UPDATE: Drew Ensign, on behalf of DOJ, says that "all of the class members that were on planes today have been deplaned and are in the process of being returned to ORR custody." He add that he didn't file by 4 p.m. because he wasn't aware of the court's order setting that deadline.
Lock him up, ignorance of the law is no defense especially when the person responsible is sophisticated.
The. DOJ. Doesn't. Care. They. Know. The. supremes. Will. Stay. The. Order. Judge Boasberg's case on criminal contempt was reversed by the supremes.
So in the 4 hours since the hearing they are still in the process of being returned to ORR Custody? Why is it taking so long?
3 planes took off and landed already in Guatemala - speculation there’s kids on them
Where did you hear this?
Other accounts posted flight track data this afternoon from the airports DHS usually uses that flew to Guatemala. One of the charter planes was ironically the same registration Vance used on the campaign in 24
Ty.. I sure hope it wasn't the kids😒 damn.
The 3 planes did land in Guatemala but no eyes on the ground there. Some of the US flight trackers are coordinating with folks in Venezuela, Uganda etc to actually get a visual on whose coming off the planes. Nobody is in Guatemala to confirm any details on whether these are the kids or adults
Thank you for this info.. I'll be sure to follow you guys & follow up. 👊🏼🫶🏼👍🏼
bsky.app/profile/jjin...
Ty Jenny.. geezuz.. 😡grrrrr
Liar
What about the class members who were not already on planes? Have they been returned to ORR custody as well, or is the DOJ only complying with respect to the specific plane-load of children that was already on those planes at the time?
Damn, I simply expect Ensign to call class members humans, as you did, using "who," instead of his implication that they are no more than a whole lot of objects, i.e. "that[s]." He should have learned this in freaking ninth grade English. 😡
There are much more infuriating things about this situation to direct your anger towards.
True. Yes. Absolutely. This is my lane, though.
> "The government would like to remind the court that we are incompetent."
Pretty sure the ignorance of the law is no excuse applies to attorneys as well.
The judges in these case need to hold the charter airline operator liable as well if an order is not followed From the executives down to the pilots on the plane they all need to be in possible contempt
Super! But bet DOJ knew the 4PM deadline. They're that shitty.
When does he get sanctioned for lying?
Wasn’t aware? Lying or incompetent?
Deaf🙄
Tone deaf, maybe.
Your honor, my dog ate my brief
So, cautiously optimistic good news for right now?
Does it make any sense that he wasn't aware of the 4 pm deadline? DOJ attorneys are making a mockery of our justice system now by routinely ignoring/defying judges' orders --with seemingly no consequences. Might be a good idea if a judge held them accountable so as to not perpetuate this behavior.
What is ORR custody? Is it like a children's prison?
Most were in foster care facilities. The complaint specifies where they were. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Thank you, I used to work with Children's Services although it's been decades at this point. I have seen these things done in a million different ways, it can be so inconsistent. Kids often have the fewest rights of anybody in this country.
Sadly true. It terrible. I worked in refugee resettlement, and my agency placed unaccompanied minors in foster homes, but there were never enough.
Office of Refugee Resettlement
I know what the words mean. I'm asking what custody with them entails. Are they in a children's prison? Are they kept in a hotel? Are they with foster parents?
The judge should order a list of names and ages.
I'm stuck at the 600 children--and these just for Guatemala! I really can not comprehend how they could do this to children. I know some of them are older teens but even then, they are not going to be the same after this experience. It is beyond unconscionable.
Move for sanctions against these lying DOJ attorneys. There MUST be a price paid. Disbarment.
I’m loving this
They're liars. They lie about every fucking thing.
Are they pleading ignorance?
So who was wearing his skin when he was ordered to comply by a judge he was standing in front of when he was told to file by 4pm?
Umm wasn't he the atty of record when the judge gave the 4pm deadline from the bench?
YEP
He says, “Defendants had not yet entered an appearance.” Isn’t he saying or implying that DOJ let him handle this case completely, and DOJ only got involved when notified of this deadline? IANAL but that’s the only thing that possibly makes him make sense to me.
Thank you for being so quick with this reporting.
Imagine how black your heart and soul have to be for you to treat children the way the DOJ has What monsters
What heart?
Good point
Saying the "DoJ" is doing this deflects and diffuses responsibility from individuals to an institution being subverted and suborned by them. People who took oaths as attorneys and again as government officials are breaking them and becoming monsters by association if they weren't already there.
