Noem greenlit deportation flights after judge’s emergency order, DOJ reveals — fueling contempt fight

By Fox News · Fox News

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March greenlit the Trump administration's decision to proceed with deporting more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador despite an emergency court order, the Justice Department said Tuesday — news that injects fresh friction into a high-profile, politically fraught immigration fight. Noem’s role in the Alien Enemies Act removals was detailed publicly for the first time in a disclosure Tuesday night to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, as part of a newly revived contempt inquiry. According to the declaration, senior Justice Department officials relayed the emergency court order, and a subsequent oral order to Noem, who decided that the migrants that had already been removed from the U.S. could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador. Boasberg said last week he plans to move quickly in determining whether Trump officials willfully defied his March 15 emergency order, which sought to block the Trump administration from immediately using the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan nationals. The flights proceeded, however, and the migrants arrived in El Salvador hours later. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW EL SALVADOR DEPORTATION FLIGHT CASE The Justice Department's newly submitted declaration provides new insight into the government's actions nine months earlier, including Noem's involvement, and several other administration officials named in the document. It could be used by plaintiffs in a request to compel witness testimony, though the administration is all but certain to try to head off those efforts According to the new filing, two senior Justice Department officials — Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — provided DHS with legal advice that evening regarding the deportation flights that had already left the U.S. when Boasberg issued his emergency order. They also relayed Boasberg's oral order that all flights be "immediately" returned to U.S. soil, according to the filing. "After recei…