On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a video on the X platform, originally posted by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, showing the arrival of 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua under heavy security.
Furthermore, Rubio said a total of 23 members, including two top leaders, of the Mexican gang MS-13 were also sent “to face justice in El Salvador.”
The plane arrived in El Salvador hours after a federal judge in Washington had temporarily blocked Trump’s attempt to use a centuries-old wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act from 1798, to deport the suspected gang members.
The ruling called the legal justification into question, US media reported.
Trump invoked the law — last used during World War II — arguing the gang was waging “irregular warfare” against the US under the direction of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro.
The law allows the president to bypass normal immigration procedures to detain or deport foreign nationals from hostile nations, but typically requires the US to be at war or facing an “invasion or predatory attack.”
It remains unclear whether those deported were Venezuelans removed under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration has appealed the judge’s decision.
The New York Times quoted an attorney for the civil rights organization ACLU, which had filed a lawsuit against Trump’s order, as saying that he believed that two planes were already on their way on Saturday evening.
GNA