Former Attorney General Bill Barr argued a “fundamental problem” is at play in the legal battles the Trump administration is facing over its deportation efforts, specifically over how judges are treating these cases.
Judge James Boasberg denied the administration‘s request to lift a temporary block on deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members through the Alien Enemies Act. He argued that the immigrants were allowed to challenge whether or not they qualified for deportation. Barr, who served as Trump’s attorney general during the president’s first term, explained that the judges feuding with the Trump administration are applying “the same kind of rules they do in our criminal justice system” when citizens of the United States are involved, including proving something in a trial “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“That applies in our criminal justice system where the courts are playing their traditional role of protecting the rights of American citizens,” Barr argued on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “That is not the rule, and it shouldn’t be the regime when we’re dealing with external threats and the president is trying to make judgment calls as the best way to protect the country. And what’s happening here is they’re trying to reduce all decisions to these trial-like hearings, which essentially gives the judge the power to overrule and second guess the executive.”
Barr cited how he and the Trump administration indicted Venezuela’s government due to it being “directly involved” in drug trafficking into the U.S. He added that the Trump administration determined that Venezuela was engaged in “a hostile act” to weaken and harm the U.S. by the foreign country.
As such, he contended that President Donald Trump’s “eminently defensible” position to use the Alien Enemies Act would be upheld. He cited how many of these deportations are being carried out by suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
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Earlier this week, the Washington Examiner’s Byron York assessed that Trump and his administration could sway support in their deportations if they successfully prove that they are being carried out on Tren de Aragua members, as well as showing they underwent a thorough process to determine whether these suspects are a part of these gangs.
However, the Department of Justice said Monday night that it would not disclose additional information about its flights. It said doing so would divulge state secrets. The department invoked the state secrets privilege, which further argued that national security and relations with other countries could be compromised.