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US President Donald Trump’s administration has transferred more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador despite a federal judge’s order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th-century wartime declaration, foreign media reported on Sunday.
The deported immigrants were then taken to a high-security prison in El Salvador, Reuters reported, quoting the Salvadoran president as saying.
Trump had on Friday invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to facilitate the deportation of alleged members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal organisation that has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organised crime and contract killings, the report said.
This rarely used law, which has been invoked only three times before, grants the president broad authority to target and remove undocumented immigrants.
On Saturday, a federal judge in Washington blocked the application of the law for 14 days, saying the statute refers to “hostile acts” perpetrated by another country that are “commensurate to war.”
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 can be invoked if the US is at war with another country or a foreign nation has invaded the US or threatened to do so.
However, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s post on X, stating that 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang had arrived in his country and were transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Center, suggested that the process was underway before the US judge’s order.
According to the Associated Press, the timing of when those flights departed the US and arrived in El Salvador remained unclear.
The White House designated the Venezuelan gang as a foreign terrorist organisation and said in a presidential proclamation that many of them have “unlawfully infiltrated the US and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”
The proclamation called for all those subject to the measure to be immediately arrested, detained, and removed.
Trump has taken stringent measures to deport illegal immigrants living in the US.
“The fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and Deep State bureaucrats are being sent packing. The illegal alien criminals are being sent home. We’re draining the swamp and restoring government by the people, for the people,” Trump had said on an earlier ocassion, while referring to mass deportations.
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