By Belize Live News Staff: The Trump administration has deported hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador and Honduras, even as a federal judge issued a ruling temporarily blocking the transfers under an 18th-century wartime law targeting Venezuelan gang members.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday to halt the deportations, but by then, two flights carrying immigrants were already airborne. Although the judge verbally ordered the planes to turn around, the directive was not included in his formal written order, and the deportations proceeded as planned.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a close ally of Donald Trump, appeared to mock the court ruling, posting “Oopsie… Too late” on social media. The White House reposted Bukele’s message, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the move, stating that over 250 members of Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan gang, were being held in El Salvador’s prisons under a previous agreement.
Legal experts argue that while the administration may not have directly violated the judge’s written order, it blatantly disregarded the spirit of the ruling.
“This just incentivizes future courts to be hyper-specific in their orders and not give the government any wiggle room,” said Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University.
The deportations were carried out under Trump’s unprecedented invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law that allows the removal or detention of foreign nationals during conflicts. The law, which was last used to justify the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, has rarely been invoked in modern times.
The controversial deportations are expected to spark legal challenges, with critics arguing that the Trump administration is overstepping its authority by using wartime powers to justify mass expulsions.
