Hundreds of Venezuelans deported by Trump administration despite judge's order
The Trump administration flew hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador despite a judge’s order temporarily barring them from being deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the wartime declaration that President Donald Trump invoked Saturday.
According to The Associated Press, the flights were already in the air when the judge made the ruling Saturday. The judge verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not.
Judge blocks Alien Enemies Act deportations, but it was ‘too late’
What we know:
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 Saturday to target members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang for mass deportations, but later the administration claimed the president actually signed the proclamation Friday night and didn't announce it until Saturday afternoon.
Immigration lawyers said that, late Friday, they noticed Venezuelans who otherwise couldn't be deported under immigration law being moved to Texas for deportation flights. They began to file lawsuits to halt the transfers.
More than 250 suspected gang members arrive in El Salvador by plane on March 16, 2025. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele confirmed they will be sent to the country's infamous mega-prison at CECOP facility prison. (Photo by El Salvador Presidency /
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday blocking the deportations but lawyers told him there were already two planes with migrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.
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Boasberg noted that the Alien Enemies Act – which has only been used three times in history – has never before been used outside of a congressionally-declared war and that plaintiffs may successfully argue Trump exceeded his legal authority in invoking it.
What we don't know:
It’s unclear exactly how many migrants were deported despite the judge’s order. The Trump administration has not identified the migrants deported, provided any evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the U.S.
What they're saying:
"Oopsie…Too late," Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally who agreed to house about 300 migrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country’s prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house migrants, posted on the site: "We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars."
What is the Alien Enemies Act of 1798?
The backstory:
The Alien Enemies Act allows the president to detain, relocate or deport non-citizens from a country that is considered an enemy of the United States during wartime.
Congress passed the Alien Enemies Act as part of the four Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 when the U.S. was about to go to war with France.
The law, invoked during World Wars I and II and the War of 1812, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.
Why did Trump invoke the Alien Enemies Act?
What they're saying:
Trump said the U.S. is being invaded by Tren de Aragua (TdA) – and the sweeping war time law will give the president broader leeway to deport what he says is a hostile force acting at the behest of Venezuela’s government.
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"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 the declaration. "TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela."
The other side:
Venezuela’s government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of "the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps."
What is Tren de Aragua?
Dig deeper:
Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone last decade. Trump seized on the gang during his campaign to paint misleading pictures of communities that he contended were "taken over" by what were actually a handful of lawbreakers.
Did Trump’s deportations defy the court?
What's next:
The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit that led to Boasberg's temporary restraining order on deportations, said it was asking the government whether the removals to El Salvador were in defiance of the court.
"This morning, we asked the government to assure the Court that its order was not violated and are waiting to hear, as well as trying to do our own investigation," ACLU’s lead lawyer, Lee Gelernt, said in a statement Sunday.
"Basically any Venezuelan citizen in the US may be removed on pretext of belonging to Tren de Aragua, with no chance at defense," Adam Isacson of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights group, warned on X.
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The litigation that led to the hold on deportations was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans held in Texas who lawyers said were concerned they'd be falsely accused of being members of the gang.
Boasberg barred those Venezuelans' deportations Saturday morning when the suit was filed, but only broadened it to all people in federal custody who could be targeted by the act after his afternoon hearing.
The bar on deportations stands for up to 14 days and the migrants will remain in federal custody during that time. Boasberg has scheduled a hearing Friday to hear additional arguments in the case.
He said he had to act because the migrants whose deportations may actually violate the constitution deserved a chance to have their pleas heard in court.
"Once they’re out of the country," Boasberg said, "there’s little I could do."
The Source: This report includes information from The Associated Press and previous LiveNow from FOX reporting.