Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center  or CECOT, on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House Tuesday defended the deportation of a national from El Salvador to a notorious mega-prison in that country, despite Trump administration officials admitting in court filings that the removal was a mistake.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was ordered in 2019 to be removed from the United States by an immigration judge, but was granted protection from removal because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.

Yet on March 15 he was placed on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Justice admitted in separate court filings that his deportation to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was an “administrative error.”

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.

Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, is requesting a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court of Maryland, which would require the Trump administration to make a request to the government of El Salvador for Abrego Garcia to be returned to U.S. custody.

The lawyer also wants a halt to U.S. payments to the government of El Salvador for detaining his client at the “notorious CECOT torture prison.”

A hearing is set for 1 p.m. Eastern Friday before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. She was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016.

Press secretary defends decision

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Tuesday said that Abrego Garcia was a leader of the MS-13 gang, despite his deportation being “a clerical error.”

“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” she said.

She said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has evidence of his gang activity that she has seen and she also alleged that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking.

Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, has denied his involvement in any gangs, noting he has no criminal charges or convictions in the United States, El Salvador or any other country.

“Abrego Garcia is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang. Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” according to court filings.

Leavitt also dismissed the 2019 order from an immigration judge granting Abrego Garcia protections from removal.

Federal law bars the removal of an individual if they will face persecution, known as a “withholding of removal.” Because of this condition, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE each year, which he has complied with since 2019, according to court filings.

“Who does that judge work for? It was an immigration judge who works for the Department of Justice at the direction of the attorney general of the United States, whose name is Pam Bondi, who has committed to eradicating MS-13 from our nation’s interior,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt said that 17 more men were deported to CECOT Monday. The U.S. is paying El Salvador’s government $6 million to detain all those deported there.

Identified from news story

Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen with whom he has a child, was detained by ICE on March 12 while driving with his 5-year-old son near Baltimore, Maryland. He was informed by ICE officials that his “status had changed,” according to court filings.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, “was called and instructed to appear at their location within ten minutes to get her five-year old son, A.A.V.; otherwise, the ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services.”

Vasquez Sura tried to call the ICE facility that her husband was transferred to and inform officials that he could not be sent back to El Salvador.

“Her attempts to protest by saying that he had won protection from being removed to El Salvador fell on deaf ears,” according to court filings.

Within three days, he would become one of the 261 men on one of three deportation flights to CECOT in El Salvador, despite a temporary restraining order in place from a district court judge from the District of Columbia that applied generally to all the deportations.

Vasquez Sura was able to identify him from a news article when a photo showed men sent to the prison with their heads shaved and arms over their necks. She recognized her husband’s scar on his head and his tattoo.

DOJ arguments

Department of Justice attorneys, on behalf of the Trump administration, argued that the district court in Maryland lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and his lawyers have not shown it is likely he could be returned.

“There is no showing that any payment made to El Salvador is yet to occur; no showing that El Salvador is likely to release CECOT detainees but for any such payment; no showing that El Salvador is even inclined to consider a request to release a detainee at the United States’ request,” according to the DOJ filing.

The Department of Justice also argues that his attorney has “not clearly shown a likelihood that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT.”

“While there may be allegations of abuses in other Salvadoran prisons—very few in relation to the large number of detainees—there is no clear showing that Abrego Garcia himself is likely to be tortured or killed in CECOT,” according to DOJ.

The Department of Justice said the district court should defer to the Trump administration’s determination “that Abrego Garcia will not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador.”

“Although the government erred in removing Abrego Garcia specifically to El Salvador, the government would not have removed any alien to El Salvador for detention in CECOT if it believed that doing so would violate the United States’ obligations under the Convention (Against Torture),” according to DOJ.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at DHS headquarters in Washington on Jan. 28, 2025.  (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California on Monday blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from terminating the temporary protected status of more than 350,000 Venezuelans next week.

The group was set to lose deportation protections by April 7 after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in her first week in office, vacated an extension of  protections put in place by the Biden administration.

The order does not apply to a separate group of 250,000 Venezuelans who are set to lose their status in September.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California said the groups that brought the suit against the Trump administration are likely to succeed in their claims. He noted that Noem’s decision to vacate the temporary protected status for Venezuelans was not only arbitrary and capricious, but would harm the TPS holders, cost the U.S. billions in economic loss and harm public health and safety in U.S. communities.

DHS did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Program for immigrants in danger

TPS allows nationals from countries deemed too dangerous to return to remain in the U.S. Those with the status have deportation protections and are allowed to work and live in the U.S. for 18 months, unless extended by the DHS secretary.

Under Biden administration orders, protections were extended until October 2026 for two groups of Venezuelans, one initially assigned temporary protected status in 2021 and another in 2023.

Chen’s order applies only to the group who first gained status in 2023. The 2021 group is also challenging the Trump administration’s revocation of their status, but that group’s status is in place until September.

Chen noted that the Trump administration “failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries.”

Chen was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011.

Gang activity cited

The groups who brought the suit against Noem represent TPS holders from Venezuela.

The groups argued that Noem’s decisions to vacate the 2023 protections and end TPS for Venezuelans were arbitrary and capricious.

They also argued that the Trump administration violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, arguing that the decisions to vacate the extension and terminate protections “were motivated, at least in part, by intentional discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

Noem cited gang activity as her reason for not extending TPS for the 2023 group of Venezuelans.

