Trump deports 238 ‘gang members’ in El Salvador: What is the controversy? | News of the courts
President Donald Trump’s administration deported alleged members The Venecuela gang of a moment de Aragua of the United States in El Salvador on Sunday, despite the court order prohibiting their expulsion from the country.
This move is the last in a series of steps of Trump’s administration to expel foreign nationals – some accused of being in the United States without documentation, others targeted for protests at campus.
Here’s what happened and did he break the court order.
What happened?
President El Salvadora Nayib Bukele said on Sunday that his country had received 238 members of the Venecuela gang and an additional 23 members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang from the USA.
Bukele on behalf of the United States was now agreed to a meeting of State Secretary Marc Rubio last month.
He added that these deports were in the custody of the Central American country to imprison terrorism (Cecot) during a one -year period that could be extended.
During Trump’s inaugural speech, he said he would call the Law on Aliens Enemies of 1798. Trump signed a proclamation on Saturday in which he called out that 227-year-old law. The proclamation claims that the moment de Aragua “committed, tries to and threatens an invasion or a predatory” on the US territory. It is added that all Venezuelan nationals over the age of 14 “who are” gang members and not naturalized or legal permanent US nationals may be restrained and removed as “alien enemies”.
After Trump’s command, federal judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the Columbia County District Court, issued a temporary command for restraint to block Trump’s ability to execute war forces to perform deportations. This was during the hearing on Saturday sought by the US Union Civic Freedom.
But hours later, Bukele confirmed that Trump’s administration still continued his deportations. He shared a clip of an article on the news of the judge’s judgment, describing him, “In general … too late,” with Emoji with cry-shol.
What is aliens and how does it work?
The Enemary Enemies Act enables the US president to delay or deport non-states during war conditions. In 1798, the US was preparing for what he believed was the war with France. The law was introduced to prevent immigrants from sympathizing with the French.
The law allows the president to implement these deportations without hearing and is based only on citizenship.
The law was only called three times before, during the war of 1812, the First World War and World War II.
Why is this controversial?
While Trump and his allies claimed that the United States threatened an “invasion” unfathomable immigrants, critics say the president is wrongly calling for war law.
The explanator who published the Brennan Center for Justice last year says that the invocation of the law “would bypass the conventional law on immigration in peace time to be incredible abuse.”
“The courts should abolish any attempt to use an alien enemy law,” he adds.
The fifth amendment of the American Constitution protects the right to a great jury. “No person will be considered to respond to capital or otherwise an abused crime, unless it is at a presentation or indictment of a large jury,” it is said, adding that the war is one of the few exceptions to this.
The fact that Trump’s administration may have defying the judging order exacerbates this controversy.
The White House action was in an “open defiance” of Judge Boasberg’s command, said Patrick Eddington, a legal expert in Homeland Security and Civic Freedom from Washington, Cato Institute based at DC, Reuters news agency.
“This is out of pale and surely unprecedented,” Eddington said.
But the secretary of the Karolina Leavitt White House was pushing for criticism.
“A unique judge in one city cannot direct the movements of aircraft … full of foreign alien terrorists who have been physically expelled from US soil,” Leavitt said in a statement published on his X account on Sunday. She added that “federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the president’s behavior of foreign affairs.”
Bruce Fein, an American lawyer specializing in constitutional and international law, did not agree.
“The president is not the king. January 20, 2025. She was not a crown. The president was not Napoleon … Federal courts responsible for the president,” Fin told Al Jazeera. “The likelihood that Trump ordered Judge James Boasberg High, but we have to wait for more proceedings,” he added.
The administration did not ‘refuse to follow the court order. The command, which had no legal basis, was issued after the terrorist TDA aliens were already removed from the American territory. The written order and actions of the administration are not clashing. Moreover, as supreme … https://t.co/djusuwtlh
– Caroline Leavitt (@presssec) March 17, 2025
Leavitt claimed that by the time of issuing a court order, the deports were removed from the USA. The exact time of flight deportation flights are not clear.
Steve Vladck, a professor of Georgetown University Law Center, posted on Bluesky that “the jurisdiction of the Federal Court does not * do not stop at the verge of water.” In other words, according to Vladack, these deported should return to the US, even if they left the airspace to the US by the time the judge brought his command.
“The jurisdiction of the court turns to the presence of the defendant in the United States, not the plaintiffs,” Fin explained, adding that Trump, the defendant in this case, is in the US. “He could be commanded to return the deportises that were illegally deported to the United States.”
Why were these migrants sent to El Salvador?
Bukele detained deported by an agreement in which El Salvador would now compensate for them, she wrote bukels in the X post. Trump’s administration will pay around $ 6 million in El Salvador because of the custody of about 300 alleged members of the DE ARAGUA from Venezuela for a year.
The Salvadori president also shared a video in his account showing that the deports had pulled foxes and heads and heads shaved by masked police officers El Salvador.
“The United States will pay them a very low fee, but for us high.”
Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization arrived in our country, a moment of de Aragua. They were immediately transferred to Cecot, the Center for Prison of Terrorism, for a period of one year (renewable).
The United States will pay them a very low fee, … pic.twitter.com/tfsi8cgpd6
– Nayib Bukele (@Nayibbukele) March 16, 2025
Venezuela usually did not accept deportation from the USA. Trump’s administration has sent Venecuelan deportis to third countries in Central America “because now they have no decent relations with Venezuela,” said Clive Stafford Smith, Human Rights Lawyer, said Al Jazeera earlier.
Over the past month, Venezuela has accepted about 350 deportants, including about 180 detained on Guantanamo Bay American naval base on Cuba, 16 days. Since 2022, there have been 275,000 unauthorized Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, according to estimates of the Pew Research Center.
What is Cecot?
Centro de Infinamieto del Terorimo, which means that the Center for Prison of Terrorism, the prison of maximum security in El Salvador is 40,000 capacity. The alleged members of the gangs that have now deported the United States are now being held.
The mega-call forbids visit, education and recreation. Prisoners should not go outdoors.
Cecot was opened in January 2023, within a year of the Bukela order. It is located in Tecoluci, 72 km (45 miles) east of the capital of Salvadori, San Salvador.
What is the Treas of de Aragua?
Treatment de Aragua, who is Spanish for the “train of Aragua”, is now labeled “foreign terrorist organization” (fto).
Although the information on the group is rare, media reports suggested that the group in 2014 were founded by the Hector “El Nino” Guerrero and two other men who were imprisoned in Tocoron prison in the Venezuelan State of Aragua. The gang was largely controlled by a prison, ordering robberies, murders and abductions behind bars.
The gang allegedly was behind the murder of former Venezuelan army officer in 2024 by Ronald Ojed, who conspired against President Nicolas Madur. In January, Maduro was He swore For his third six -year term after the controversial elections.
A proclamation published by the White House states that a moment de Aragua “operates in collaboration with Cartel de los Soles, the Nicolas Maduro Sponsored, the Enterprise Narrorism, based in Venezuela.”
What is next?
Trump asked the DC court on Sunday to stay Boasberg’s order. “The rest will surely be denied in a few days,” Fin predicted.
Fin added that Trump could then seek a stay in the Supreme Court of the United States, “which will say” no. “
