Planes carrying more than 200 Venezuelans deported by the US have landed in El Salvador, hours after a US judge ordered the Trump administration not to do so.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.
Their arrival in the central American nation came after a federal judge blocked US President Donald Trump from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify the deportations – something Bukele made fun of in a later post.
“Oopsie… Too late,” he said.
The move by the US to send alleged criminals from other countries to El Salvador was an arrangement US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously called “the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world”.
Bukele wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) “for a period of one year”, something that was “renewable” – suggesting they could be held there for longer.
“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” he added.
Rubio confirmed the alleged gang members arrival in El Salvador and thanked Bukele, calling him “the strongest security leader in our region”.
Hours before, on Saturday evening, US District Judge James Boasberg ordered a halt to deportations covered by Trump’s proclamation, which invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The law allows the government to detain and deport people threatening the country’s safety without due process.
Venezuela criticised invoking the wartime measure, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps”.
After hearing that planes with deportees had taken off, Judge Boasberg ordered them to turn back, the Washington Post reported.
Rubio said in a statement on Sunday that the deportations happened under the Alien Enemies Act, and made no mention of the judge’s ruling.
He said: “Hundreds of violent criminals were sent out of our country.”
Their deportation despite the judge’s ruling has raised legal questions.
A lawyer from a rights group involved in the lawsuit against the White House said she had asked the government on Sunday whether the court’s order had been violated.
“[We] are waiting to hear, as well as trying to do our own investigation,” Lee Gelernt with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement.
The Department of Justice had appealed against the judge’s ruling overnight, according to the BBC’s media partner CBS News.
The BBC has contacted the Justice Department for comment.
A video attached to one of Bukele’s social media post shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the planes.
Some are placed into the back of armoured vehicles, while others, hunched over as officers push their heads down, are forced onto buses.
The video also shows an aerial view of a long, winding police escort leading the buses into El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail Cecot.
The newly built maximum-security jail is part of Bukele’s effort to crack down on the country’s organised crime.
The facility, which can hold up to 40,000 people, has been criticised by human rights groups for maltreatment of inmates.
The arrangement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties.
“Thank you for your assistance and friendship,” Rubio told Bukele on Sunday.
El Salvador was the second country Rubio, the US’s top diplomat, visited after he was sworn in.
During that trip, which took place in February, Bukele made an initial offer to take US deportees, saying it would help pay for the massive Cecot facility.
The latest deportations under Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-running crusade against illegal immigration in the US.
In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations.
He won voters on the campaign trail, in part, by promising to enact the largest deportation operation in US history.
The agenda has so far not met expectations, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents not meeting Trump’s daily quota for arrests.
A recent report suggested ICE agents had deported fewer immigrants in February than they had the same month a year prior during the previous administration under Joe Biden – 11,000 in February 2025, compared to 12,000 in February 2024 – according to NBC News.
