A Federal Judge of the United States has found “probable cause” to declare President Donald Trump’s government in judicial contempt for violating his order last month to suspend the deportations of Venezuelan migrants based on the law of foreign enemies.
Judge James Boasberg of Washington has said in a brief of more than 40 pages that the Government demonstrated a “deliberate ignorance” before the order of March 15 that prohibited the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador under that law of the late eighteenth century, with which the US government deported more than 200 Venezuelans to prisons in the Savior without a judicial process. All of them were accused of belonging to the MS-13 criminal gangs and Aragua Train.
When Boasberg issued the order, two airplanes with Venezuelans headed to El Salvador and had not yet returned to the United States. The planes did not turn back and landed in El Salvador, so the judge has asked the administration to prove that it did not incur contempt or, otherwise, he will begin hearings and, possibly, will send the matter to justice. “The Constitution does not tolerate the intentional disobedience of judicial orders, especially by officials who have sworn to respect it,” said the judge.
The judge has pointed out that the easiest way that the Government avoids contempt is to allow deported migrants against their order to challenge their expulsion before the courts. According to his writing, this would not require the return of migrants to the United States and the administration could “propose other methods to achieve compliance.”
The judge has made it clear that “the Court does not reach such a conclusion lightly or precipitously; in fact, it has given the defendants extensive opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their answers has been satisfactory.”
The White House has denied having breached the order, although the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, hinted at a press conference that Judge Boasberg could have violated the verbal order. Despite defending that the flight left before it issued the resolution in writing, the Department of Justice has not yet facilitated the time of takeoff to the judge. In fact, just before the deadline for delivering this information, the Trump government accepted the privilege of state secret to reserve the flight data and further hinder the investigation.
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