The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport any Venezuelan national 14 years or older who is suspected of having ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. A federal judge has placed a temporary restraining order on use of the wartime law.

‘Classic example of racism’

In his order, Chen said that while attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration argued that there is the threat of the Tren de Aragua gang, “it has made no showing that any Venezuelans TPS holders are members of the gang or otherwise have ties to the gang.”

Chen also rejected the Trump administration’s argument that Noem had the legal authority to vacate the extension of protections.

“The unprecedented action of vacating existing TPS (a step never taken by any previous administration in the 35 years of the TPS program), initiated just three days after Secretary Noem took office, reverses actions taken by the Biden administration to extend temporary protection of Venezuelan nationals that have been in place since 2021,” he wrote.

In granting the nationwide pause, Chen noted the groups had a strong claim under the equal protection clause because Noem has “made sweeping negative generalizations about Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries.”

“This is evident not only in what she said, but also in the fact that she decided to take en masse actions against all Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries, who number in the hundreds of thousands,” he said. “Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has tried to end TPS designation for certain nationals. During Trump’s first term, DHS tried to end TPS for Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.

Noem has also moved to end TPS for nationals from Haiti. There are also legal challenges to that decision. 

Democratic members of Congress on Monday gathered on the National Mall in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility. (Stock photo by Vladimir Vladimirov/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers Monday gathered on the National Mall in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, pushing back against the Trump administration’s policies that harm the trans community.

It came as the Trump administration has moved to block gender-affirming health care for transgender children, bar transgender members from serving in the U.S. military, deny gender markers for passports and ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.

Transgender Day of Visibility is dedicated to recognizing the transgender community for their accomplishments and raising awareness of the discrimination that trans people face. 

Lawmakers like Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida slammed President Donald Trump and his administration. He said that Trump is using transgender people as scapegoats.

“In (an) even more despicable move, he’s chosen to scapegoat kids, trans kids,” he said. “The reason you can’t pay your rent, you can’t afford health care, the reason that you have to fear gun violence, the reason that you can’t afford your grocery has nothing to do with trans people and everything to do with the billionaires and corrupt corporations that have been giving us crumbs for generations.”

Interfaith groups, trans advocacy groups

Interfaith groups and transgender advocacy groups also joined lawmakers for the event organized by the Christopher Street Project, a nonprofit that aims to elect pro-trans Democratic members of Congress.

“My religion has taught me that every human being is the divine image,” Rabbi Abby Stein said. “When the people in (Congress) or the White House try to take away our rights, try to legislate us out of existence, what you are doing… is an affront not just to humanity but to divinity and to any version of spirituality or creed.”

Democratic members in attendance included Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York, Robin Kelly of Illinois, Paul Tonko of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, Sara Jacobs of California, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, Frost of Florida, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Jill Tokuda of Hawaii, Julie Johnson of Texas, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Judy Chu of California and Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia.

Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Ed Markey of Massachusetts also attended.

Trans family members

A handful of lawmakers with transgender family members spoke at Monday’s rally.

Lee said that she is the proud aunt of a transgender nibbling, a gender-neutral term for a child of a sibling, instead of niece or nephew.

“What’s happening right now, especially to our trans siblings, is cruel,” she said of the Trump administration’s policies. “They are purposely targeting some of the most marginalized people in our society.”

Chu said that she fears for her nephew, who is transgender.

“I fear for what the future will hold for him as this punitive administration takes it out on trans people, but I tell you, we will fight back,” she said. 

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration submitted an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday in an effort to resume the rapid deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties under a wartime law that a lower court blocked.

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that a federal judge’s temporary restraining order this month, and an appeals court ruling Wednesday upholding it, wrongly denied President Donald Trump the authority to make decisions about national security operations, including the removal of Venezuelan nationals the administration says are subject to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

“The district court’s orders have rebuffed the President’s judgments as to how to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,” Harris wrote in her request to the court.

The Alien Enemies Act had only been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

The Trump administration has tried to use it in a novel way, when the nation is not officially at war. The administration designated the Tren de Aragua – a gang that originated in Venezuela – as a foreign terrorist group, and argued that any Venezuelan nationals aged 14 and older with suspected ties to the gang are subject to the proclamation.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg placed a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration’s use of the law this month, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the order this week. The administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.

“As long as the orders remain in force, the United States is unable to rely on the Proclamation to remove dangerous affiliates with a foreign terrorist organization—even if the United States receives indications that particular (Tren de Aragua) members are about to take destabilizing or infiltrating actions,” Harris said Friday.

Extending restraining order

Boasberg’s temporary restraining order placed on the use of the Alien Enemies Act is set to expire Saturday. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit, requested that order be extended for an additional two weeks.

The ACLU also plans to request Boasberg issue a preliminary injunction, which would block the administration from deportations under the act until the lawsuit is complete. A hearing is set for April 8.

Boasberg has rejected the Trump administration’s move to lift his restraining order, on the grounds that those subject to the Alien Enemies Act should have due process to challenge those accusations.

At the D.C. Circuit this week, Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration argued that those subject to the proclamation do not need to be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration also argued that those who fall under the Alien Enemies Act can bring a challenge of their detention under a habeas corpus claim.