We already know these kids (kids!) been sitting on the plane for 18+ hours
He wasn’t awake to read rulings!! That’s too damn early 🤯🤯🤯
I like that he’s called Ensign, like he’s a Star Trek red shirt, fed by a studio writing room to a Justice monster
i mean it’s amusing but it is also his actual last name
Yeah. You don't have to defend something you don't know, right? The less you know.....that's his only defense.
The dog ate Drew's homework too.
@annabower.bsky.social That were on planes "today." Were there other planes?
De plane, de plane. bsky.app/profile/caju...
🍊🤡🌮💩 will have plenty of company in Hell.
Isn’t there a consequence for an attorney lying to the judge? I hope the judge verifies his claim because I don’t believe anything they say.
So Anna and all of us who follow her knew about the deadline but Drew didn’t?????? So stupidity is now the DOJ’s go to excuse?
it is these kind of things ought to be on the news on repeat. the DOJ has to be exposed FULLY for the marginally contempt-worth games they are playing with the lives of other people and in this case, innocent at-risk children!
one would expect a lawyer for the DOJ to be aware of what orders he's obligated to respond to but I am not a lawyer so maybe it's normal for lawyers to ignore what courts order!
The US Justice System has failed this Country miserably
BS he didn’t know the deadline
Weird how I was aware of this deadline but not the DOJ attorney litigating the case.
Lol. You bi1chassss goof ball.
The Pedophile President is trafficking children!
Drew Ensign = Massive Liar Who Should Be Disbarred
What procedures could we follow to actually make that happen?
I'm not an expert on this but I think a first step is that lawyers who are members of the same state bar as Ensign need to file complaints about Ensign with the state bar assn.
What exactly the fuck does this Ensign clown do?
At some point, don’t these “not in good faith” lawyers get punished? I’m so tired of them not doing what the judge says. Ignorance is not an excuse in law, I thought.
At some point these craven DOJ lying attorneys need to be tossed in jail for contempt.
Tossed off a cliff would be preferable.
I guess none of these DOJ folks are actually Christians or if they are, they clearly aren’t concerned about what Jesus says about children.
Again I say that DOJ is negligent and disbarment of the lawyer and his support staff should be considered. This is appalling.
Wasn’t he in court when it was set?
That’s what I thought.
Lol, yes! And I believe confirmed he understood her order... This is ridiculous how the judges put up with this lying ass
They should not. That’s on them.
#5 In Authoritarian Playbook= Ignore the Courts
Maybe we should have the thumbs removed from the DOJ lawyers and their boss to stop them from doing that thing with their nose?
Does DOJ council not get the orders from the cases they're working? And are they not expected to, you know, READ them?
He says right there they hadn’t yet entered an appearance by the time the order was issued (so hadn’t automatically received a copy).
Thanks. Didn't know that that's what not entering an appearance meant.
IANAL but my understanding is entering an appearance is a formal declaration that you are the attorney(s) representing the client in a given matter, and on a technical level once you do that you get a copy of all of the stuff the judge puts on the docket.
Normally this happens super early in the case but here the case is <24hrs old on a Sunday so I guess they didn’t get around to it until this afternoon.
So “we hadn’t filed an appearance yet” seems like a dodgy dodge in this case which is how gov has been playing it all along.
IAAL and this is correct about filing an appearance being what gets you on the list to receive automatic notice of court orders but Ensign was also in court earlier this afternoon I thought and should have been on notice and should have been checking the docket.
I'm just amazed that it's possible to appear in court without being officially an attorney on the case, I guess. (And maybe it's just my extra-ness but if I knew that an order relevant to my job was coming out, I'd be proactively checking regularly)
Yeah, sure. I'm sending prayerful thoughts for the children. They're sitting in jail, in sweltering Texas.
Sigh. Thank you.
I'm not buying it...
Are they completely incompetent?
there seems to be a lot he's not aware of in the cases he's responsible for
How much overtime and lost vacation time has this snafu resulted in?
Nice try on the save, Drew.
That's a lame excuse. He should just follow along on BlueSky with BlueNotify if he wants up-to-the-minute information.
Yeah, when I miss a phone call at work, I say “Oh, looks like Teams shut down and I didn’t notice.” (It helps Teams really *does* spontaneously shut down and you only notice if you pay attention to the icon in the toolbar.)
