Judicial halt of deportation flights puts US foreign policy at risk, career State Dept official claims
The United States' foreign policy could be in jeopardy after a federal judge ordered deportation flights with Venezuelan gang members be returned to the states, a career State Department official argued in a recent court filing.
Michael Kozak, Senior Bureau Official at the State Department, wrote in a declaration filed Monday that, "The foreign policy of the United States would suffer harm if the removal of individuals associated with TdA were prevented," given the "significant time and energy" already invested by U.S. government officials.
Obama-appointed, D.C.-based Judge James Boasberg issued an order Saturday to immediately halt any planned deportations of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador. Boasberg also ordered the Trump administration to notify their clients that "any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States."
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The flights also included alleged members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).
Kozak noted the possibility "that foreign interlocutors might change their minds" over accepting certain individuals associated with TdA "or might otherwise seek to leverage this as an ongoing issue."
"These harms could arise even in the short term, as future conversations with foreign interlocutors seeking to resolve foreign policy matters would need to take this issue into account along with other issues, instead of allowing the discussions to fully move on to the other issues," Kozak wrote.
Kozak did not further expand upon the "harms" that could arise as a result of Boasberg's order in his declaration. The State Department declined to comment on pending litigation.
"TDA is one of the most violent and ruthless terrorist gangs on planet earth," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital in a statement. "They rape, maim and murder for sport. TDA is responsible for some of the most heinous crimes that have occurred on US soil in recent years, including the murders of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray. TDA is a direct threat to the national security of the United States."
The Trump administration had attempted to invoke a 1798 law to immediately deport said individuals for 14 days.
Boasberg sided with the plaintiffs, Democracy Forward and the ACLU in granting the emergency order and ruling that the deportations would likely pose imminent and "irreparable" harm.
"Given the exigent circumstances that [the court] has been made aware of this morning, it has determined that an immediate Order is warranted to maintain the status quo until a hearing can be set," Boasberg wrote.
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In a Monday-evening hearing, Boasberg proceeded to ask the Trump administration to submit more information regarding the flights.
Both parties are ordered to appear back in court on Friday.
In its Monday motion to vacate the order, the Trump Department of Justice argued that not only did the court not have jurisdiction to hear the plaintiffs' claims, but Trump's "determination that an ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion’ has occurred" is not subject to judicial review.
"The Constitution simply provides no basis for a court to determine when this AEA trigger has been met, and thus there is no basis for second-guessing the policy judgment by the Executive that such an ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion’ is occurring," the motion read.
The motion also argued that the administration's "Proclamation" and its implementation "are perfectly lawful."
"Under his authority to protect the nation, the President determined that TdA represents a significant risk to the United States, that it is intertwined and advancing the interests of a foreign government in a manner antithetical to the interests of the United States, and that its members should be summarily removed from this country as part of that threat," the motion continued.
Fox News Digital's Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.