trump and the judiciary in a case that legal experts are warning is teetering the country towards a constitutional crisis.
The filing — with sworn statements from Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — claims the president has sweeping authority to remove “designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of, and predatory incursion into, the United States.”
Under Trump’s use of the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act, “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”
But administration officials admit that “many” immigrants on those flights have no criminal record whatsoever. ICE official Robert Cerna argued in court filings that a “lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
Attorneys and family members for detained immigrants have also argued their clients and relatives have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua and were wrongly detained over tattoos that ICE agents falsely determined were gang-related. Several Venezuelans deported to El Salvador have upcoming court hearings for their asylum claims, attorneys said.
When pressed about the administration’s assertion that the immigrants on those flights are Tren de Aragua members, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told reporters Tuesday that “hundreds and hundreds of hours were spent on investigations, whether it's looking at criminal history, whether immigration history, we're looking at undercover videos, whether it's talking to informants, whether it's talking to other members of the gang who gave sworn statements.”
“There’s a lot of ways that this was done. A lot of the time we spent on this. Again, I got assurances from the highest levels of ICE that this was done right,” Homan said.
He said he had assurance that “everybody” on those planes was a Venezuelan member of Tren de Aragua.
The administration’s filing followed a two-hour appeals court hearing over Trump’s challenge to Judge Boasberg’s order that temporarily prevents any other deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act.
During the hearing, appellate Judge Patricia Millett noted German citizens arrested under the Alien Enemies Act during the Second World War had an opportunity to challenge their detention — due process that immigrants on the El Salvador flights were denied.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” she said.
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