Defied verbal order

The White House quietly implemented the act on March 15 and a verbal restraining order given by Boasberg that day to block it went into effect hours later.

In that order, Boasberg barred the Trump administration from applying the act but three deportation planes landed in El Salvador after the order was issued. The Trump administration has argued that his verbal order was not enforceable.

Boasberg also ordered that anyone subject to the Alien Enemies Act be returned to the U.S., but federal immigration agents took more than 250 men aboard the three flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order in sending the deportation planes to El Salvador, but Attorney General Pam Bondi invoked the “state secrets privilege” to refuse to answer detailed questions about the flights.

Friday’s emergency request is one of several immigration-related appeals the Trump administration has made to the high court, such as the request to lift several nationwide injunctions placed on the president’s executive order that ends the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.

White House Border Czar Tom Homan talks with reporters on the driveway outside the West Wing on March 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration lost a round Wednesday night in its attempts to use a wartime law for deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties.

The 2-1 decision by a U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel will keep in place a temporary restraining order to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and older under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, invoked by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration sent three deportation flights carrying more than 250 men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador after the restraining order was issued.

Judge Patricia A. Millett, a nominee of President Barack Obama, and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush, ruled that the Department of Justice did not meet the requirements to lift the order.

Henderson also noted a presidential proclamation signed by Trump did not set up a due process to allow those accused under the Alien Enemies Act to challenge it.

Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed by Trump, agreed with the Trump administration’s request to block the restraining order.

Shortly after the appeals court order, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit against the Trump administration, filed a request with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking for the temporary restraining order to be extended for another 14 days.

The ACLU noted it plans to file a preliminary injunction request on Friday “in which they intend to submit additional factual material so that there is a more complete record.”

A hearing on the preliminary injunction is set for April 8.

Bondi and state secrets privilege

Wednesday’s decision comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg from obtaining additional information about deportation flights carried out under the Alien Enemies Act.

The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.

Boasberg has sought detailed information about the timing of the three deportation planes to determine if the Trump administration violated his order.

From the bench on March 15, he gave a verbal order that blocked the use of the act and ordered anyone on the deportation flights subject to the Alien Enemies Act to be returned to the United States.

The Trump administration has said only two of the three planes carried Venezuelans subject to the proclamation.

Due process

Henderson, in her opinion, noted that the Trump administration “has yet to show a likelihood of success on the merits.”

In oral arguments before the appeals court Monday, the Department of Justice argued that the U.S. District Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case and that the Trump administration’s “conduct is lawful under the plain text of the Alien Enemies Act.”

Henderson also raised due process issues. She noted that the temporary restraining order is simply pausing “the summary removal of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador or other unknown locations without first affording them some semblance of due process to contest the legal and factual bases for removal.

“In the government’s view, based on its allegation alone, Plaintiffs can be removed immediately with no notice, no hearing, no opportunity—zero process—to show that they are not members of the gang, to contest their eligibility for removal under the law, or to invoke legal protections against being sent to a place where it appears likely they will be tortured and their lives endangered,” she said.

Millett in her opinion questioned why the Trump administration would ask for an emergency ruling to lift the order from Boasberg because “the government’s persistent theme for the last ten days has been that the district court’s oral direction regarding the airplanes was not a (Temporary Restraining Order) with which it had to comply.”

“But the one thing that is not tolerable is for the government to seek from this court a stay of an order that the government at the very same time is telling the district court is not an order with which compliance was ever required,” she said.  “Heads the government wins, tails the district court loses is no way to obtain the exceptional relief of a (Temporary Restraining Order) stay.”

Millett also criticized the Department of Justice for appealing to the circuit court first before trying the district court.

“I would deny the stay on this additional ground,” she said. “The government needs to play by the same rules it preaches. And it needs to respect court rules.”

Judge sides with DOJ

Walker, who appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments on Monday, sided with the Trump administration.

In his opinion he reiterated his stance from Monday’s oral arguments.

Walker again argued that the right way for Venezuelans to object to detention under the Alien Enemies Act is a habeas corpus claim, which is used to challenge an unjust imprisonment, including immigration detention.

The original five men who brought the suit under the Alien Enemies Act, before the federal judge moved to a class suit, were in a detention center in Texas, rather than the District of Columbia.

“The problem for the Plaintiffs is that habeas claims must be brought in the district where the Plaintiffs are confined,” he said. “For the named Plaintiffs at least, that is the Southern District of Texas.”

Tren de Aragua gang

Border Czar Tom Homan said Monday that he was confident that the more than 250 Venezuelans on the deportation flights were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to White House pool reports.

Homan said that he got “assurances from the highest levels of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that” everyone on the planes were members of the Tren de Aragua.

“We’re talking about terrorists,” he said. “These are not good people.”

Immigration attorneys for the men and family members have said those sent to the mega-prison had no criminal record or were in asylum proceedings before an immigration judge. 

The U.S. Supreme Court, as seen on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

This report was updated at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday overwhelmingly upheld a Biden-era regulation governing kits that can be assembled into untraceable firearms, also known as ghost guns.

In the 7-2 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch, the author of the opinion, said that the regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is “not inconsistent” with the Gun Control Act of 1968. The rule was written during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

In his opinion, Gorsuch said that the Gun Control Act allows the ATF to regulate “any weapon . . . which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.”

