By Nathan Layne, Jack Queen and Helen Coster
-The Trump administration has deported alleged members of a Venezuelan gang from the U.S. despite a court order forbidding it from doing so, saying in an extraordinary statement that a judge did not have the authority to block its actions.
The deportation operation followed a move by Judge James Boasberg to block President Donald Trumpโs use of the Alien Enemies Actโs wartime powers to rapidly deport more than 200 alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has been linked to kidnapping, extortion and contract killings.
โA single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft โฆ full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil,โ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
She said the court had โno lawful basisโ and that federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over how a president conducts foreign affairs.
The turn of events represented a remarkable escalation in Trumpโs challenge to the U.S. Constitutionโs system of checks and balances and the independence of the judicial branch of government.
Patrick Eddington, a homeland security and civil liberties legal expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that, whatever it might say, the White House was in โopen defianceโ of the judge.
โThis is beyond the pale and certainly unprecedented,โ Eddington said, calling it the most radical test of Americaโs system of checks and balances since the Civil War.
When asked whether his administration had violated the court order, Trump deferred to the lawyers.
โI can tell you this: these were bad people,โ Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, referring to the alleged gang members.
โCOMMENSURATE TO WARโ
In a Saturday evening hearing, Boasberg blocked the use of the law for 14 days, saying the statute refers to โhostile actsโ perpetrated by another country that are โcommensurate to war.โ
Trump said he was justified in using the Act because he saw the increase in immigration in recent years as similar to war.
โThis is war. In many respects itโs more dangerous than war because, you know, in a war they have uniforms. You know who youโre shooting at, you know who youโre going after.โ
Boasberg said during the hearing that any flights carrying migrants processed under the law should return to the U.S. His written notice hit the case docket at 7:25 p.m. ET (23:25 GMT).
The following day, El Salvadorโs President Nayib Bukele posted footage to the social media site X showing men being hustled off a plane in the dark of night amid a massive security presence.
โOopsieโฆ Too late,โ Bukele posted above a headline, โFed judge orders deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gangbangers to return to the US.โ
Bukele followed the comment by a laughing-so-hard-Iโm-crying emoji. His statement was reposted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also thanked Bukele for his โassistance and friendship.โ
In her statement, Leavitt said that โthe written order and the Administrationโs actions do not conflictโ and that courts have โgenerally have no jurisdictionโ over the presidentโs โpowers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion.โ
Although the Trump administration has variously described the Venezuelans as gang members, โmonsters,โ or โalien terrorists,โ Reuters has not been able to independently verify if the men are gang members or have criminal records.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Salvadoran government did not respond to requests for comment. The State Department declined to comment.
EL SALVADOREAN PRISON
Reuters could not confirm the full breadth of the deportation operations or the precise timing of Bukeleโs video.
One of the planes visible in the footage he circulated featured a Global Crossing Airlines aircraft bearing the tail number N837VA, which had taken off on Saturday from an airfield in Texas previously used to deport Venezuelan migrants, according to data maintained by the website FlightRadar24.
FlightRadar24 data shows the plane took off in the afternoon from Harlingen Airport before landing in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, late on Saturday night.
Miami-based Global Crossing, which has been used by U.S. immigration authorities to deport migrants across Latin America, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
In a court filing on Sunday, the Trump administration said that โsomeโ of the Venezuelans had already been removed from the United States prior to the judgeโs order, but did not provide any further detail.
It was not clear how many people that represented or whether the Trump administration was conceding that others were removed after the judgeโs order.
Axios quoted senior administration officials as saying they had hoped the deportation operation would be completed before the judge had a chance to weigh in. Axios quoted one official as saying the order didnโt count as the flights were already โover international waters.โ
Leavitt seemed to nod to that idea in her comments, saying that, by the time the judge issued his order, the Venezuelans โhad already been removed from U.S. territory.โ
Several legal experts spoken to by Reuters disagreed.
โA federal courtโs jurisdiction does *not* stop at the waterโs edge,โ said Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at Georgetown Universityโs Law Center posted on the social media app Bluesky. โThe question is whether the *defendants* are subject to the court order, not *where* the conduct being challenged takes place.โ
Peter Markowitz, a Cardozo Law School professor and immigration enforcement expert, said the Trump administrationโs actions โmost certainly violateโ the courtโs order.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged Trumpโs use of the act, has asked the administration to ensure that it has not removed any migrants in violation of the order, lead ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told Reuters.
โIf anyone was turned over to a foreign government after the courtโs order, then we would hope that the United States government would work with that foreign government to get the individuals back,โ Gelernt said.
The 238 men โ alleged members of the Venezuelan gang โ were being transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Center โ a mega-prison that can hold up to 40,000 inmates โ for a one-year period that could be renewed, Bukele said.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Palm Beach, Jack Queen and Helen Coster in New York; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson, Colette Luke, Brad Heath, and David Ljunggren; Writing by Raphael Satter; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Noeleen Walder, Diane Craft and Lincoln Feast.)
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