"oh sorry teams mobile didn't send the push notification" I don't think I've ever gotten one that I needed to get when I needed to get it.
“All of the class member…” Does that mean he has other kidnapped children that he believes are not “class members” that he is trafficking this weekend?
More lies by Ensign without consequences.
Drew Ensign is a bad man and I hope he has to replace 3 of his tires soon because like he drove over like idk a deer or something normal no interpersonal violence
Disobey Orders of the Court, where have I heard that before? June: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/u... Bove looks like what Trump's health is.
Reading and comprehending is hard for Trumpers (Trump's sister said he doesn't read). Chief Justice Roberts will make a special rule for Trump's DOJ, they need not read federal judge's orders (they can take them as suggestions and not actual ORDERS OF THE COURT). If this was another country.
Any others possibly sent prior to those that were on planes today ?
Ensign may as well take his law degree and light it on fire. It will be of no use to him soon.
I sure hope so😡
Hire a clown, expect a circus
Surprised that he didn't claim not to know how to tell time.
Don't you just want to walk up to 'em and slap 'em? I know we're supposed to be non-violent but my palm is itching 🤬😑🤬
i feel like the judge should demand live feed proof
Can he get by with lying about the deadline? He doesn't say Where the children were "deplaned" and only says they are "in the process of" returning". All sounds like shades of Garcia Those poor children. I'd like to see every single person involved in a forever prison for aggravated child abuse
My question is WHY is he getting away with lying about the deadline...
I assumed simple CYA
Ensign should check your BlueSky account Anna. Even I was aware of the 4pm fucking deadline and I’m not even a lawyer!
Thank God. And thank you, too, for how closely and consistently you’ve covered this 🙏🏼
You know the judge set a notice deadline. You know you blew the deadline. But we’re supposed to believe no one thought to look at the docket to see if the judge bothered to respond to you blowing the deadline.
Ensign is such a lying scumbag.
Whatever undergrad and law schools he went to should check their donation records and if he ever donated money to them they should send that sum, in his name, to an immigrant rights org.
There needs to be PENALTIES for not obeying a judge's orders. Otherwise, what's the point? They just get away with it time after time! They're making a laughing stock of the judiciary.
🙄💩🤡🤯
Weird how all of us on SM (thanks to your reporting) that the deadline was 4PM but the effing DOJ lawyer didn't know.
On one hand, Ensign has a small amount of plausible deniability as, based on @annabower.bsky.social's live feed, the Judge didn't explicitly say 4PM during oral version of order during Ensign's dressing down. On the other hand, shouldn't lawyers know to pay attention to the docket of their case?
The phrase “all of the class members that were on the planes today have been deplaned” makes me wonder if other children are on planes right now heading for who knows where…
Does pure unadulterated malice combined with gross incompetence qualify for cause?
This is way beyond incompetence.. deliberate.. She's gotta be pissed right off.. never mind being woken up at 2am..
Can you represent a client at a hearing without having entered an appearance? Does not having entered an appearance count as a good excuse not to know about an order and thus blow a deadline in a case? (Genuine questions from a non-attorney!)
THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST WITH HONORS!! "Gentlemen, congratulations. You're everything we've come to expect from years of government training."
Judge Sparkle was great on calling him out on the “you are sure you aren’t doing anything illegal but you are also saying it will take you five while days to check?” So I’m sure Judge Sparkle will notice he confirmed he understood her order in court then claimed he didn’t know her order.
L.G.M.L.,, because 3 consecutive punctuation marks are the most fun number of consecutive punctuation marks.
Could there be children on the planes *not* members of the class? More specifically, could DOJ still fly kids to Guatemala claiming they were not included in the TRO?
He should’ve just read your post because we all knew. We All FUCKING knew
How is it possible that randos like me on Bluesky are better informed about deadlines than the literal defendants in the case?
Did he not bother to read the order or can he just not read?
Liars always
Until there are consequences for the DOJ attorney's lying or ignoring court rulings, they will continue to do so.
Will the judge accept his blatant lie that “I didn’t know” from this guy? And those poor kids - they’ve been in that plane for 18+ hours now. Torture
Especially when she said it OUT LOUD in the COURTROOM.. hell I knew about the deadline.
Weird. You didn't file a notice of appearance and yet you knew about it.
