DOJ says disclosing migrant flight information is 'inappropriate'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Roll Call

Posted March 18, 2025 at 2:43pm


The Trump administration told a federal judge Tuesday that it should not have to provide information on the timing of flights that carried migrants for deportation, amid an accusation the executive branch defied a court order to halt the planes. In a three-page filing, the Justice Department said Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has no grounds for requiring the U.S. government to share that information.

“The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were ‘removed,’ before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions,” the filing says.

In terse language seemingly to underscore the significance of refusing to supply the information, the filing adds: “The Government stands on those arguments.” The DOJ said that if the judge still wants information, it should be in a declaration given only to the judge and not disclosed to the civil rights groups who filed a lawsuit to stop the deportation flights, “in order to protect sensitive information bearing on foreign relations.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward filed the lawsuits over the weekend after President Donald Trump invoked a 1798 law known as the Aliens Enemies Act to justify the immediate removals of migrants suspected of members of the Tren de Aragua. The groups say the removals were done without “any hearing or meaningful review” and regardless of any defenses they have for removal, and that some of the plaintiffs had been targeted by the gang and one was mistakenly labeled as member because of tattoos.

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2025/03/18/doj-says-disclosing-migrant-flight-information-is-inappropriate/