Judge calls DOJ filing "woefully insufficient" in legal standoff over deportation flights

Washington — A federal judge on Thursday said the Justice Department "evaded its obligations" with a "woefully insufficient" response to his demand for more information about deportation flights that are at the center of a growing legal stand-off between the Trump administration and the courts.

Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., demanded on Saturday that two deportation flights turn around in midair and return to the U.S. — an order the Trump administration did not follow, saying the flights were outside of U.S. airspace and therefore outside of the judge's jurisdiction. 

The flights carried more than 200 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador, with the government relying on a wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport them. The law gives the president broad authority to expel foreign nationals during wartime. Boasberg blocked the administration from invoking that authority on Saturday.