A federal judge has granted the Trump administration’s request to delay responding to his demand for details of three deportation flights that may have been allowed to proceed to their destinations in violation of his order.
Judge James Boasberg said the government had another 24 hours – until noon eastern time tomorrow – to either provide details of the flights’ itineraries and who they were carrying or to invoke a doctrine that would allow the government to shield the information on national security grounds.
In his order, Boasberg, who on Saturday night said that any of the three planes carrying migrants should not proceed to their destinations as he weighed a challenge to their deportation under the Alien Enemies Act, signaled he was not happy with the government’s arguments.
“Although their grounds for such request at first blush are not persuasive, the Court will extend the deadline for one more day,” Boasberg wrote.
“The Court seeks this information, not as a ‘micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition’” as the Trump administration had argued, “but to determine if the Government deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be.”
He also signaled he was skeptical that the government will prevail if it invokes the state secrets doctrine to keep the information confidential on national security grounds:
The Government’s Motion is the first time it has suggested that disclosing the information requested by the Court could amount to the release of state secrets. To date, in fact, the Government has made no claim that the information at issue is even classified. Classification is generally considered to be less protective than the state-secrets privilege … It thus appears to be an uncommon occurrence for the disclosure of unclassified information to threaten state secrets.
Boasberg also criticized the Trump administration’s argument that sharing the details he requested “would result in an immediate flood of media inquiries and demands for the information.”:
Defendants make that claim despite their own extensive promotion of the particulars of the flights. For example, the Secretary of State has revealed many operational details of the flights, including the number of people involved in the flights, many of their identities, the facility to which they were brought, their manner of treatment, and the time window during which these events occurred …
The Court is therefore unsure at this time how compliance with its Minute Order would jeopardize state secrets
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