March 16 (UPI) — Using the Alien Enemies Act, President Donald Trump’s administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants from the United States to El Salvador that it alleges are gang members despite a court order preventing their expulsion.
The Trump administration has said the migrants are members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua and, rather than deporting them to their home country, has arranged a deal with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, according to posts on social media from Bukele and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
After Trump used an executive order to invoke the Alien Enemies Act on Saturday, federal Judge James E. Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order blocking the government from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport any immigrants.
The Alien Enemies Act, last used to deport Japanese Americans during World War II, allows for the deportations of people from countries at war with the United States. It has been used only three previous times in history, including during the War of 1812 and World War I.
In the eleventh-hour hearing, Boasberg said he did not believe the president could deport the men using the law and ordered Trump to comply with the order immediately, “however that’s accomplished — whether turning around the plane or not.”
“Oopsie… too late,” Bukele said with a laughing emoji Sunday morning on social media in response to a news article reporting that the judge’s court order had stopped the deportation of the men.
Later, Bukele confirmed that 238 people had arrived in El Salvador. He said the alleged gang members were immediately transferred to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, where they will be held for a “renewable” period of one year.
“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” Bukele said, adding that the fee paid to El Salvador for taking the men would make its prison system “self-sustainable.”
In addition to the Venezuelan men, Bukele said the United States had handed over some 23 members of the brutal Los Angeles gang MS-13, which also operates in El Salvador, who were wanted by the country’s justice system. They included two alleged MS-13 leaders.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the news in his own social media post, praising El Salvador for agreeing to hold the alleged gang members “in their very good jails” and “at a fair price.”
The future of the prisoners remains unclear now that they are outside of U.S. legal jurisdiction.
The deportation flights came after Venezuela said it would resume accepting them, so it is unclear why the flight would go to El Salvador instead of Venezuela.
It was also unclear if the flight took off before or after the judge’s order came in, a possible indication that Trump may have willfully defied an official court order, according to the New York Times.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government condemned Trump on Sunday for his use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport the prisoners. Trump’s executive order alleged that the “Maduro regime” sponsors and is complicit in the criminal actions of the gang members.
“TdA is closely aligned with, and indeed has infiltrated, the Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus,” Trump wrote in his order.
But Maduro’s government shot back that Trump’s actions constitute “a crime against humanity.”
