A US federal judge's order blocking the Donald Trump administration's move to deport hundreds of alleged illegal immigrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act failed to yield an immediate result as the verbal instruction to turn the planes around was not specified in a written order.
Flights were mid air at the time of the ruling.
The US government deported over deported over 200 Venezuelans to a sprawling prison in El Salvador. Another aircraft was headed for Honduras.
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The White House, which has already labelled Tren de Aragua a terrorist organisation, had prepared to transfer about 300 suspected members to detention in El Salvador, AP reported. The Donald Trump administration had agreed to pay El Salvador $6 million to imprison about 300 alleged members of the gang for one year.
US District Judge James E Boasberg was hearing a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, which preemptively sued Donald Trump late Friday, saying five Venezuelan men being held at an immigration detention centre in Texas were at “imminent risk of removal” under the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump admin ‘not flouting court orders’: White House
Donald Trump formally invoked the act granting war time powers on Saturday to target alleged illegal immigration aided by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States,” the US president had said.
{{/usCountry}}Donald Trump formally invoked the act granting war time powers on Saturday to target alleged illegal immigration aided by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States,” the US president had said.
{{/usCountry}}The act, which has been invoked only three times in US history, deports people suspected to be illegal immigrants without an opportunity to be heard before an immigration or federal court judge.
On Sunday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted that the administration was not flouting court orders. “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from US territory,” she said.
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“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from US soil,” the statement added.
Department of Justice, in its appeal of the judge's order halting the deportation of five Venezuelan men, said it would not use Trump's proclamation of the extraordinary act for further deportations if the court decision is not overturned.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele reacted to Boasberg’s ruling in a post on social media platform X. “Oopsie…Too late,” he wrote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated the deal with El Salvador, wrote on X, “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua, which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”
The Venezuelan government rejected the latest deportation measure by the US government, saying it was evocative of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”