POLITICS NEWS – U.S. deports hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador

Laila Kirkpatrick, Staff Writer

The Trump administration has deported around 250 people who it claims were members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua. These people were deported to El Salvador over the weekend. It was not clear if these deportations occurred before or after a federal judge in Washington D.C. issued an emergency order that told the administration to stop utilizing wartime powers to deport people and change the route of planes that were already in the air. Senior officials from the Justice Department argued on Sunday that the order came too late to stop these deportations. 

Saturday, President Trump issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against Tren de Aragua. This law gives the president the authority to detain or report nationals of an enemy nation during a time of invasion. This is the first time since WWII that the act has been invoked or used. The deportations to El Salvador also included two alleged leaders of the MS-13 gang and 21 other alleged members of the gang.