One day after a judge blocked the federal government from using wartime powers to quickly expel accused Venezuelan gang members from the country, the Trump administration announced Sunday that it had flown hundreds of alleged members of Tren de Aragua to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador — raising the question of whether the president openly defied a court order.

On Sunday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that, under Trump’s directive, the federal government had invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport over 200 Venezuelans accused of being members of TdA.

The new administration has designated the gang as a terrorist organization, and in an executive order released Saturday alleged that it is “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

“This crucial step would have never happened under any other U.S. president. President Trump is following through on the promises he made to the American people,” said Rubio, adding that President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador had agreed to imprison the Venezuelans.

Rubio, Bukele and the White House announced the deportations hours after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a restraining order blocking the Trump executive order using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans for at least two weeks while the case continues.

The wartime legislation grants the president extraordinary powers to detain, deport, or remove noncitizens from countries deemed hostile to the U.S. during times of war or invasion, without going through the normal judicial processes. The law, known for its role in interning Japanese immigrants during World War II, has only been used three times, during times of war. It would allow Trump to arrest, relocate, or deport any men over 14 who are deemed to be from an enemy country. The United States considers Venezuela to be a foreign adversary. Anyone accused of being a member of the gang has no right to challenge the accusation, as the law grants the power to remove them without due process or the opportunity to contest the claim.

The judge was ruling in a case brought by lawyers for five detained Venezuelans, most of whom said they’d been wrongly accused of being Tren de Aragua members.

“J.A.V. is not and has never been a member of Tren de Aragua,” the complaint states about one of the plaintiffs. “He was in fact victimized by that group and the group is the reason he cannot return to Venezuela.”

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has accused several Venezuelans facing deportation of being affiliated with Tren de Aragua without offering public evidence. The criminal and personal history of those it sent to El Salvador on Sunday remains unclear.

Also unclear is whether the federal government defied the judicial order, or whether the flights landed before Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling, which the Trump administration quickly appealed.

During a Saturday evening hearing, Boasberg said any deportation flights already in the air should return to the United States, according to several outlets that reported on the hearing.

The White House did not acknowledge the judge’s order in a Sunday morning statement announcing that Trump had invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members. But some of the president’s top officials and most prominent defenders were cheering his decision nonetheless.

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the judge’s order “disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power” and “puts the public and law enforcement at risk.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the President had used his “core powers” to defend Americans from “one of the most violent and ruthless terrorist gangs on planet earth.” She linked the murders of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray to members of the gang.

Neither Rubio nor other top officials of the Trump administration clarified the timing of the flights.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to Miami Herald questions about whether the deportation flights had taken place before or after the judge issued his ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union, among several groups that brought the case before Judge Boasberg on Saturday, also did not respond to official inquiries about what it knew about the deportation flights, and whether any of its clients were deported.

“An activist judge”

The deportation flights come as the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to limit the authority of lower-court judges to issuing sweeping, nationwide injunctions and restraining orders blocking the president’s agenda, raising questions about the future of checks and balances — a fundamental tenet of American democracy.

Rubio reposted a social media post from Bukele that said “Oopsie…Too late,” with a laughing emoji, citing a news article about the judge’s order blocking the deportations.

Separately, Bukele confirmed that 238 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States had been “immediately transferred to the Terrorist Confinement Center,” a mega-prison Bukele built as part of his country’s crackdown on organized crime. He circulated a video showing heavily armed guards with covered faces forcing cuffed immigrants along as they were moved to the facility. Rubio also reposted the video and thanked Bukele for his “assistance and friendship.”

The Trump administration has not provided any public evidence linking the deported Venezuelans to gang activity, despite claims that they are part of the TdA. One of the plaintiffs in the case before Judge Boasberg said he was wrongly detained and accused of being a gang member because he had tattoos. In October 2024, the Texas Department of Public Safety released a document titled “Tren de Aragua — Expansion and US presence,” listing tattoos such as stars, crowns, firearms, grenades, trains, dice, roses and predatory animals like tigers and jaguars as potential identifiers. Tattoo artists say that flowers and clocks are common motifs in body art.

