Hundreds of alleged gang members deported from U.S. despite court order

The Trump administration deported more than 200 people who it claims are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang, to El Salvador this weekend, multiple members of the administration said on social media on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if the deportations happened before or after a federal judge in D.C. on Saturday issued an emergency order that told the administration to stop using wartime powers to deport people, and turn around any planes already in the air.

The deportations to El Salvador also included 2 alleged leaders of the MS-13 gang, which has its origins in El Salvador, and 21 other members of the gang, according to posts from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and from El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

President Trump on Saturday issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against Tren de Aragua. The seldom-used law that gives the president authority to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation during wartime. It’s the first time the act has been used since World War II.

“Thanks to the great work of the Department of State, these heinous monsters were extracted and removed to El Salvador where they will no longer be able to pose any threat to the American People,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

“Ooopsie… too late,” Bukele posted, in response to a news headline about the judicial order.

With the migrants now in El Salvador, it’s unclear what jurisdiction U.S. courts have over them. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the timing of when the planes landed, or whether any migrants could be returned to the U.S. in response to the court’s order.

The Alien Enemies Act allows an expedited removal process, which means those subject to the president’s declaration would not go through the normal immigration proceedings in court, or be able to claim asylum. The proclamation also leaves no time to contest the government’s claims that people are members of a criminal gang.

Advocates fear that invoking the act would also open the door for targeting and deporting others, regardless of their status or criminal records.

El Salvador accepts deportees

The last time a president invoked the Alien Enemies Act was WWII, during which 31,000 suspected enemy aliens of mostly Japanese, Italian and German descent were placed in internment camps and military facilities. The law requires war to be formally declared, or any “invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign nation.

Bukele, El Salvador’s president, posted a video on Sunday of what he says is 238 members of Tren de Aragua arriving in El Salvador. He said they would be transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center in the country, for a period of one year.

Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, last month said El Salvador’s president had agreed to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality. Bukele’s social media posts on Sunday refer to “a very low fee” that the United States paid to El Salvador for the deportations.

“Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele,” Rubio said on social media on Sunday. El Salvador agreed to hold the people deported “in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars,” Rubio added.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward in a lawsuit on Saturday sought to block the deportations of five Venezuelan men for 14 days, and later broadened the request to all people who could be deported under Trump’s “Alien Enemies Act” proclamation. Judge James Boasberg agreed to block the deportations of the five men. He later broadened the order to anyone covered by Trump’s proclamation. Another hearing in the case is set for March 21.

The Trump administration has already appealed the judge’s rulings to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

—NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben contributed to this story.