“Neither the rule of lenity nor constitutional avoidance applies where, as here, the statute’s text, context, and structure make clear it reaches some weapon parts kits and unfinished frames or receivers,” he continued.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent.

The case, Bondi v. VanDerStok, renamed to reflect Trump administration Attorney General Pam Bondi, raised the question before the high court as to whether a 2022 rule issued by ATF overstepped in expanding the definition of “firearms” to include “ghost guns” under a federal firearms law.

Wednesday’s ruling falls out of line with recent gun-related cases before the conservative-led Supreme Court that struck down a ban on bump stocks and struck down a New York law that banned concealed carry.

The nine justices initially heard oral arguments back in October.

Ghost guns are firearms without serial numbers. The kits can easily be bought online and quickly assembled in parts.

Law enforcement officials use serial numbers to track guns that are used in crimes and have raised concerns about how ghost guns can impede investigations involving firearms.

The regulation that was challenged by gun advocacy groups did not ban ghost guns, but instead required manufacturers of those firearm kits or parts to add a serial number to the products, as well as conduct background checks on potential buyers.

The ATF rule also clarified those kits are considered covered by the 1968 Gun Control Act under the definition of a “firearm.”

‘Buy Build Shoot’ kits

Gorsuch noted in his opinion that the statute in the Gun Control Act gives the ATF the authority to regulate any weapon designed to “expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” through two requirements.

The first is that there needs to be a “weapon.” The second is that “weapon” has to meet one of three criteria.

“It must be able to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive, designed to do so, or susceptible of ready conversion to operate that way,” he said.

The appeals court interpreted the ATF regulation as invalid because “no weapon parts kit” can meet those two requirements. Gorsuch said the high court did not agree.

“We disagree because, to our eyes, at least some kits will satisfy both,” he said.

In the Supreme Court’s reasoning, Gorsuch pointed to an example of a ghost gun kit – a Polymer80’s “Buy Build Shoot” kit.

He noted the kit came with all the tools needed to build a “Glock-variant semiautomatic pistol.”

“And it is so easy to assemble that, in an ATF test, an individual who had never before encountered the kit was able to produce a gun from it in 21 minutes using only ‘common’ tools and instructions found in publicly available YouTube videos,” Gorsuch said.

He said when assessing if the “Buy Build Shoot” kit applies to the two requirements, he first questioned if the word “weapon” could apply to a kit.

“Reflecting as much, everyday speakers sometimes use artifact nouns to refer to unfinished objects—at least when their intended function is clear,” he wrote. “A friend might speak of the table he just bought at IKEA, even though hours of assembly remain ahead of him.”

Gorsuch said the same logic can apply to the kit.

“But even as sold, the kit comes with all necessary components, and its intended function as instrument of combat is obvious,” he said. “Really, the kit’s name says it all: “Buy Build Shoot.”

As for the second requirement, Gorsuch noted the kit met it because “a person without any specialized knowledge can convert a starter gun into a working firearm using everyday tools in less than an hour.”

Thomas dissent

Justice Thomas argued that firearm kits do not meet “the statutory definition of ‘firearm.’”

Thomas also wrote the opinion on a 2022 decision that greatly expanded the Second Amendment by determining the New York concealed carry law violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

“The majority instead blesses the Government’s overreach based on a series of errors regarding both the standard of review and the interpretation of the statute,” he wrote in his dissent Wednesday. “Congress could have authorized ATF to regulate any part of a firearm or any object readily convertible into one. But, it did not.”

He argued that the ATF regulation rewrites what a “frame” and “receiver” is on a weapon. Thomas wrote that ghost guns do not meet this definition because they are “unfinished.”

Thomas also pushed back against the majority opinion on how easy it is to assemble a firearm through a kit.

“Special tools and an indeterminate amount of time are required to convert an unfinished weapon-parts kit into a functional weapon,” he said. “Thus, even assuming that the ordinary meaning of ‘weapon’ does not resolve whether the term includes weapon-parts kits, at minimum the term ‘weapon’ cannot encompass weapon-parts kits in ‘the same way’ it covers disassembled firearms.”

Voting booths set up at Madison, Wisconsin's Hawthorne Library on Election Day 2022. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Tuesday signed a sweeping executive order that overhauls the administration of U.S. elections, including requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.

It’s likely to face legal challenges from voting rights groups and Democratic state attorneys general.

The order is an extension of the president’s rhetoric on the campaign trail about noncitizens voting in federal elections and his crackdown on immigration since returning to office.

Trump has often pushed back against other issues in elections administration, railing against early voting and vote-by-mail. He falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him through voter fraud. 

Tuesday’s order aligns with a priority for House Republicans to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE, Act that would require proof of citizenship in federal elections. That bill, if signed into law, would codify parts of the executive order.

States are responsible for administering elections — even those at the federal level — but the order uses federal funding to compel states to follow it. Those that do not comply with the order will have federal funds revoked, according to the order.

The order directs the federal Election Assistance Commission, which distributes grants to states, within 30 days to start requiring people registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or state-issued identification that indicates citizenship.

The order also prohibits the counting of absentee or mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day. States set their own rules for ballot counting and many allow those that arrive after Election Day but postmarked before.

