In another unprecedented move, the Trump administration deported roughly 250 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador on Saturday, March 15. On that same day, federal judge James E. Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportation, which the White House ignored, in a highly unusual move for a US president.
On March 17, Boasberg pressed Trump administration lawyers over the timeline of the deportation flights, to determine whether they were in violation of his court order to pause them. Hours before the hearing the Trump administration, through the Justice Department, went as far as to attempt to have Boasberg removed from the case. During the hearing itself, a Trump administration lawyer repeatedly refused to answer Boasberg’s questions about the deportation flight timeline. The lawyer, Abhishek Kambli, claimed he was only able to provide limited information due to “national security concerns.”
Even before Monday’s hearing, the Trump administration doubled down on its decision to ignore the order. “I don’t care what the judges think,” Trump’s “border czar” Thomas Homan told “Fox & Friends” on the morning of Monday, March 17. “I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We’re not stopping,” he said. Homan argued, “It wasn’t until this flight was already in international waters heading down to El Salvador that the judge made some comment about returning the flights.”
“We’re already in international waters. We’re outside the borders of the United States,” he continued.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed on Monday that Trump “acted within the confines of the law” and within his “constitutional authority” in deporting the Venezuelan migrants. “We are wholly confident that we are going to win this case in court,” she said.
Leavitt previously released a statement which claimed that Trump “did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist [Tren De Aragua] aliens had already been removed from US territory.”
Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act to pave way for deportations
Saturday’s deportations to El Salvador came a day after Trump signed an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This is the third time the law has been used in US history. Trump appears to have invoked the act in order to deport Venezuelan migrants his administration has claimed are members of the gang Tren De Aragua. “I proclaim that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies,” the executive order reads.
Trump has provided no evidence for the claims that deportees are gang members. In the text of the executive order, Trump accuses the gang of “supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States.”
According to Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez, the migrants that were deported are not known to have committed any crimes in the US.
Community activists challenge Trump’s deportation agenda
A key element in Trump’s claims regarding the alleged existential threat posed by “Tren De Aragua” in the United States are claims dating back to last year that the gang took over the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado.
The bulk of this hysteria began with a viral video showing a group of armed men at The Edge at Lowry apartment complex in Aurora. This video circulated widely across right-wing social media spheres, fueling claims that this apartment complex, as well as the entire city, had been taken over by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. These claims were amplified by right-wing political figures including Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky, who claimed that there was a “complete gang takeover of parts of our city,” as well as the landlord of the building, CBZ Management, who residents claim was using the rumors as an excuse to neglect the apartment complex.
During his campaign, Trump cited the need to “save” Aurora and other cities from Tren de Aragua through mass deportations. Local activists in the wider Denver area have taken proactive steps to organize local immigrant communities against Trump’s deportation crackdown.
Tenant organizer Nate Kassa, who has worked directly with the largely immigrant tenants of CBZ Management, said Trump’s latest deportation flights are part of a “racist narrative” that “the United States is being invaded by immigrants”. Kassa told Peoples Dispatch, “The idea that Tren de Aragua is carrying out an invasion on behalf of the Venezuelan government that requires a military response is a ridiculous lie. We’ve seen these lies used locally to justify anti-immigrant crackdowns, and now they are being further inflated to justify the unchecked expansion of Trump’s powers as president.”
The Party for Socialism and Liberation, also active in organizing immigrant communities against mass deportations in the Denver area and throughout the US, claimed that the deportation flights were “a massive escalation in Trump’s war on immigrants that takes us into uncharted territory.”
“The checks and balances in this so-called democracy are falling apart. No judge or politician is coming to the rescue. Only the people can stop Trump from asserting absolute power by taking to the streets in a fighting movement that demonstrates the massive opposition that exists to Trump’s agenda!”
Bukele celebrates receiving deportation flights
On Sunday, March 16, Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, celebrated receiving the deported Venezuelan migrants in a post on X. Bukele claimed that the hundreds of migrants were “immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).”
“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” Bukele continued. “Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable,” he said, raising the alarm that the migrants, whose criminal record is unclear, are being sent to a foreign country to do hard labor.
Top Trump advisor and world’s richest man Elon Musk replied to Bukele’s post with a succinct approval: “Much appreciated.”
Also on Monday, Bukele openly mocked court order against Trump’s deportation flights, writing simply in a post on X in reaction to Boasberg’s order: “Oopsie…Too late”.
Artigo original publicado em People's Dispatch.
