Judge: Nazis treated better than Trump deportees

What happened

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg Monday reaffirmed his order barring President Donald Trump from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members without a hearing, under a controversial interpretation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

Justice Department lawyers, invoking the state secrets privilege, refused to provide Boasberg any more information on dozens of Venezuelans flown to an El Salvador prison on March 15, after he had ordered the flights aborted. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., appeared split Monday on whether to lift Boasberg's order.

Who said what

"Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act" in World War II, appellate Judge Patricia Millett said to government lawyer Drew Ensign. "We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy," Ensign said, arguing that Boasberg's ruling was an "unprecedented and enormous intrusion" on the president's foreign policy decisions.

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The Justice Department's unusual invocation of the state secrets privilege was a "patent act of defiance" to Boasberg that "sharply escalated the growing conflict between the administration and the judge — and, by extension, the federal judiciary — in a case that legal experts fear is precipitating a constitutional crisis," The New York Times said.

What next?

The appellate panel did not issue an opinion, but its eventual ruling "probably will shape how the Trump administration uses the Alien Enemies Act going forward," The Washington Post said, at least until the Supreme Court weighs in.