Welcome to the News Hour. In a D.C. courtroom today, a federal judge questioned the legality of the Trump administration's authority to deport hundreds of migrants without due process and refusal to answer his questions.

White House correspondent Laura Barone Lopez has been covering the near daily developments in this case. She joins me now.

So, Laura, this hearing today was about

whether the president's use of this wartime alien enemy's power is legal. What did the judge in

this case, Judge Bozberg, have to say? Judge Bozberg seemed skeptical, Omna. So he appeared to be

questioning the use of this wartime order, saying that he believed that it had big policy

ramifications that were, quote, extraordinarily troublesome, potentially problematic, and

concerning. He also said that he believed that the use of this Alien Enemy's Act was a long

way from the heartland of the law's intention. And he appeared as though he was

heading towards extending his temporary block on deportations under the alien enemies act. That

doesn't mean that the president can't deport migrants under other immigration laws.

Now, the hearing was not about whether the Trump administration had violated his

previous order to turn around deportation flights, but that issue did come up quite a bit. How did that

play out? It did come up, especially right at the beginning. Judge Bosberg said that he had a lot of

questions for the government. He asked the Justice Department lawyer if he had told the Trump administration,

if he had told the top of the DOJ as well as the president and others, he said, did you make clear

that my order said that planes needed to be turned around in whatever fashion was possible?

And the Justice Department lawyer said that he understood that Judge

Bosberg's order, verbal order, he understood it to be binding, but didn't seem to have any

justification or explanation for why in public the administration has said that they don't consider

the verbal, that they don't consider the verbal order binding, because that's kind of contradicting with the public statements.

And he also, Judge Bowes were questioned, you know, if they were so confident in their use of the Alien Enemies Act, why did it appear as though the president signed this executive order in the dead of night and then appeared to be rushing migrants on planes over to El Salvador?

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