{"id":315091,"date":"2025-11-26T16:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/315091\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T16:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:33:07","slug":"noem-made-decision-to-continue-deportation-flights-to-el-salvador-justice-department-says-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/315091\/","title":{"rendered":"Noem made decision to continue deportation flights to El Salvador, justice department says | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice said in a statement that Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was the one who made the decision to continue with the deportation flights<\/a> of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge\u2019s directive that the flights must be returned to the United States.<\/p>\n

In a court filing<\/a> on Tuesday, the justice department said that \u201cDeputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove provided DHS with legal advice regarding the court\u2019s order as to flights that had left the United States before the order issued, through DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara\u201d and that \u201cafter receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court\u2019s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador\u201d.<\/p>\n

The DOJ argued that \u201cas explained below, that decision was lawful and was consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Court\u2019s order\u201d.<\/p>\n

The filing came as James Boasberg, a US district judge, recently resumed his<\/a> inquiry into whether the Trump administration violated his March orders to halt the deportation flights.<\/p>\n

That month, the Trump administration had invoked the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act<\/a>, designed primarily for use in wartime, to deport roughly 250 alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador\u2019s CECOT mega-prison.<\/p>\n

Boasberg had quickly issued a temporary restraining order<\/a> and issued a verbal directive <\/a>ordering that the deportation flights already in the air be returned to the US.<\/p>\n

However, the White House insisted<\/a> at the time that the detainees were no longer in US territory when the order came down, and claimed that the ruling did not apply and so the planes were not turned around.<\/p>\n

In the filing on Tuesday, the justice department maintained that the administration did not \u201cviolate\u201d Boasberg\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the substance of the legal advice given to DHS and Secretary Noem is privileged, the government has repeatedly explained in its briefs \u2013\u00a0both in this court on appeal \u2013 why its actions did not violate the court\u2019s order, much less constitute contempt,\u201d the government wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecifically, the court\u2019s written order did not purport to require the return of detainees who had already been removed, and the earlier oral directive was not a binding injunction, especially after the written order.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new filing.<\/p>\n

After spending several months in the notorious El Salvador prison, the Venezuelan nationals were repatriated to Venezuela in July<\/a> in a deal between the US and Venezuelan governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Justice said in a statement that Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-315091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}