Trump Lawyer, Judge Have Tense Clash Over Deportations

A Trump administration lawyer repeatedly refused to answer questions in detail in court late Monday about the deportation of immigrants over the weekend, and some of the answers he did give left the judge incredulous. In a Washington courtroom, US District Judge James Boasberg asked the Justice Department lawyer why planes carrying Venezuelans who the administration says are gang members went on to El Salvador, though he had ordered them turned around. Abhishek Kambli argued that because the judge had given that order verbally, it didn't need to be followed—only the provisions of his written order did, the New York Times reports. "That's one heck of a stretch, I think," Boasberg told him.

During the tense exchange, Kambli gave national security needs and what he called President Trump's broad power to remove immigrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act, which Trump invoked over the weekend, as reasons for not answering. "These are sensitive, operational tasks of national security," Kambli said at one point, per the AP. Eventually, Boasberg told him to return at noon Tuesday with more answers. While Monday's hearing was in progress, the Justice Department asked the federal appeals court over Boasberg to remove him from the case, per CNBC, calling his actions an "inappropriate exercise of jurisdiction."

Earlier, Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, said in a Fox News interview that the administration plans to carry out more such deportations, regardless of what its co-equal branch says. "We're not stopping," Homan said. "I don't care what the judges think—I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming." Meanwhile, the families of some of the Venezuelans in US custody are struggling to find out whether their relatives have been sent to El Salvador, per the AP. (More deportation stories.)