The order also instructs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along with Trump megadonor Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, to gain access to state voter rolls in order to ensure the voter lists are up to date. Those entities will also have access to immigration databases and states will be allowed to request DHS to verify if any noncitizen is on the state’s list of voters.

The Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a federal department, has come under scrutiny for the access it has been given to Americans’ private data housed in other federal departments.

The order instructs DHS Secretary Kristi Noem within 90 days to provide the attorney general “information on all foreign nationals who have indicated on any immigration form that they have registered or voted in a Federal, State, or local election, and shall also take all appropriate action to submit to relevant State or local election officials such information.”

While noncitizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections, certain municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow noncitizens to participate in local elections. If someone who is not a U.S. citizen votes, it could lead to a felony charge and subject that person to deportation.

Congressional Republicans and the president have taken aim at noncitizen voting, even though it’s extremely rare. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting.

Frankie Miranda, the president of the Hispanic Federation, speaks at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on March 25, 2025, with representatives from 130 nonprofits that advocate for Latino communities. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — In a Tuesday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, members of the Hispanic Federation detailed how the first three months of the Trump administration’s policies have harmed the Latino community rather than addressing economic concerns.

Frankie Miranda, the president of the federation, a nonprofit that focuses on civic engagement in the Latino community, said the president’s immigration crackdown has instilled fear and failed to tackle economic issues that influenced Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election, such as inflation and housing costs.

He said the revocation of legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants — many of them with work permits — will harm not only the Latino community but the economy overall.

“We want to ensure that our elected officials understand that this is going to have a negative impact on industries, on the economy,” he said. “This is going to have an impact on everyday Americans when you remove workers and people contributing and paying taxes to the economy.”

Grants yanked

Miranda, along with representatives from 130 nonprofits, will spend Wednesday meeting with lawmakers to talk to them about the economic contributions of Latinos and how President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations harm the community.

Miranda said the groups will also stress to lawmakers how the cancellations of federal grants, which were already approved by Congress, have led to staff layoffs and undercut services for the Latino community, from job training to legal aid.

Federation members were joined by Democratic Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida and Chuy Garcia of Illinois for Tuesday’s press conference.

“We saw that this election, the economy was the number one concern of voters across this entire country,” Frost said.

Some of the groups at the press conference included the Carolina Migrant Network of North Carolina and the Orlando Center for Justice, of Florida.

Stefanía Arteaga, who co-founded the Carolina Migrant Network, said the nonprofit is the only organization in North Carolina that provides free legal services for immigrants who are in immigration detention centers.

She said many of those people who have called her organization had their legal statuses revoked.

“This is part of a larger systematic failure and strategy by this administration to put people in deportation proceedings and use them as scapegoats,” Arteaga said.

Frost decried the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the revocation of the legal status of more than 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

He said those immigrants, along with more than 350,000 Venezuelans who have lost Temporary Protected Status, “now will face deportation,” by April 2.

“These are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends and our loved ones,” Frost said.

Garcia also slammed the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. High-profile raids have taken place in his district in Chicago. 

“Raids are terrorizing our communities, and this is a show of the abuse of state power,” Garcia said.

Federation contracts in limbo

In an interview with States Newsroom, Miranda said the Hispanic Federation has about $105 million in federal contracts that were approved by Congress but are now pending or on hold under the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has cancelled many federal contracts, zeroing in on those that address diversity, equity and inclusion. The White House has also canceled contracts with nonprofits that provide services for refugees and immigrants, from resettlement to legal services for unaccompanied minors.

Miranda said some of the contracts from the Hispanic Federation that are now frozen would award $1 million for legal services, $58 million for solar panel projects in Puerto Rico and $16 million to help people obtain digital skills for the workforce.

He said he believes these programs were targeted because they either aim to provide equity or promote environmental justice.

“We want to ensure that elected officials understand that in these efforts of efficiency, what you are creating is more chaos, disruption of essential services and (losing) the opportunity for the country to continue moving forward in the right direction and avoid the effects of falling into a recession,” Miranda said.

Karina Ayala-Bermejo, president of the Instituto Del Progreso Latino in Chicago, said for decades the nonprofit has provided free legal services for lawful permanent residents seeking to become naturalized citizens.

She said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cut her nonprofit’s federal contract worth $450,000.

“It is having us reconsider a fee-for-service model, that we know is going to create a substantial financial barrier on families who merely seek to be able to fully participate in the U.S. democracy,” Ayala-Bermejo said.

President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it during an indoor inauguration parade at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The executive order canceling refugee resettlement funding was among those Trump signed on his first day back in office. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday appealed a federal judge’s order that the State Department restore contracts to nonprofits that aid in refugee resettlement.

In a late Monday written order, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead of the Western District of Washington found the department unlawfully canceled contracts to the group, saying executive branch management of a refugee resettlement program did not extend to an order virtually eliminating it.

“While the Government enjoys significant discretion in administering (U.S. Refugee Admissions Program), that discretion does not extend to abandoning statutory obligations or rendering the program effectively inoperative,” Whitehead, whom President Joe Biden appointed to the bench, said in the order.

Whitehead gave the government until March 31 to submit a report showing that it is complying with the order.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an appeal Monday that will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Melissa Keaney, the lead attorney for International Refugee Assistance Project, the group representing the religious organization challenging the cancellations, said in a statement that “it’s time for the government to live up to its moral and legal obligations by fully restoring funding and access to this lifesaving program.”

