WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — In an acrimonious courtroom debate on March 18, Deputy Associate U.S. Attorney General Abhishek Kambli defended the Trump administration’s deportations of Venezuelan citizens using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, defying U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s insistence about information on recent deportation flights.
The government invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law that gives the president the power to expel immigrants from enemy countries, to deport people purportedly associated with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang. The law has not been invoked since World War II.
At the hearing, Judge Boasberg also asked Kambli about the compliance of the administration with his March 15 order to temporarily suspend deportations. The judge had ordered any planes with deportees to return to the United States. The Justice Department had argued that only the written ruling, and not the oral directive, was binding by law—a position Boasberg called “a stretch.
Kambli refused to state the number of flights or whether the deported individuals might be repatriated, invoking national security issues. “I am only allowed to say what we’ve said in the court filings,” he said. This refusal to answer prompted Boasberg to caution that the government would have to defend its stance on classified documents if it kept stonewalling.
The administration’s move has been challenged legally, with specialists opining that using the Alien Enemies Act in this case would be an overreach of executive power. The legislation was originally intended for wartime use, and its recent use has been subjected to judicial questioning.
Kambli, who is Indian American and started his role in the Trump Administration in February, served previously as Deputy Attorney General in Kansas, heading the Special Litigation and Constitutional Issues Division of the Kansas Attorney General’s Office. He has also been an assistant U.S. attorney with the Southern District of Indiana and was a Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer in the U.S. Air Force, something he still does in the Reserves. He is a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School.
