By Jess Bravin

WASHINGTON -- President Trump's conflict with the federal courts is rapidly crystallizing over one of the administration's most dramatic initiatives: lightning operations that deport migrants to some of the harshest destinations on earth before they have a chance to raise legal objections.

After last week, the White House has played a game of chess against the judiciary in at least six different instances over migrants who either were whisked away on planes or imminently slated to be removed from the country.

A federal judge in Boston found the administration violated his orders by removing a number of men with just hours notice to a country some of them might never have heard of: South Sudan, an impoverished African nation. A State Department advisory instructs Americans to avoid it "due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict."

The men received notice after 5:45 p.m. this past Monday and were sent overseas the following morning, an "obviously insufficient" time to raise objections under federal laws that forbid deporting individuals to countries where they are likely to be persecuted, tortured or killed, said Judge Brian Murphy, who was nominated by President Joe Biden.

A government lawyer gave a response emblematic of the administration's playbook, making technical arguments that court orders don't mean what the judges who issued them think they do.

"The preliminary injunction that you issued didn't delineate a specific time period where notice had to be given," a Justice Department attorney, Elianis Perez, said in the administration's defense.

On social media, the administration was more emphatic: "It is absurd that an activist judge is trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters who are a clear and present threat to the safety of the American people," said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. The department said the men, only one of whom is from South Sudan, have been convicted of crimes including murder.

Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, said that the administration might believe the politics are safest in resisting the courts over deportations, and that removing migrants said to be criminals and gang members could be more popular than other Trump policies.

The White House "may feel significant pressure on immigration policy to make good on the president's campaign promises," Goodman said. "It's logistically very hard to meet those expectations within existing constitutional and statutory constraints."

The president's war on illegal immigration isn't only at the top of Trump's agenda but also an area in which he asserts extraordinary national-security powers to act unilaterally. The administration has also argued that U.S. courts have no authority to remedy alleged violations of individuals' rights once they have been taken beyond U.S. borders.

A growing number of courts have disagreed.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Clay Land, in Columbus, Ga., barred the government from removing a Venezuelan detainee under the Alien Enemies Act before clearing with the court the measures it would provide the migrant to challenge his removal.

The government made clear its intent "to test the constitutional limits of Executive power, which is certainly their right," he wrote, but the court wouldn't tolerate "gaming the system" to deprive migrants of their rights.

Land, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, wrote that constitutional protections weren't only for people "having a beer at the Moose Club lodge."

He added: "They extend to those whom many may consider to be the most repugnant among us. This foundational principle is part of what has made, and will continue to make, America great."

In another case, a federal judge in Houston found that the government failed to comply with his order to try to locate an asylum seeker from Venezuela whose relatives believe was taken from a detention facility in Texas to the notorious Salvadoran prison known by the Spanish acronym Cecot.

Officials "provided no meaningful information" regarding Widmer Josneyder Agelviz Sanguino's "location, health, or the legal basis for his detention," Judge Keith Ellison, a nominee of President Bill Clinton, wrote. He imposed exacting requirements on the government to disclose the details of the rendition.

The government appealed to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, which on Friday paused Ellison's order.

In Richmond, Va., another federal appeals court criticized the administration for sending a 20-year-old Venezuelan man identified as Cristian to Cecot, violating a legal settlement in which the government pledged not to remove him and other migrants who entered the U.S. without authorization as children until their asylum claims were decided.

While the administration says it is comporting with court rulings, some senior officials suggest they might not have to obey such orders at all.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, nominees for top Justice Department posts gave themselves wiggle room.

Stanley Woodward, nominated for the No. 3 slot at Justice Department, recalled that Trump has said he would follow Supreme Court orders. But Woodward equivocated when Senate Democrats pressed him on whether officials must obey lower federal courts.

"It depends," said Woodward, who has represented Jan. 6 defendants and others associated with the MAGA movement. Trump, he added, "is asserting his Article II powers in a way that no president has ever done before," referring to the constitutional section establishing the executive branch.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer said much the same thing at his February confirmation hearing. When he reiterated that position during this month's Supreme Court arguments over Trump's executive order abolishing birthright citizenship, some justices seemed astonished.

"Did I understand you correctly to tell Justice Kagan that the government wanted to reserve its right to maybe not follow a Second Circuit precedent, say, in New York, because you might disagree with the opinion?" asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett, referring to her colleague Elena Kagan.

Sauer said: "Our general practice is to respect those precedents, but there are circumstances when it is not a categorical practice." When he asserted that this was the longstanding position of the Justice Department, Barrett interrupted him. "Really?" she asked.

The next day, in a separate case involving Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport suspected Venezuelan gang members, the Supreme Court issued a sharply worded order rejecting as insufficient the administration's cursory effort to comply with the justices' previous ruling that such migrants are entitled to a meaningful opportunity to contest the legal basis for their removal.

Since then, several judges have cited that ruling in finding that the administration's minimalist view of its due-process obligations is insufficient.

Write to Jess Bravin at Jess.Bravin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 25, 2025 05:00 ET (09:00 GMT)

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