Mike Davis, a key legal defender of the president, posted that Trump didn’t follow the order “because the president followed his constitutional oath and (Judge Boasberg) failed to follow yours.”

“An activist judge ordering the president to turn around planes in midflight to return foreign terrorists to American soil was the red line,” Davis said. “Hell. No.”

At least one sitting member of Congress, Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas, called for the federal judge’s impeachment. President Barack Obama appointed Boasberg, a Yale Law School grad and the chief judge of the Washington D.C. District Court, to the federal bench in 2011. He became an associate judge of the District of Columbia Superior Court in 2002.

Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday if the Trump administration defied a court order, Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said he wasn’t sure due to the timing of the flights.

“We will find out whether or not that actually occurred or not. We don’t know if that happened that way,” Rounds said. “I do know that we will follow the law. We expect the executive branch to follow the law.”

This wouldn’t be the first time the Trump administration openly flouted a judge’s ruling. The administration has repeatedly denied court orders to release $2 billion in foreign aid. Even after an early March 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, it’s unclear if the administration has complied with directions to unfreeze payments.

Last week, Rubio wrote on his X account that 83% of USAID programs were being cut, including 5,200 contracts worth tens of billions of dollars.

Human rights violations at CECOT

In 2023, Bukele opened the maximum-security prison known as CECOT. The initials stand for Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or Terrorism Confinement Center, with a capacity to hold 40,000 inmates according to the Salvadoran Government.

Civil rights organizations have raised alarms over inhumane conditions at CECOT, the largest mega prison in Latin America, calling them a blatant violation of human rights. Investigative journalists have uncovered evidence that among the tens of thousands arrested by El Salvador’s government in recent years, thousands of innocent people have been wrongfully imprisoned.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. is paying $6 million to harbor alleged Tren de Aragua members, around $20,000 per inmate.

“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” said Bukele, adding that the migrants would be kept there for a period of one year and that it was a renewable deal.

“We continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place. All in a single action,” he said.

Dangerous accusations against an immigrant community

Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, an advocacy group committed to supporting the Venezuelan community that works in alliance with the left-leaning Latino Victory Project, said there isn’t concrete evidence that that hundreds of Venezuelans in the United States are Tren de Aragua.

“It is unacceptable, inhumane, and extremely dangerous for an entire community to be labeled as potential members of Tren de Aragua under a law where any accusation made against a Venezuelan citizen cannot be challenged in any court,” Ferro said.

She said the vast majority of Venezuelans are neither criminals nor came to commit any crimes. “Criminals must face the consequences of their actions, but the vast majority of Venezuelans are not criminals and deserve the right to defend themselves,” Ferro said. “It is essential that we ensure justice is served fairly, without unjustly targeting an entire community based on baseless accusations.”

The Maduro regime issued a statement rejecting the U.S. actions as an “infamous and unjust” law that criminalizes Venezuelan migration, calling it an act that evokes the darkest chapters of human history.

“The Alien Enemies Act is an anachronistic law that not only violates fundamental laws but also undermines the international legal order on human rights, the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrants,” the Venezuelan government statement read. “Venezuela rejects the persecution of our nationals, and we denounce that our compatriots in the U.S. are being subjected to persecution.”

Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder & president/CEO of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, condemned the deportation of one of the group’s clients to El Salvador without any due process or evidence linking him to the gang Tren de Aragua, and then he disappeared.

“Our client fled Venezuela last year seeking asylum in the United States. He has a strong claim. He was detained at entry because ICE alleged his tattoos are gang related. They are absolutely not,” Toczylowski said through X.

She said he is an LGBTQ arts worker in Venezuela and that his tattoos are harmless and personal. “But ICE submitted photographs of his tattoos, presenting them as proof of his alleged involvement with Tren de Aragua.”

Toczylowski said: “Our client came to the U.S. seeking protection, but has spent months in ICE prisons, been falsely accused of being a gang member and today, he has been forcibly transferred — we believe to El Salvador. We are horrified by what might happen to him next.”

She said the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act could lead to deportations based on mere accusations, without evidence or due process.

“The accusation could be, as it is for our client, completely baseless. But they would remove them anyway, despite the dangers, despite the lack of due process. What happened today is a dark moment in our history.”

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