Inmates are seen in cells at CECOT in Tecoluca on Feb. 6, 2024 in San Vicente, El Salvador. Individuals who the U.S. says are Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members have been deported to El Salvador on Sunday and are set to be despatched to this jail, President Nayib Bukele stated.
Alex Peña/Getty Pictures
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Alex Peña/Getty Pictures
The Trump administration deported greater than 200 individuals who it claims are members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan jail gang, to El Salvador this weekend, a number of members of the administration stated on social media on Sunday.
It was not instantly clear if the deportations occurred earlier than or after a federal judge in D.C. on Saturday issued an emergency order that advised the administration to cease utilizing wartime powers to deport individuals, and switch round any planes already within the air.
The deportations to El Salvador additionally included 2 alleged leaders of the MS-13 gang, which has its origins in El Salvador, and 21 different members of the gang, in keeping with 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 in opposition to Tren de Aragua. The seldom-used legislation that provides the president authority to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation throughout wartime. It is the primary time the act has been used since World Battle II.
“Because of the nice work of the Division of State, these heinous monsters have been extracted and eliminated to El Salvador the place they may now not have the ability to pose any menace to the American Individuals,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated in an announcement.
“Ooopsie… too late,” Bukele posted, in response to a information headline concerning the judicial order.
With the migrants now in El Salvador, it is unclear what jurisdiction U.S. courts have over them. The White Home did not instantly reply to a request for remark concerning the timing of when the planes landed, or whether or not any migrants might be returned to the U.S. in response to the court docket’s order.
The Alien Enemies Act permits an expedited removing course of, which implies these topic to the president’s declaration wouldn’t undergo the conventional immigration proceedings in court docket, or have the ability to declare asylum. The proclamation additionally leaves no time to contest the federal government’s claims that individuals are members of a legal gang.
Advocates worry that invoking the act would additionally open the door for concentrating on and deporting others, no matter their standing or legal information.
El Salvador accepts deportees
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador on Feb. 3, 2025.
Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/AP/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/AP/AFP through Getty Pictures
The final time a president invoked the Alien Enemies Act was WWII, throughout which 31,000 suspected enemy aliens of largely Japanese, Italian and German descent have been positioned in internment camps and navy amenities. The legislation requires conflict to be formally declared, or any “invasion or predatory incursion” by a overseas 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 stated they might be transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Middle within the nation, for a interval of 1 yr.
Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, last month stated El Salvador’s president had agreed to just accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality. Bukele’s social media posts on Sunday consult with “a really low charge” that america paid to El Salvador for the deportations.
“Thanks on your help and friendship, President Bukele,” Rubio stated on social media on Sunday. El Salvador agreed to carry the individuals deported “of their excellent jails at a good worth that can even save our taxpayer {dollars},” Rubio added.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Ahead in a lawsuit on Saturday sought to dam the deportations of 5 Venezuelan males for 14 days, and later broadened the request to all individuals who might be deported underneath Trump’s “Alien Enemies Act” proclamation. Choose James Boasberg agreed to dam the deportations of the 5 males. He later broadened the order to anybody lined by Trump’s proclamation. One other listening to within the case is about for March 21.
The Trump administration has already appealed the choose’s rulings to the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
—NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben contributed to this story.
