The deportees will be moved to El Salvador’s notorious prison (Image: Getty)
Trump has deported more than 200 Venezuelans alleged to be despite a federal judge blocking the order.
The detainees were already on a plane to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison when the judge issued the order, as its posted “Oopsie… too late” on social media.
Bukele confirmed 238 alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua arrived on Sunday morning, as well as 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, and they would be held for one year, which could be “renewable”.
Neither the US or El Salvadorian government has provided details of the deportees’ gang membership, or their identification.
invoked a centuries-old Alien Enemies Act 1798 that hasn’t been used since World War II to deport the alleged, on the basis they had engaged in “irregular warfare” against the US.
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Trump sent the planes before a judge blocked the order (Image: Getty)
He accused Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States” after signing a proclamation to invoke the act on Saturday.
After the US District Judge of James Boasberg, found out the planes had already left, he verbally ordered them to turn back, according to US media outlets.
Boasberg had issued a written notice to halt deportations for 14 days pending further legal arguments, which appeared in the case docket at 19:25 EDT on Saturday (00:25 GMT on Sunday), as reported by Reuters.
Department of Justice lawyers said the order had not applied because the deportees “had already been removed from United States territory”.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the judge’s order had “no lawful basis” and that the “administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order”.
condemned the act which “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps”.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the court’s order may have been violated.
which largely houses gang members, was built to crack down on organised crime, although it has been accused of mistreating inmates by human rights groups.
Cells hold up to 70 people who sleep on metal sheet beds, and bathe using water from a shared basin.