Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday rebuked President Donald Trump after he called for the judge who ruled against his deportation mission this past weekend to be impeached.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.
“The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Trump earlier in the day called for the judge, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, to be impeached, for having temporarily stopped the Trump administration from using the 1789 Alien Enemies Act to deport criminal illegal immigrants, including those allegedly in the Venezuelan terror group Tren de Aragua, whom Trump deported Saturday to El Salvador.
(The act grants authority to deport illegal migrants without them having first gone before an immigration or federal court judge.)
Trump said in a TRUTH Social Tuesday post about Boasberg: “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
The flights departed Saturday, the same day Venezuelan men represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Democracy Forward Foundation sued the Trump administration to prevent their “imminent removal,” according to ABC News.
Boasberg then issues a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from deporting the men under the act and sets an emergency hearing for 5 p.m.
At the hearing, the judge was told flights were already in the air, and he ordered them to be returned.
On Monday, Boasberg, appointed to the bench by Democrat President Barack Obama, returned to matter with a hearing in which he gave the Trump Justice Department until noon Tuesday to provide answers about the weekend flights and their passenger lists before he makes any ruling about the legality of the operation and what will happen going forward.