“The court has been clear yet again,” she said. “The government’s efforts to dismantle the refugee resettlement system are unlawful and harming refugees whose lives have been thrown into limbo.”

Written order follows verbal

The additional injunction came after the State Department seemed to ignore a verbal injunction Whitehead granted from the bench last month ordering the Trump administration to restore the refugee processing services.

The department terminated its contracts with several religious groups providing refugee services just one day after Whitehead’s verbal order.

The lawsuit was filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, or HIAS. The suit also includes nine individuals who are affected by the pause in services, such as refugees who had their resettlement flights canceled, a local refugee sponsor and families trying to reunite.

The suit stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, as well as the administration’s withholding of funds appropriated by Congress for those services.

That order directed officials at the State Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to submit a report every 90 days to the White House about refugee resettlement. From that report, the president will then determine whether refugee resettlement is “in the interests of the United States.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on March 24, 2025, over a challenge of a lower court’s restraining order barring the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants under a wartime law. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice late Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block a federal judge from obtaining information about deportation flights carried out under a wartime law.

District of Columbia District Judge James E. Boasberg has been trying to determine if the Trump administration violated a restraining order he had placed in connection with the deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The Trump administration said Monday further details could not be provided about the flights to El Salvador, where the alleged gang members were sent to a mega-prison.

The filing, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, uses the state secrets privilege to refuse answering questions posed in a March 18 order from Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.

“The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it,” according to the DOJ filing. “Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address.”

In his March 18 order, Boasberg wanted details about what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when the immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

The DOJ filing cites national security issues and says that “confirming the exact time the flights departed, or their particular locations at some other time, would facilitate efforts to track those flights and future flights.”

“In turn, disclosing any information that assists in the tracking of the flights would both endanger the government personnel operating those flights and aid efforts by our adversaries to draw inferences about diplomatic negotiations and coordination relating to operations by the Executive Branch to remove terrorists and other criminal aliens from the country,” according to the filing. “Simply put, the Court has no cause to compel disclosure of information that would undermine or impede future counterterrorism operations by the United States.”

Appeals court action

The filing followed the Trump administration’s request for an emergency hearing before a District of Columbia federal appeals court.

A panel of three federal appellate judges seemed split Monday while hearing the Trump administration’s challenge of the lower court’s restraining order on the use of the wartime law to deport, without due process, the Venezuelan nationals. 

Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Donald Trump, appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments, while Judge Patricia A. Millett, whom Democratic President Barack Obama appointed, raised serious questions about due process.

The position of Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a President George H.W. Bush nominee who is the third member of the panel, spoke less than the others and revealed little about her position.

The panel will rule on the government’s challenge of the temporary restraining order placed by Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Justice Department argued the order undercut the president’s wartime authority and that the suit by civil rights groups should have been brought to a different court.

Groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union argued Boasberg’s order correctly defended due process protections.

The D.C. Circuit hearing followed back-and-forth hearings before Boasberg, who has vowed to determine whether the Trump administration violated his March 15 oral order to turn around deportation planes.

After Boasberg issued his order, three deportation planes still landed in El Salvador, with mostly Venezuelan men taken to a notorious mega-prison.

Shortly before Monday’s hearing, Boasberg rejected the latest Trump administration attempt to vacate his restraining order that barred use of the proclamation without due process.

In Monday’s order, Boasberg said anyone who is removed from the U.S. under the act is “entitled to individualized hearings.”

“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote. “Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well.”

Due process

Millett grilled Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on the Trump administration’s view on what due process should be granted to those subject to the proclamation, which states that any Venezuelan national 14 and older with suspected ties to the Tren de Aragua gang may be deported.

Ensign said the Trump administration doesn’t agree that those subject to the proclamation the president signed March 14 should be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act.

“We agree that if you bring habeas (corpus) that you can raise such challenges,” he said.

A habeas corpus claim asserts someone is unjustly imprisoned and can be used to challenge immigration detention.

Millett said the deportees had no opportunity to raise such a claim.

“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” Millett said, referring to German nationals who were able to have a hearing before a board to challenge their removal when the wartime law was invoked during World War II.

The act had previously been invoked only three times in U.S. history, all during wartime.

Millett questioned how the Venezuelans on the first two deportation planes could have challenged their deportations.

“Those people on those planes on that Saturday had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the (Alien Enemies Act),” she said.

Lee Gelernt, American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney, said that Venezuelans who were removed were “designated (Tren de Aragua) without any advance notice, rushed to planes” and given papers that “specifically says you are not entitled to review.” He said ACLU is preparing to enter that evidence into the court record.

Jurisdiction

Walker questioned the venue where the lawsuit was filed. He asked why the challenge wasn’t brought in a Texas district court, because the original five men who brought the suit were detained there.

Gelernt said a challenge could have been brought in Texas, but that it was not clear where all the detainees subject to the proclamation were being held.

“We certainly weren’t looking just to get our five individuals from being sent to a Salvadorian prison,” Gelernt said. “This would have had to be a class. If the government is suggesting that we could have gone in there for every individual, absolutely not. We did not know who had been designated. This has all been done in secret.”

Walker also questioned how a temporary restraining order could order planes that had already left the U.S. to return.

