BBC Information, Washington DC
ReutersPlanes carrying greater than 200 Venezuelans deported by the US have landed in El Salvador, hours after a US choose ordered the Trump administration not to take action.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived, together with 23 members of the worldwide MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.
Their arrival within the central American nation got here after a federal choose blocked US President Donald Trump from invoking a centuries-old wartime regulation to justify the deportations – one thing Bukele made enjoyable of in a later publish.
“Oopsie… Too late,” he mentioned.
The transfer by the US to ship alleged criminals from different nations to El Salvador was an association US Secretary of State Marco Rubio beforehand referred to as “essentially the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory settlement anyplace on this planet”.
Bukele wrote that the detainees had been instantly transferred to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Middle (Cecot) “for a interval of 1 yr”, one thing that was “renewable” – suggesting they may very well be held there for longer.
“The USA pays a really low charge for them, however a excessive one for us,” he added.
Rubio confirmed the alleged gang members arrival in El Salvador and thanked Bukele, calling him “the strongest safety chief in our area”.
Hours earlier than, on Saturday night, US District Choose James Boasberg ordered a halt to deportations coated by Trump’s proclamation, which invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The regulation permits the federal government to detain and deport individuals threatening the nation’s security with out due course of.
ReutersVenezuela criticised invoking the wartime measure, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes within the historical past of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi focus camps”.
After listening to that planes with deportees had taken off, Choose Boasberg ordered them to show again, the Washington Submit reported.
Rubio mentioned in an announcement on Sunday that the deportations occurred underneath the Alien Enemies Act, and made no point out of the choose’s ruling.
He mentioned: “A whole lot of violent criminals had been despatched out of our nation.”
Their deportation regardless of the choose’s ruling has raised authorized questions.
A lawyer from a rights group concerned within the lawsuit in opposition to the White Home mentioned she had requested the federal government on Sunday whether or not the court docket’s order had been violated.
“[We] are ready to listen to, in addition to making an attempt to do our personal investigation,” Lee Gelernt with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) mentioned in an announcement.
The Division of Justice had appealed in opposition to the choose’s ruling in a single day, in line with the BBC’s media accomplice CBS Information.
The BBC has contacted the Justice Division for remark.
A video connected to one in all Bukele’s social media publish exhibits strains of individuals with their palms and toes shackled being escorted by armed officers from the planes.
Some are positioned into the again of armoured autos, whereas others, hunched over as officers push their heads down, are pressured onto buses.
The video additionally exhibits an aerial view of an extended, winding police escort main the buses into El Salvador’s infamous mega-jail Cecot.
The newly constructed maximum-security jail is a part of Bukele’s effort to crack down on the nation’s organised crime.
The ability, which might maintain as much as 40,000 individuals, has been criticised by human rights teams for maltreatment of inmates.
ReutersThe association between the US and El Salvador is an indication of strengthening diplomatic ties.
“Thanks to your help and friendship,” Rubio instructed Bukele on Sunday.
El Salvador was the second nation Rubio, the US’s prime diplomat, visited after he was sworn in.
Throughout that journey, which came about in February, Bukele made an preliminary supply to take US deportees, saying it could assist pay for the large Cecot facility.
The newest deportations underneath Trump’s second time period are a part of the president’s long-running campaign in opposition to unlawful immigration within the US.
In January, Trump signed an government order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as international terrorist organisations.
He gained voters on the marketing campaign path, partially, by promising to enact the biggest deportation operation in US historical past.
The agenda has to this point not met expectations, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers not assembly Trump’s each day quota for arrests.
A latest report urged ICE brokers had deported fewer immigrants in February than that they had the identical month a yr prior through the earlier administration underneath Joe Biden – 11,000 in February 2025, in comparison with 12,000 in February 2024 – in line with NBC Information.