President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One as he departs from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on March 14, 2025.
A judge on Saturday quickly pulled the plug on this move, temporarily blocking the White House from using the law to expel migrants and ordering it to turn around any planes containing detainees destined for South America.
“This is something you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” DC District Court Judge James E. Boasberg told the government after the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the executive move would allow the government to expel any Venezuelans from the United States. In a statement, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the judge put “Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans.”
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said 238 members of the transnational Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 members of MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, had already arrived in El Salvador and were taken into custody. He posted a headline about the judge’s ruling on Sunday, responding with a launching emoji and the words “Oopsie … too late.”
White House responds defiantly: Despite a lack of evidence of the detainees’ connections to gangs, the Trump administration flew hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador on Saturday night — the planes had taken off before the ruling, reportedly landed in Honduras soon after, and then continued on to El Salvador. Boasberg has scheduled another hearing for Friday to hear further arguments in this case.
Legal headaches: This isn’t the only hitch to Trump’s immigration plans. The White House emptied Guantánamo Bay of migrants this week, moving the last 40 to a military base in Louisiana amid a torrent of legal and financial hurdles in a possible bid to avoid another ruling against them — the former “Apprentice” star had planned to detain 30,000 migrants on the naval base in Cuba.