The Justice Department said Friday it is considering calling state secret privileges in the ongoing court battle over the Trump administration's deportation service, a tool that allows certain information to be withheld for national security purposes.
In a declaration filed Friday morning, U.S. Associate Attorney General Todd Blanche told District Judge James Boasberg that he was aware of cabinet-level debates calling the state's secret privileges.
Invoking that privilege is “a serious issue that requires careful consideration of national security and diplomatic relations, and cannot be taken appropriately in just 24 hours,” Blanche said.
The declaration comes after Boasberg issued a Thursday deadline for submitting information on foreign aid flights that sent Venezuelans to El Salvador over the weekend.
“Sorryly insufficient”: US judge reems Trump administrators for day deportation information
Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and John Lauro, lawyers for then-President Former Donald Trump, left federal court in Washington, DC on September 5, 2024. (Anna Money Maker/Getty Images)
Boasberg said Thursday evening that the court was only sent six-paragraph declarations from Texas Regional Ice Officials, even after the Trump administration failed to comply with the noon deadline for information, in a ferocious order, and gave the administration the option to submit information.
Boasberg declared the declaration “severely insufficient,” saying on Thursday that local ice officers cannot inform the courts of high-level cabinet debate, suggesting that someone higher in the federal government should do so.
Blanche's application comes hours before government lawyers testify in court Friday afternoon at their hearing of their allegations that Boasberg will vacate the case.
Boasberg pointed out in a ferocious order on Thursday that the government “evaded the obligation again” to fail to submit the documents it requested for the flight.
Who is James Boasberg, a US judge at the heart of Trump's deportation efforts?
President Donald Trump will arrive with Attorney General Pam Bondy to speak at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Pool via AP)
The question is whether the government failed to comply with his emergency control order on Saturday, which prevented the Trump administration from using the 1798 wartime law. Deported Venezuelan citizensincluding suspects of gang trending lagua for 14 days. Boasberg also ordered flights to be returned to US soil immediately.
However, hours later, a plane arrived in El Salvador carrying hundreds of US immigrants, including Venezuelan citizens, who were removed under the laws in question.
Since then, government lawyers have refused Share information in court On deported flights and whether migrant planes (or planes) deliberately left our soil after the judge cited national security protections and ordered them not to do so.
Boasberg previously asked government lawyers to submit information that many planes departing the United States on Saturday had departed from the United States, which carried people based solely on the “base” of that declaration.
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He previously warned the Trump administration this week about the outcome if he violated his orders. The Trump administration is part of it, challenging his order in the Court of Appeals on Monday.
Still, later that night, at least one plane with exiled migrants landed in El Salvador. “Oopsie, too late,” Salvador President Naive Buquere said in a post on X.
