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Trump Administration Live Updates: Rubio Announces Deportations After Judge Orders Flights Halted

“… The Trump administration hopes that the unusual prisoner transfer deal — not a swap but an agreement for El Salvador to take suspected gang members — will be the beginning of a larger effort to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rapidly arrest and deport those it identifies as members of Tren de Aragua without many of the legal processes common in immigration cases.
The Alien Enemies Act allows for summary deportations of people from countries at war with the United States. The law, best known for its role in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, has been invoked three times in U.S. history — during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II — according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy organization.
On Saturday, Judge James E. Boasberg of Federal District Court in Washington issued a temporary restraining order blocking the government from deporting any immigrants under the law after President Trump issued an executive order invoking it.
In a hastily scheduled hearing sought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the judge said he did not believe federal law allowed the president’s action, and ordered that any flights that had departed with Venezuelan immigrants under Trump’s executive order to return to the United States “however that’s accomplished — whether turning around the plane or not.”
“This is something you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he said.
A lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, told the judge that he did not have many details to share and that describing operational details would raise “national security issues.”
The precise timing of the flights to El Salvador is important because Judge Boasberg issued his order shortly before 7 p.m. in Washington, but video posted from El Salvador shows them disembarking the plane at night. El Salvador is two time zones behind Washington, raising questions about whether the Trump administration ignored an explicit court order. …”