“Who authorized the $6 million contract with taxpayer money [to imprison immigrants in El Salvador]?” — Gina
Hi Gina,
Your question provides a platform to spotlight a new lawsuit — the first of its kind, per the plaintiffs who brought it. The suit aims to invalidate the agreement between the Trump administration and El Salvador to remove people from the U.S. and hold them incommunicado and potentially indefinitely in a Salvadoran prison known for human rights abuses. To answer your specific question, the complaint that launched the suit said the State Department made the agreement.
As for the possible legal basis to strike down the deal, the complaint cites a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires federal agency actions to be both reasonable and reasonably explained. The lawsuit argues the agreement fails to meet those requirements because it is “arbitrary and capricious” and “was entered into without any legal basis.”
While it called the facts “extraordinary,” the suit says the application of the law to the deal is an “ordinary” one requiring striking it down. The plaintiffs are a coalition of groups: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Immigration Equality and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, all of whom are represented by Democracy Forward. (RFK Human Rights, which is named for former senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy Sr., not the current health and human services secretary, is also representing itself.)
It’s still early in the new case, which was assigned to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, Washington, D.C.’s chief federal trial judge, who is also presiding over separate litigation stemming from the administration’s illegal Salvadoran renditions. The government hasn’t yet responded in court to this latest suit; we don’t know how it’s going to play out or when it will be resolved. But the case provides another possible legal tool against one of the centerpieces of Trump’s second-term agenda. Whatever the result of this latest litigation, it may uncover more information about the agreement along the way. Have any questions or comments for me? Please submit them on this form for a chance to be featured in the Deadline: Legal Blog and newsletter.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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