The Trump administration has relocated hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador, despite a temporary injunction from a federal judge that prohibits deportations under an 18th-century wartime proclamation aimed at Venezuelan gang members, as reported by authorities on Sunday. The flights were already en route when the ruling was announced. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order on Saturday to temporarily suspend the deportations; however, attorneys notified him that two flights carrying immigrants were already airborne—one heading to El Salvador and the other to Honduras. Although Boasberg verbally instructed that the aircraft be redirected, this directive was not executed, and it was not included in his written order.
In a court filing on Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg’s ruling, indicated that if his decision is not reversed, it will refrain from using the Trump proclamation he blocked to deport additional individuals. Trump’s supporters expressed immense satisfaction with the outcome.
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“Oopsie…Too late,” remarked Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who had consented to accommodate approximately 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his nation’s prisons, as he shared an article regarding Boasberg’s ruling on the social media platform X. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had previously negotiated an agreement with Bukele for the housing of immigrants, commented on the platform: “We sent over 250 members of the alien enemy group Tren de Aragua, which El Salvador has agreed to detain in their excellent facilities at a reasonable cost that will also benefit our taxpayers.” Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, noted that while Boasberg’s verbal instruction to redirect the planes was not formally included in his final ruling, the Trump administration evidently disregarded the “spirit” of that directive.
This situation encourages future courts to issue highly detailed orders, leaving no flexibility for the government, Vladeck remarked. The deportations of immigrants occurred following Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law that has been applied only three times throughout U.S. history. This legislation, which was utilized during the War of 1812 and both World Wars, mandates that a president must declare a state of war in the United States, thereby granting him significant authority to detain or expel foreigners who would typically be protected under immigration or criminal statutes. Its most recent application was to justify the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. In a statement released on Sunday, the Venezuelan government condemned Trump’s use of this law, describing it as reminiscent of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps.”
Tren de Aragua emerged from a notoriously violent prison located in the central state of Aragua and coincided with the mass migration of millions of Venezuelans, most of whom were in search of improved living conditions following the collapse of their country’s economy over the last ten years. During his campaign, Trump exploited the presence of this gang to create distorted portrayals of communities that he claimed had been “taken over” by what were, in reality, only a small number of criminals.
(This story is published from a syndicated feed)
