BBC News, Washington DC
ReutersMore than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members have been deported from America to a supermax prison in El Salvador, even as a US judge blocked the removals.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived in the Central American country, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.
Neither the US government nor El Salvador has identified the detainees, nor provided details of their alleged criminality or gang membership.
A federal judge’s order prevented the Trump administration from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify the deportations, but the flights had already departed.
“Oopsie… Too late,” posted President Bukele on social media, making fun of the judge’s ruling.
A video attached to one of his posts shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the planes.
Bukele, a Trump ally, wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail, the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).
The El Salvadoran president said they would be held there “for a period of one year”, and that could be “renewable”.
“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” he added.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Bukele in a post on X, calling him “the strongest security leader in our region”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X on Sunday: “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.”
Trump announced on Saturday that he had signed a proclamation declaring that the Tren de Aragua gang was “conducting irregular warfare” against the US and he would deport its members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
That evening, US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington DC ordered a 14-day halt to deportations covered by Trump’s proclamation, pending further legal arguments.
After lawyers told him that planes with deportees had already taken off, Judge Boasberg gave a verbal order for the flights to turn back, US media reported, although that directive did not form part of his written ruling.
ReutersThe written notice appeared in the case docket at 19:25 EDT on Saturday (00:25 GMT on Sunday), reports Reuters news agency, although it is unclear when the flights carrying the alleged gang members departed from the US.
A senior official in the Trump administration said their legal advisors had determined that the judge’s order was invalid because the two planes were over international waters at the time, reports Axios, a political news outlet.
“They were already outside of US airspace,” a senior administration official told Axios. “We believe the order is not applicable.”
The Department of Justice has appealed against the judge’s ruling, according to the BBC’s media partner CBS News. The BBC has contacted the justice department for comment.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which was involved in the lawsuit against the Trump administration, said the court’s order may have been violated.
The case raises constitutional questions since under America’s system of checks and balances, government agencies are expected to comply with a federal judge’s ruling.
Venezuela criticised Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps”.
Amnesty International USA wrote on X that the deportations were “yet another example of the Trump administration’s racist targeting” of Venezuelans “based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation”.
El Salvador’s Cecot jail is part of Bukele’s effort to crack down on the country’s organised crime.
The newly built maximum-security facility, which can hold up to 40,000 people, has been accused by human rights groups of mistreating inmates.
ReutersThe arrangement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties.
El Salvador was the second country that Rubio visited as America’s top diplomat.
During that trip, which took place in February, Bukele made an initial offer to take US deportees, saying it would help pay for the massive Cecot facility.
The latest deportations under Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-running campaign against illegal immigration in the US.
In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 foreign terrorist organisations.
He won voters on the campaign trail, in part, by promising to enact the largest deportation operation in US history.
While illegal border crossings have plummeted to the lowest number in decades since Trump took office, the Republican president has reportedly been frustrated by the relatively slow pace of deportations so far.
