CNN’s Elie Honig Says Trump Deportations May Not Have Defied Judge’s Order At All

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said Monday that President Donald Trump may not have defied a federal judge’s order that temporarily blocked the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan gang members to South America.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg blocked the deportations Saturday, though he was told there were already two planes in the air en route to El Salvador and Honduras. While the White House has denied defying Boasberg’s order, Honig added that the administration may not have violated the order if the planes had already landed or had been outside of U.S. territory.

“They came right close to the line and maybe over it and let me give you the specific details we need to know in order to make this determination,” Honig said. “At the moment the judge gave the order, he said in court on Saturday afternoon, ‘I want you to not fly anyone out of here or if flights are already in the air I want you to turn them around.’ At that very moment, where were the airplanes? If they were already on the ground in the United States, then yes, there was a defiance of the order. If they had already landed in El Salvador, then no, there was no defiance of the order, it was already too late.”

“If they are mid-flight, then we get into questions of where were they? Were they over American territory or international waters? And that’s some grey area. That may give the Trump administration something to hang their hat on,” Honig continued.

WATCH:

📺 Embedded media — coming soon

The judge verbally ordered for the planes to be returned to the U.S., though it was not included in his written ruling.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt