House Democrat: Trump 'exploring the threshold of ignoring a court order'

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said President Trump is "exploring the threshold of ignoring a court order" with his administration's response to a federal judge who blocked the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to speed deportations.

“It‘s a very interesting moment because this is what Donald Trump does in life, right? And you see him exploring the threshold of ignoring a court order, knowing … that that is a constitutional crisis,” Himes, a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said during a Monday afternoon appearance on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

“So they‘re throwing every mad legal theory up against the wall. They‘re dissembling, they‘re taking their time and everything. And I‘ll tell you, we‘ve seen this movie a hundred times before,” he continued.

The Trump administration said it deported undocumented Venezuelan immigrants presumed to be Tren de Aragua gang members over the weekend despite U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order to temporarily halt removal efforts and bring any planes deporting individuals back to the U.S.

White House officials have argued Boasberg’s verbal ruling does not hold the same legal weight as a written order.

“If these courts don‘t stand up very quickly and say, we are going to hold individuals in contempt and start doing some of the things that courts can do when they hold individuals in contempt, you can bet that next week the encroachment will be a little bit bigger,” Himes said.

“And pretty soon this administration will be entirely ignoring court orders also.”

Himes also criticized the Trump administration for posting videos of Venezuelan deportees being processed at an El Salvador prison.

“By the way, this is sort of classic Hollywood that is going to last right up until the moment that it is discovered that some innocent person is now, you know, being brutalized in a Salvadoran prison when the blowback that inevitably comes, when you completely ignore due process comes to roost in the form of stories of people being horribly abused, that‘s when the numbers are going to begin to change a little bit, right,” Himes said.

He added that if the Trump administration is looking to provide credibility to U.S. citizens, it would provide a list of names on those deported.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to provide names during Monday's briefing with reporters but did provide numbers outlining those removed.

She said a total of 261 people were deported: 137 were deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, 101 were removed under Title 8 immigration laws and 23 were MS-13 gang members. The U.S. paid El Salvador around $6 million to detain the immigrants lacking certain documentation.

"It was approximately $6 million, to El Salvador, for the detention of these foreign terrorists," Leavitt said. "And I would point out that is pennies on the dollar in comparison to the cost of life, and the cost it would impose on the American taxpayer to house these terrorists in maximum security prisons here in the United States of America."

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