Update: The Trump Administration Just Disregarded a Court Order to Stop Deportations

Axios reports the "White House is not denying it ignored the judge's order".

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash

A follow-up to this morning's analysis on the Trump administration's deportation actions.

Hours after my initial reporting on the Trump administration's apparent disregard for Judge James Boasberg's court order halting deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, new information has emerged.

According to exclusive reporting from Axios, administration officials are now offering a specific legal rationale for their actions: they claim the judge's order did not apply because the deportation flights were already over international waters when it was issued. "They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable," a senior administration official told Axios reporter Marc Caputo.

What makes this explanation particularly striking is how it contrasts with the administration's public messaging. While White House lawyers were apparently constructing careful jurisdictional arguments behind the scenes, the public narrative from the h…