President Donald Trump’s White House is celebrating his use of a rarely invoked wartime authority to carry out the mass deportation of hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador in an episode that fueled doubts about the ability of the U.S. court system to constrain the Trump administration’s actions.
After a federal judge issued an unusual order Saturday evening that required all planes carrying those covered by Trump’s Alien Enemies Act declaration to return to the U.S, at least one planeload of Venezuelan deportees continued on to San Salvador and discharged its passengers to a waiting brigade of Salvadoran soldiers, police and videographers.
Grim video posted on X by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, contained movie-like scenes set over a music soundtrack and depicted soldiers leading tattooed men off an airplane, forcing them to bend toward the ground as they were frog-marched to waiting buses and had their heads shaved by hooded prison guards.
Statements from Bukele and from Trump allies mocking the court order issued by the chief U.S. District Judge in Washington, James Boasberg, contributed to an air of fecklessness around the U.S. legal system in Trump’s second term.
“Oopsie…Too late,” Bukele posted, along with a tears-of-joy emoji, just above a New York Post headline about a judge in Washington ordering the plane bound for El Salvador to return to the U.S.
Bukele, in another post, said the prisoner transfer was part of an agreement with the United States following discussions last month with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He said for a “low fee” paid by the U.S, the alleged Tren de Aragua gang members will be housed in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega prison built to house over 40,000 people that has been at the center of concerns from human rights groups over violence and overcrowding.
Justice Department lawyers submitted a vague two-page filing to Boasberg on Sunday afternoon that appeared to assert that planes carrying the deportees were outside the judge’s jurisdiction by the time he ordered them to turn back.
“Some gang members subject to removal under the Proclamation had already been removed from United States territory under the Proclamation before the issuance of this Court’s … order,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.
The DOJ submission also suggested Boasberg’s order wasn’t effective until it was noted in the court’s electronic docket at 7:26 p.m., even though the judge issued the order verbally about 45 minutes earlier and said it had to be “complied with immediately.”
In a statement Saturday night, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized Boasberg, saying that he “supported Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans.” She added that the DOJ would be “undeterred” in its work with the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to “stop this invasion.”
In a statement Sunday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt touted the success of the operation and said it had “saved countless American lives” by sidelining the alleged TdA members, although all were housed in immigration detention in the U.S. for some period prior to being deported.
“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,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt’s statement did not address the judge’s order Saturday, which was issued as a plane-tracking database showed a deportation flight that left Harlingen, Texas in the afternoon was about an hour and 15 minutes from landing in San Salvador. The plane departed the United States during a break Boasberg called in the hearing in order to allow a Justice Department lawyer to check on whether any deportation flights were imminent or underway.
While most Trump administration officials were publicly silent about the court order, Elon Musk, who runs Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, replied to several posts on X criticizing the judge’s ruling and calling for his impeachment.
“Necessary,” Musk said, responding to a post from Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) that said he was filing “Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg.” Musk also replied to Bukele’s post with his own tears-of-joy emoji.
A lawyer who made arguments for halting such deportations at the Saturday court hearing said the images released by Bukele confirmed that such transfers needed to be stopped pending further court action.
“The video of these men in El Salvador starkly reinforces that the Court was correct in moving quickly to stop any further flights until the legal issue could be fully considered,” Lee Gelernt of the ACLU said.
While Trump and other officials asserted that the men deported Saturday were all gang members, it’s unclear how the administration made those determinations. Lawyers for some deportees said they had no gang affiliation and some had no final orders of removal from a U.S. immigration judge.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a 1798 law enacted during John Adams’ presidency and only used three times in American history and all during times of war — in an attempt to bypass federal immigration law and override asylum claims or other legal protections the alleged gang members could pursue in U.S. immigration courts or ordinary federal courts. The Justice Department argued that Trump can determine unilaterally who poses a significant risk to the United States given his inherent authority as president over national security.
Boasberg’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit, brought by on behalf of five named Venezuelan immigrants. Earlier Saturday, the judge blocked the deportation of the five named plaintiffs in the suit. A Justice Department lawyer said the government complied with that order and did not deport those individuals.
However, after the hearing held by videoconference, the judge broadened his order to cover anyone being deported under Trump’s alien-enemies proclamation.
“Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States however that is accomplished,” Boasberg directed at about 6:45 p.m. Saturday. “Make sure it’s complied with immediately.”
The judge, an appointee of President Barack Obama, imposed the temporary restraining order for 14 days in order to grant enough time to advance the litigation of the legality of Trump’s invocation of the centuries-old law. The Justice Department immediately appealed Boasberg’s two orders to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and sought an emergency stay. The appeals court did not immediately act on that request but issued an order Sunday setting a schedule for further filings in the case.
Trump officials have been planning for months to deploy the proclamation, which was signed Friday by the president and released publicly on Saturday. It relies on the Alien Enemies Act as a mechanism to quickly remove foreigners during wartime and allows the government to arrest, detain and deport undocumented migrants over the age of 14 who come from countries threatening an “invasion or predatory incursion” of the United States.
“I find and declare that TdA is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States,” Trump wrote in his declaration.
The precise number of prisoners deported pursuant to Trump’s declaration is unclear. Leavitt said almost 300 deportees were involved, while Bukele gave a figure of 238. However, they included some alleged members of a different gang not covered by Trump’s proclamation, MS-13.
The video posted by Bukele appeared to show three American-registered passenger jets being unloaded in San Salvador. Plane tracking databases showed at least one of the planes traveled to El Salvador via Honduras. That would mean it landed and took off again for nearby San Salvador after Boasberg ordered the deportees returned to the United States.
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