Perhaps the deportation of 261 accused members of known criminal gangs Tren de Aragua and MS-13 was a rush job, not because of those legal considerations but because of what Donald Trump’s administration believes about Boasberg.
“The Trump administration believes that judge is politically biased and a leftist,” Todd Bensman, a national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said on Washington Watch Monday.
The administration is not alone.
“Another day, another judge unilaterally deciding policy for the whole country. This time to benefit foreign gang members. If the Supreme Court or Congress doesn’t fix, we’re headed toward a constitutional crisis. Senate Judiciary Cmte taking action,” Chuck Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa, wrote on Sunday.
Boasberg issued a restraining order that would have prevented the deportations in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and leftist legal advocacy group Democracy Forward.
The lawsuit challenged the administration’s authority to deport under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act because the U.S., the groups say, is not in the midst of a “declared war.”
“Ther
e may very well be legitimate legal questions that he wants to study or needs to suss out about whether the Alien Enemies Act is the appropriate way to use it on these guys, because they're immigrants who are in different states of processes already,” Bensman told show host Jody Hice.
Tren de Aragua originated in Venezuela. MS-13 is international in scope though it originated in Los Angeles.
Tren de Aragua was little known to much of the public until its gang members took over apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado last summer. Video (pictured above) surfaced of armed members forcibly entering an apartment only for Democrats to downplay the incident.
Rap sheet of violence
TDA members operate in conjunction with Cartel de los Soles, a Venezuelan-based narco-terrorism gang, and are known for committing crimes such as murder, kidnapping, extortion, trafficking and prostitution, the White House said Sunday.
The Trump administration denied Boasberg’s verbal order to return the flight because it was already in international air space, the administration said.
“President Trump has the complete, constitutional authority to deport criminal illegal aliens, especially the members of Foreign Terrorist Organizations like Tren de Aragua," Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn told Fox News Digital in a statement. "With his deportation of hundreds of gang members to El Salvador, the President is fully complying with judicial orders and upholding the rule of law.”
Texas GOP House member Brandon Gill called for impeachment of Boasberg, writing on X that he would be filing the paper work this week.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) told Hice that Trump’s deportation is “constitutionally legitimate.”
“That judge that did it … that’s a screw set-up. It’s not a normal judiciary-type situation with some judge out of Washington, D.C., appointed by Obama,” he said.
Burchett said those deported were not here chasing the American dream.
“These people just want to wreck our country. These people are rapists, murderers. They’re child traffickers. We need to send them out as fast as possible, and the president was correct in his dealings, 100%.”
Attaching his case to the 1798 Alien Enemies Act is not the first example of out-of-the-box thinking for Trump in his efforts to reverse the damage from Joe Biden’s open border policies.
Trump has also issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship, saying it would end future waves of irregular migration. The EO is currently tied up in litigation.
The Constitution states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.”
It’s the second half of that statement upon which the administration is basing its case. Illegal immigrants – and their children – are subject to the laws and jurisdiction of their country of origin, not the United States, the administration argues.
Litigation could boost Trump’s cause
Bensman says the litigation is not a bad thing and that Trump, in fact, stands to benefit if multiple cases make their way to the Supreme Court.
“It wouldn't be a terrible thing if this case and others that are sort of out of the box thinking … birthright citizenship … got to the Supreme Court, and we got a ruling on it. There are a lot of these sorts of things that need to be settled at the highest level.
“They could very well break in Trump’s direction. Then the whole matter is settled. It’s still early in his administration, and he would have three years to use it.”
