A former Bush administration lawyer warns White House Under the Foreign Enemy Act, President Donald Trump’s deportation flights should not start ignoring court orders.
“I’m worried that there may be some people in the administration who actually want to violate the judicial order. I think it would be a horrible mistake,” John Yoo, a distinguished law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday.
More than a dozen bans have been imposed to at least temporarily block Trump’s national policies, including his deportation, the Department of Citizen Reform of the Right to Birth and Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts. The president’s Republican allies accused the “activist judge” of trying to cover executives in order to violate the government’s common branches.
Yoo, who served as deputy attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel for the Department of Justice (DOJ) during his first term in office of former President George W. Bush, said this struggle between the executive and the judiciary could threaten the entire legal system.
“In our history, the president refused to enforce judicial orders. This was Abraham Lincoln at the beginning of the Civil War,” Yoo said. “This is almost something that will happen only if the existence of the state is at risk, because if the president does not comply with the judicial orders, then they deprive the judiciary of the primary means of enforcing their decisions.”
President Donald Trump and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. (Getty Image)
He added: “If the courts cannot make reliable decisions, then our legal system cannot function properly. If our legal system does not work, the country is in a bad state.”
The White House has repeatedly stated that it has not violated any legal court orders.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued an emergency order on March 15 to prevent alleged gang members from flying to El Salvador for 14 days.
this The Trump administration has It was noted that the judge’s written order was issued after two planes carrying suspected gang members had aired, thinking it was too late to turn the plane back then. The government said the third aircraft that took off after the first two outbreaks did not carry any foreign enemy bills.
“As I said from the podium, it will continue to say that before the court orders, all flights under the judge’s written orders took off before pushing the orders. The president made these decisions within his … 2 powers and their powers under the Alien Enemy Act,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Press Leavitt said Thursday.
“And, we think it’s really shocking to try to tell the U.S. President that he can and cannot be deported from our land, especially with the designated foreign terrorists.”
Yoo served in the Justice Department during his first term as former President George W. Bush. (Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images)
Justice Department lawyers argued that Boothberg’s oral order was issued shortly before the written order and was unenforceable.
Josh Blackman, a Constitutional Law professor at the South Texas Law School, said the case was “complex” but warned judges to be careful not to over-take its power on the same-sex branches of the government.
“The judge held a hearing, and it was clearly the ACLU that brought the oral debate. The judge then issued a verbal order with the Justice Department attorney on the line. But the government could not raise any debate. The judge also did not appeal the government in a timely manner,” Blackman told Fox News on Tuesday.
“As a result, the judge is now asking why the government has not reversed the plane in international waters. The situation is not that simple. The judges are ignoring the fact that they are equal equality of the government rather than superior branches.”
These are the agendas that judges want to oppose Trump
El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele released videos showing hundreds of criminal immigrants suspected of arriving in Central America. (@nayibbukele via x)
Yoo also pointed out that the case was complicated and said both sides were in unknown territory, but pointed out Oral orders Always effective in very different situations.
Click here to get the Fox News app
“It’s kind of cute, it seems to be happening,” he said on Tuesday in the administration’s argument about verbal orders. “But maybe that’s it.”
Yoo noted that judges often make a word decision, such as rejecting a motion, which is usually found only in written transcripts of the lawsuit, but he made it clear that the situation is very different now.
“This is an unprecedented exercise of judicial power in response to the president’s unprecedented claim to authority,” Yoo said.
Boasberg is currently considering whether the Trump administration violated his court order, which the White House denies. A hearing on whether to maintain the ban quickly sparked controversy when a judge accused the Justice Department of “unrespect” in a court application. According to Reuters, the government said Boasberg was conducting a “judicial fishing expedition.”
