The Trump administration invoked state secrets privilege on Monday after a federal judge demanded more information about the deportation of suspected gang members to El Salvador.
Attorney General Pam Bondi told U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in a filing that giving him more specific flight details would compromise national security. Bondi said Boasberg has all the information he needed to preside over the case, including statements from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem backing the assertion of state secrets privilege.
“The information sought by the Court is subject to the state secrets privilege because disclosure would pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs,” Bondi and other top Justice Department lawyers said in the filing. “No more information is needed to resolve any legal issue in this case. Whether the planes carried one TdA terrorist or a thousand or whether the planes made one stop or ten simply has no bearing on any relevant legal issue.”
State secrets privilege is a legal doctrine that protects sensitive national security information during litigation.
“This is a case about the President’s plenary authority, derived from Article II and the mandate of the electorate, and reinforced by longstanding statute, to remove from the homeland designated terrorists participating in a state-sponsored invasion of, and predatory incursion into, the United States,” Bondi said.
“Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address,” she added.
Earlier this month, Boasberg issued an order blocking Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members and ordered two flights carrying illegal migrants with suspected gang ties to be returned to the United States. Those flights were not turned back, and Boasberg has demanded that the DOJ provide more information on the flights.
Before the DOJ invoked state secrets privilege on Monday, Boasberg dismissed a motion from the DOJ to dismiss the case, saying that those designated as gang members could not be deported without a hearing.
“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” Boasberg said. “Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well.”
Rubio said in a statement attached to the DOJ’s Monday filing that the flights were part of counterterrorism efforts done in partnership with foreign countries.
“If foreign partners believed that any relevant details could be revealed to third parties, those foreign partners would be less likely to work with the United States in the future,” Rubio said. “That impairs the foreign relations and diplomatic capabilities of the United States and threatens significant harm to the national security of the United States.”
