Officials said Sunday that the Trump administration has moved hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order that temporarily bans the deportation of the 18th-century wartime declaration targeting members of Venezuelan gangs. When the ruling was made, the flight was in the air.
U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg’s verbal order turned the plane around, but apparently not, he did not include the order in writing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to speculations about whether the government was violating a court order: “The government did not ‘refusal to comply’ with’ the court order. The order was without legal basis after terrorist TDA Aliens had been removed from the United States.”
The acronym refers to the Tren de Alagua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual manifesto on Saturday
In court documents filed Sunday, the Justice Department, which appealed Boasberg’s ruling, said it would not use the Trump declaration he blocked for further deportation if his decision was not overturned.
Trump’s allies are happy with the result.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele agreed to accommodate about 300 immigrants for a year in prison in his country, and the $6 million El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media site X. The position was looped by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made an early deal with Bukele to negotiate with immigration from the House: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren De Aragua of El Salvador, who has agreed to hold its good prison at a fair price, which will also save our taxpayers.”
After Trump announced the Alien Enemy Act of 1798, the bill was used only three times in U.S. history and was deported.
U.S. President Donald Trump quickly followed his promise to combat illegal immigrants by raiding and deporting. Trump is now pushing for a massive increase in spending on border security and immigration reform.
The law, cited during the 1812 War and World War I and World War II, required the president to declare the United States war, which gave him extraordinary powers to detain or evacuate foreigners who would have been protected under immigration or criminal law. This time it was to justify the detention of Japanese civilians during World War II.
The Venezuelan government rejected Trump’s use of the law in a statement Sunday, describing it as “the darkest plot in human history, from slavery to the horror of Nazi concentration camps.”
Tren de Aragua originated from the infamous prisons in the infamous state of Aragua and accompanied by the exit of millions of Venezuelans, the vast majority of people have been seeking better living conditions for the past decade. Trump captured the gang in his campaign to portray the misleading pictures of the community he argued for were “taken over” by actually a handful of offenders.
The Trump administration has not identified deported immigrants, providing any evidence that they are actually members of Tren de Aragua, or that they have committed any crimes in the United States. It also sent two top members of the El Salvador MS-13 gang to El Salvador, who was arrested in the United States.
Deportees are taken to the infamous CECOT facility, the heart of Bukele’s efforts to push for national violence through strict police measures and fundamental rights restrictions.
A series of lawsuits
The Trump administration said the president actually signed the announcement that Tren de Aragua invaded the United States on Friday night, but it was not announced until Saturday afternoon. Immigration lawyers said late Friday they noticed that Venezuelans would otherwise be unable to be moved to Texas for deportation under immigration laws. They began filing lawsuits to prevent the transfer.
The lawsuit that led to the deportation filed a lawsuit by five Venezuelans in Texas, and attorneys said they were worried they would be wrongly accused of being a member of the gang. They warned that once the bill was invoked, Trump could simply announce anyone Tren de Aragua member and remove it from the country.
Boasberg banned the deportation of those Venezuelans in the lawsuit, but only expanded it to all federal custodians who could be custodians after an afternoon hearing. He noted that the law was never used outside the war declared by Congress, and that the plaintiffs may have succeeded in arguing that Trump is beyond his legal authority.
The standard for deportation can accommodate up to 14 days, during which time immigrants will be detained. Boasberg plans to hold a hearing on Friday to hear other arguments in the case.
He said he had to take action because deportation could actually violate the U.S. Constitution should have the opportunity to hear from them in court.
“Once they left the country, there was little I could do.” Boasberg said.
