The Trump administration deported about 250 people who it says 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 immediately deport people, and turn around any planes already in the air. Senior Justice Department officials in a filing on Sunday argued that the order came too late to stop the deportations, as planes were already outside U.S. territory.
The deportations to El Salvador also included two alleged leaders of the MS-13 gang, which wasn’t included in Saturday’s action, and 21 other members of the gang, according to posts from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and from El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
MS-13 started in Los Angeles in the 1980s, but many of its members also operate in El Salvador and the Trump administration has also designatedit as a foreign terrorist organization.
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.
Government lawyers on Sunday wrote that “some gang members subject to removal under the Proclamation had already been removed from United States territory” by the time of the judge’s order at 7:26 p.m. on Saturday, which sought to block immediate deportations. The court filing was signed by the top Justice Department leaders, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
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.
Wendy Ramos, a spokesperson for El Salvador’s presidency, told NPR that El Salvador didn’t have any details about the people deported, including whether they were convicted of a crime in the U.S.
The law requires an “invasion or predatory incursion”
Immigrant rights advocates fear that invoking the act would also open the door for targeting and deporting others, regardless of their status or criminal records.
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 or government.
