The News
While the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants from the US remains halted amid a legal fight, it conducted new deportations to El Salvador over the weekend.
The administration worked with El Salvador over the weekend to transfer 17 alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members out of the country, an operation that Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday morning as a joint “counter-terrorism” effort with El Salvador.
A senior State Department official confirmed to Semafor that the individuals were removed from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay to El Salvador; the deportation occurred under other authorities, including Title 8 under immigration law, the official added.
The administration also provided Semafor with the names of each alleged gang member who was deported, along with details of their criminal history. That marked a shift from the Alien Enemies Act flights to El Salvador earlier this month, when names of deported migrants were not released — but a leaked list of names was later published by CBS.
“These criminals will no longer terrorize our communities and citizens,” Rubio wrote in a post on X.
There are reportedly several dozen migrants being held at Guantanamo Bay following the weekend deportation. A delegation of Democratic-aligned senators visited the base on Friday and decried the Trump administration’s use of the base, where it’s still considering plans for larger-scale housing of migrants.
The names of the 17 migrants, and their Guantanamo Bay origin of their deportation flights, were first reported by Fox News.
Know More
The latest deportation flights to El Salvador comes amid an escalating legal battle over the president’s use of the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration maintains it will follow court orders as the case progresses — and argues that it did not defy a judge’s order to turn around the flights carrying alleged gang members earlier this month.
At the same time, Trump advisers have been clear that deportations will continue. Border czar Tom Homan recently told NewsNation that they’d continue flights under Title 8 or “another way” — clarifying remarks he had made where he noted that he did not “care what the judges think.”
“We’ll let DOJ and the courts fight this out, and we’ll see where we go from there,” Homan told NewsNation. “We’re going to keep targeting the worst of the worst.”
Notable
- Detained migrants have allegedly been subject to beatings and other mistreatment by guards at Guantanamo Bay, according to NPR.
- Some family members of those sent to El Salvador insist their relatives have no gang ties; 24-year-old Francisco Javier García Casique is one example, per The Guardian.