One of the top job requirements for attorneys in Donald Trump’s Justice Department seems to be an abundance of shamelessness.

A lot of legal professionals have to defend the indefensible as part of their jobs, but arguing that rampant lawlessness is legal — as government attorneys now do in many of the 240-plus lawsuits filed against the current Trump administration — requires a particular flair for impudence.

The effort to deport Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil offers a case in point. The Trump regime abducted Khalil, a green card holder, in the lobby of his New York apartment building in March, and has since held him in a sprawling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana.

Last week, the New Jersey judge hearing Khalil’s habeas corpus challenge against the government made a simple demand: Present the legal precedent. Against this most basic directive to do their jobs, the government’s attorneys filed a whiny formal objection.

The Trump administration complained that it was “misguided” to demand it swiftly present the legal basis for its extreme actions.

The government is trying to use an obscure provision under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state the power to deport people whose presence it deems to create “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio made just such a determination in his effort to deport Khalil, as well as Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is also a green card holder, and Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk.

Judge Michael Farbiarz’s response to invocation of the obscure law seemed reasonable. Last Friday........

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