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Roberts rebukes Trump over comments

President called for judge to be impeached over deportation ruling

By: Josy Garrision,
Maureen Groppa
and Bart Jansen
USA Today

WASHINGTON - On Tuesday [03/18/2025] the clash between President Donald Trump and the judiciary escalated as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump's call for the impeachment of a federal judge.
..... "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," Roberts said in a rare public statement. "the normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."
..... Roberts' comment came after Trump on Tuesday [03/18/2025] called for the impeachment of a federal judge who tried to stop the Republican administration from deporting hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members via the Alien enemies Act, a 1798 law last used during World War II.
..... Trump, in a social media post, referred to Chief U.S. Judge James Boasberg in Washington, Dec., who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, as "a troublemaker and agitator." trump said unlike himself, the judge did not win all seven battleground states in the 2024 presidential election out to an 'OVERWHELMING MANDATE" that Trump said was centered on his promise to fight illegal immigration.
..... "I'm just doing what the BOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!!" Trump said in hos post on Truth Social, "WE DON'T WNAT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDEREERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE ALERICA GREATE AGAIN !!!
..... Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan doubled down on the administration's mass deportation campaign Monday, [03/17/2025] saying he plans to continue roundup and removal despite court rulings and injunctions halting them.
..... "We're not stopping," Homan told Fox News in an interview. "I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left things. we're coming.

DOJ refuses to give flight details

..... Boasberg tied to temporarily block deportation flights on Saturday [03/15/2025] through oral and written orders. But lawyers for the Venezuelans said two flights left Texas for Honduras and El Salvador.
..... Boasberg had asked at a Monday [03/17/2025] hearing for details about the flights to determine whether the Trump administration defied his orders, but Justice Department lawyers have refused the judge's demand.
..... A filing by Attorney General Pam Bondi and other department lawyers said "there is no justification to order the provision of additional inflammation, and that doing so would be inappropriate" because the judge's "oral statements were not indispensability enforceable."
..... The lawyer also aid because they have appealed Boasberg's order blocking the flights, they 'should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations until hat motion is resolved."
..... A Justice Department lawyer, Abhishek Kambil, told Boasberg the government complied with his written order. Kambli said if flights traveled beyond U.S. territory he had no jurisdiction. But Boasberg said the court maintained jurisdiction of people in U.S. custody even beyond U.S. Territory, Kambli refused at the hearing to disclose details about the flights, citing national security concerns and the sensitivity of foreign negotiations to accept the deportees.
..... Robert Cerna, an acing field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Harlingen, Texas, said in a sworn statement Tuesday [03/18/2025] that the two deportation flights that took off Saturday [03/15/2025] were in international airspace when Boasberg's written order was posted. Cerna also refused to disclose further details about the flights.
..... Trump signed the Aliens enemies Act on Friday [03/14/2025] but it became effective when published on Saturday, [03/15/2025] Cerna said. That same day, between Boasberg's oral and written orders blocking the deportation flights on Saturday, [03/15/2025] the planes left for Honduras and El Salvador.

'Constitutional crisis'

..... The government is detaining about 54 alleged members of Tren de Aragua, about 172 are on the non-detained docket and 32 are in criminal custody, Cerna said.
..... "Should they be transfered to ICE custody, they will likely be placed in removal proceedings," Cerna said.
..... El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said in a social media post on Saturday [03/15/2025] that 238 Venezuelans had arrived. El Salvador is receiving $6 million for detaining the Venezuelans.
..... If Boasberg gives another order for the flight information, government lawyers said it should be for a confidential presentation to the judge and would exclude the lawyers for the Venezuelans, to protect sensitive information bearing on foreign realizations." It's common in national security cases for a judge to determine what is appropriate to defense lawyers to see.
..... Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Venezuelans, said the administration appeared to have defiled the judge's order.
..... "There's been a lot of talk during the last several weeks about a constitutional crisis throwing that term around," Gelernt said. "I think we're getting very close to it."
..... The 1798 alien enemies act allows the deportation of anyone form a designated enemy country who is not a naturalized citizen. Once invoked, the law allows for citizens of the targeted country to be :apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies." The act gives the administration the ability to hasten deportation by avoiding court hearings altogether.
..... The administration argues the Venezuelans are members of a gang called Tren de Aragua and are a national security threat.
..... But Boasberg said the Alien Enemies Act does not "provided a basis for the president's proclamation given that the terms invasion, predatory incursion, really related to hostile acts perpetrated by any nation and commensurate to war."
..... The case has become a legal test for Trump's goal of mass deportation of migrants in the U.S. without legal authorization.

..... Contributing: Josh Meyer

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