In an unprecedented move, more than 250 Venezuelans have been deported by the United States and sent to El Salvador, where they were transferred to a maximum security prison, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Sunday.
The Trump administration accused them of being members of the Tren de Agua criminal gang, invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport them, which has been used only three times in US history.
Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and is linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings.
Growing danger in Venezuela linked to gang crime led to 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.
US District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order on Saturday evening 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.
Bukele announced via the social network X that 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang had arrived in his country and were transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Centre (Cecot), a mega-prison with a capacity for 40,000 inmates, where they will remain for a period of one year that could be renewed.
A video shared on Bukele's social media shows the detainees with shackled hands and feet being escorted by armed officers from the plane. Some are placed in armoured vehicles, while others, hunched over as officers push their heads down, are forced onto buses.
A controversial law
The Alien Enemies Act, 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.
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.
Venezuela’s government in a statement on Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterising it as evocative of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”
The Trump administration has not identified the migrants deported, or provided any evidence they are members of Tren de Aragua, or that they committed any crimes in the US. It also sent two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador who had been arrested in the United States.
Immigration lawyers said that late on 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.
“Basically any Venezuelan citizen in the US may be removed on pretext of belonging to Tren de Aragua, with no chance at defence,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights group, warned on X.
The litigation that led to the hold on deportations was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans held in Texas whom lawyers said were concerned they'd be falsely accused of being members of the gang. Once the act is invoked, they warned, Trump could simply declare anyone a Tren de Aragua member and remove them from the country.
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. He noted that the law 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.
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 on 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."
Timeline and reactions
Following Boasberg's judicial order, Bukele responded mockingly on social media: "Oopsie... too late".
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the arrival of the suspected gang members in El Salvador and thanked Bukele, calling him "the strongest security leader in our region".
This operation is part of Trump's long-running crusade against illegal immigration into the US. In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations.
During his election campaign, Trump promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history. However, a recent report suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have deported fewer immigrants in February 2025 than in the same month of the previous year during Joe Biden's administration: 11,000 in February 2025, compared to 12,000 in February 2024.
Agreement between El Salvador and the U.S.
The agreement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties. The US has reportedly agreed to pay El Salvador 5.5 million euros to imprison 300 alleged members of Tren de Aragua for a year, according to the AP.
"The US will pay a very low rate for them, but a high rate for us," Bukele added, suggesting that the deal would also help fund the massive Cecot prison complex.
Rubio described the pact as a "safe third country" deal to deport citizens who have violated US immigration laws. This would mean that the US government could deport migrants from other countries, who do not have Salvadoran nationality, to El Salvador.
"He has also offered to do the same with dangerous criminals who are currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States, even if they are US citizens or legal residents," Rubio said.
The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro rejected the use of the "anachronistic" US law to deport suspected gang members, saying it violates migrants' rights.
