A plane with more than 200 Venezuelans deported by the United States landed in El Salvador, hours after an American judge ordered Donald Trump’s government not to do so.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, published on social networks that 238 members of the Venezuelan Criminal Band Train de Aragua had arrived on Sunday morning, along with 23 members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13).
The arrival of the deportees to the Central American country occurred despite the fact that a federal judge had prevented President Trump from invoking a centenary law to justify deportations, something that Bukele ridiculed in a subsequent publication.
“Oh! … too late,” wrote the Salvadoran president.
Bukele reported that the detainees were immediately transferred to the Terrorist Internment Center (CECOT) of El Salvador “for a year”, renewable, suggesting that they could remain there for longer.
“The United States will pay a very low rate for them, but a high for us,” he added.
Open contempt
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, confirmed the arrival of the alleged gang members to El Salvador and thanked Bukele, describing him as “the strongest security leader in our region.”
On Saturday night, Judge James Boasberg ordered to paralyze, for 14 days, deportations ordered by Trump, who invoked the law of foreign enemies of 1798.
The law empowers the government to stop and expel, in war times, people who threaten the security of the country, without having to guarantee the affected due process.
The last time the text was applied was to admit US citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.
On Saturday, Trump declared that Aragua’s train was “perpetrating and threatening to make a predatory invasion or incursion against the US territory.”
And then he ordered that all Venezuelan citizens in the country who are at least 14 years old, who are members of the Aragua train and that “are not naturalized or are permanent legal residents” are “arrested, insured and expelled for being foreign enemies.”
The presidential resolution was suspended by Judge Boasberg, considering that the law is not applicable in this case, the newspaper published The New York Times.
After learning that aircraft with deportees had taken off, the official ordered his return, he reported The Washington Post.
Rubio, in a statement, confirmed on Sunday that deportations were made under the law of foreign enemies, but did not mention the judicial opinion.
“Hundreds of violent criminals were expelled from our country,” he said.
Direct to the ‘megacárcel’
An attached video published by Bukele on social networks shows rows of men with shades of feet and hands, being escorted by armed agents from the plane.
In the recording it is seen as some detainees are introduced in the rear of armored vehicles, while others, hunched over because the agents burn their heads, are forced to climb to buses.
The video also shows an aerial view of a long and winding police escort that leads buses to the infamous megacárcel of El Salvador: the CECOT.
The maximum security prison is an achievement of Bukele and is part of its effort to combat organized crime in the Central American country.
The prison, with capacity for 40,000 people, has been criticized by human rights groups, which denounce that in the same inmates are mistreated and their rights are not guaranteed.
The agreement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of the strengthening of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
“Thank you for your support and friendship,” Rubio told Bukele on Sunday.
El Salvador was the second country that the Head of American diplomacy visited after his swear a few weeks ago.
During that trip, made in February, Bukele initially offered American deportees, stating that this would help finance the gigantic CECOT installation.
Effect coup
The latest deportations of Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long campaign against illegal immigration in the US.
In January, Trump signed an executive order that declared the Train of Aragua and the MS-13 “foreign terrorist organizations.”
The Republican tycoon won the presidential presidential ones last November, in part, for his promises to launch the greatest deportation operation in the country’s history.
Until now, the agenda has not met the expectations, since the agents of the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) have not reached the daily quota of arrests set by Trump.
A recent report revealed that ICE agents had deported less immigrants in February than in the same month of the previous year during the administration of Democrat Joe Biden: 11,000 in February 2025, compared to 12,000 in February 2024.
*With information from Lisa Lambert and Brandon Drenon
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