>>22771389
https://x.com/MarkSZaidEsq/status/1901298029916815731
Court order defied.
First of many as I've been warning and start of true constitutional crisis.
Ultimately will lead to Trump #impeachment proceedings.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9yv1gnzyvo
US deports hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members despite court order
More than 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members have been deported from the US to a supermax prison in El Salvador, even as a US judge blocked the removals.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived in the Central American country, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.
Neither the US government nor El Salvador has identified the detainees, nor provided details of their alleged criminality or gang membership.
A federal judge's order prevented the Trump administration from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify the deportations, but the flights had already departed.
"Oopsieโฆ Too late," posted Bukele on social media, making fun of the judge's ruling.
A video attached to one of his posts shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the planes.
Bukele, an ally of US President Donald Trump, wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador's notorious mega-jail, the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).
The El Salvadoran president said they would be held there "for a period of one year", and that could be "renewable".
"The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us," he added.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Bukele in a post on X, calling him "the strongest security leader in our region".
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, wrote: "These heinous monsters were extracted and removed to El Salvador where they will no longer be able to pose any threat to the American People."
Trump announced on Saturday that he had signed a proclamation declaring that the Tren de Aragua gang was "conducting irregular warfare" against the US and he would deport its members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
That evening, US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington DC ordered a 14-day halt to deportations covered by Trump's proclamation, pending further legal arguments.
After lawyers told him that planes with deportees had already taken off, Judge Boasberg gave a verbal order for the flights to turn back, US media reported, although that directive did not form part of his written ruling.