“I’m wondering if you can point me to a district court (temporary restraining order) or injunction that survived appeal that stopped an ongoing, partially overseas national security operation in the way that this… did (to) order planes to take foreigners from international waters to the United States,” Walker asked Gelernt.

Gelernt said that the issue before the appeals court was not about the order to return deportation planes.

“The government cannot take the position that it’s an interference, by this court, on national security grounds, to give people (due) process,” he said.

New court filings revealed several immigrants on the March 15 flights were returned to the U.S. from El Salvador. They include a Nicaraguan national and eight Venezuelan women who were returned because the mega-prison is for men only.

DOJ argues notice not needed

Ensign argued that the order blocking the implementation of the Alien Enemies Act wrongly constrained the president’s wartime authority.

Millett said that the issue wasn’t about the president’s authority to use the Alien Enemies Act, but how the administration used it.

“The question is whether the implementation of this proclamation without any process to determine whether people qualify under it,” she said.

She asked Ensign if the appeals court lifting the stay would lead to a situation where “people are lined up and put on planes without notice or time to file for habeas, even though the government agrees that … they have a right to have the decision made about whether they even qualify under the proclamation?”

Ensign reserved that option for the government.

“If the (temporary restraining order) is dissolved, the government believes there would not be a limitation and that the statute does not require such notice,” he said.  

American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday probed the U.S. Department of Justice about whether the Trump administration knowingly defied his court order to return deportation flights to the United States and questioned the president’s authority to invoke a wartime law during peacetime.

The case, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, will test President Donald Trump’s authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and apply it to any Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and up who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang amid his mass deportation plans.

Three deportation flights containing some Venezuelans subject to the proclamation that Trump signed last Friday were in transit when U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to block the removals. But the administration continued sending the men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

The Trump administration published a highly produced video detailing the operation, but has not been forthright with answers to questions Boasberg posed about it.

“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said Friday.

Wartime law

Boasberg also pressed the Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether the Trump administration can deport people under the Alien Enemies Act without allowing the deportees to prove they are not members or associated with the Tren de Aragua gang.

“How do they challenge that removal?” Boasberg asked.

The Alien Enemies Act allows nationals of a country deemed an enemy of the U.S. to be detained and deported without due process of law regardless of immigration status.

Boasberg also raised concerns of using the proclamation when the U.S. is not at war.

“The policy ramifications for this are incredibly troublesome,” Boasberg said of the Alien Enemies Act. “This is a long way from the heartland of the act.”

A panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Monday afternoon on the Trump administration seeking an emergency stay on the restraining order. 

Restraining order

Boasberg asked DOJ attorney Ensign to clarify how he interpreted the oral temporary restraining order issued on March 15.

He asked Ensign if he relayed to the Trump administration that his order included returning any Venezuelans back to the U.S. who were deported under the wartime authority.

“I understood your intent, that you meant that to be effective at that time,”  Ensign said of the oral temporary restraining order.

In filings, the Department of Justice has argued that Boasberg’s oral argument was not binding because it was not written.

For nearly a week, the Department of Justice has evaded pointed questions from Boasberg about the timing of the deportation flights on March 15.

Boasberg said Thursday he would give the Trump administration until Tuesday to submit a declaration on whether the government was invoking the state-secrets privilege and a brief “showing cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders by failing to return class members removed from the United States on the two earliest planes that departed on March 15, 2025.”

In Friday filings, Trump officials said they are currently having Cabinet-level conversations about using that privilege to block Boasberg from obtaining details about the timing of the deportation flights.

Flight location an issue

The Department of Justice has also argued that because the flights were no longer in U.S. airspace or territory when Boasberg issued the restraining order, they were not under U.S. courts’ jurisdiction.

Lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Lee Gelernt pushed back on that claim. He told Boasberg that some immigrants on those deportation flights to El Salvador were returned to the U.S. because of mistakes and that the El Salvadoran “government would not take them.”

He said that included someone who was not a Venezuelan national, and a woman because the mega-prison is for men only.

He said the ACLU will submit an affidavit late Friday with more details.

Gelernt said the ACLU is also questioning the type of removal for people on the third flight, even though the Trump administration said those on that flight had final orders of removal and were not subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

Gelernt argued that in immigration law, those with final orders are required to be notified what country they are being deported to. He said that was not the case with the immigrants on the third flight, which originally went to Honduras before heading to El Salvador.

“We asked the judge to clarify that with the government, because it seems very doubtful that Venezuelans had a final order that said you could be removed to El Salvador,” Gelernt said to reporters after Friday’s hearing.

The White House earlier this week said of the men on the deportation flights, 137 were alleged Tren de Aragua members and deported under the Alien Enemies Act.

Attorneys for several of the 238 Venezuelan men deported argue their clients are not members of the gang and were only targeted by immigration officials because they had tattoos and were Venezuelan nationals.  

El Salvador prison

Gelernt said that because the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to imprison the men, he believes those men who were deported under the wartime law can be returned, although it would be a lengthy process.

“I think we very much think the federal court can order the U.S. to get them out, since they’re constructively in U.S. custody,” he said outside the courtroom. “The U.S. is apparently paying for it all. (El Salvador is) doing it at the behest of the United States.”

Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that monitors human rights conditions around the world, has raised major concerns with the conditions of the prison and has noted that the group “is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.”

Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president, called this week for the men taken to the mega prison to be returned to Venezuela, calling on El Salvador president to “not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” according to CNN.

“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro said.

Several of the men who were transferred to El Salvador’s prison initially fled Venezuela because they experienced violence from officials after they partook in political protests against the Maduro regime, according to court filings. 

A section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near El Paso, Texas, on June 6, 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Among the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump signed on the first day he returned to the White House are five that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown. 

The administration has engendered huge controversy in recent days by employing the orders and a presidential proclamation to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants. Administration officials described the Venezuelans as gang members, put them on flights and sent them to a huge prison in El Salvador.

The wartime Alien Enemies Act, used only three times before, allows the president to detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a national from a country the United States deems an enemy.

Together, the interlocking executive orders and proclamation could provide the resources and legal footing needed for the Trump administration’s plans to deploy the military to deport and detain millions of people who are living in the United States without permanent legal status.

National security and military experts interviewed by States Newsroom raised concerns about this domestic deployment of armed forces that could result in violations of civil liberties, as well as the detainment and deportation of immigrants without due process. 

Additionally, the broad actions by the executive branch would test the courts on what guardrails, if any, could be placed on the president. Trump earlier this week  in a social media post called for the impeachment of the judge who questioned his use of the Alien Enemies Act in the case of the Venezuelans, bringing a stunning rebuke by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Besides the Alien Enemies Act, a second archaic law Trump is gearing up to invoke is the Insurrection Act of 1807. It gives the president the power to call on the military during an emergency to curb civilian unrest or enforce federal law in a crisis.

The Insurrection Act is also a statutory exception in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Trump vowed to use both the Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act while he campaigned for a second term.

“Invoking the Insurrection Act for immigration enforcement … would be unprecedented,” said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It would be an abuse, both because it’s not necessary, under the circumstances, and also because this is not what the Insurrection Act is for.”

Nonetheless, one Trump executive order directs the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense to issue a report by April 20 to the president with recommendations on whether or not to use the Insurrection Act to aid in mass deportations.

Orders woven together into an agenda

Trump’s five executive orders signed on Inauguration Day are:

• Securing our Borders;

• Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border;

• Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States;

• Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists;

• Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion.

The administration eyes its next moves while apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters for February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

The last time the Border Patrol averaged roughly 8,000 apprehensions per month in a fiscal year was in 1968, according to historical data obtained by the Texas Tribune.

In the executive order titled Securing our Borders, the Trump administration lays out its objectives for that U.S.-Mexico border, such as building barriers and barring migrants from entering the U.S. To carry that out, the president signed another executive order that declared a national emergency.

Chris Mirasola, a professor and national security expert at the University of Houston Law Center, said for roughly 20 years, there has been a military presence at the southern border assisting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with immigration enforcement.

“What made the Trump executive orders interesting was the kind of escalation trajectory that they kind of mapped out for us,” Mirasola said, noting the likely use of the Insurrection Act and Alien Enemies Act.

Since Inauguration Day, that executive order has allowed Trump to send nearly 9,200 troops to the southern border.

Emory University School of Law professor Mark Nevitt, a national security expert who also served in the Navy, notes the executive order declaring a national emergency is limited to the geographic location of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“He’s not tasking (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem to come up with a nationwide immigration enforcement. Having said that, of course, he can change (his mind), he’s the president,” he said.

Sending military to the southern border stretches back to former President George W. Bush in 2006. Over a two-year period, more than 30,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel were sent to the southern border to assist with numerous migrants from Central America.

Northern Command

Continued coordination between Defense and Homeland Security is laid out in another of the executive orders, the one on “clarifying the military’s role,” that reorganizes the U.S. Northern Command to focus on border security.

Northern Command, established after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to coordinate military and homeland security support with civilian authorities, under the Trump executive order has a new mission “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”

The legal underpinnings for Northern Command to carry this out, Mirasola said, are provisions in the Insurrection Act, which he adds is likely to face its own legal challenge.

“I kind of see this, perhaps surprisingly, long ramp up being a way for them to establish a factual record that they could use in litigation,” he said of the executive order that requests a report from DHS and DOD by April 20. 

Trump does not need a report or recommendation to invoke the Insurrection Act. It is an existing presidential authority granting him access to use all federal military forces, more than 1 million members. But his executive orders would undergird his expected use of the act.

“I think it’s no surprise that he’s thinking about using the military for immigration enforcement,” Nevitt said of the president.

The request for a report by April 20, Nevitt said, could be “a way to set up the politics of declaring the Insurrection Act.”

Historically the Insurrection Act, which has only been invoked 30 times, is typically focused on an area of great civil unrest that has overwhelmed law enforcement, Nevitt said.

The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was 1992, during the Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted in the brutal beating of Black motorist Rodney King. 

Federal troops were deployed with local law enforcement to a domestic violence situation. Because of the difference in training between the two, it resulted in soldiers opening fire onto a Los Angeles residence. No one was injured, but more than 200 bullets were fired.

“Soldiers are not trained to do law enforcement,” Nunn, with the Brennan Center, said.

He added that this kind of use could also lead to violations of civil liberties, even though the use of the Insurrection Act does not suspend constitutional rights and he argues is not limitless.

“When the military is operating under the Insurrection Act, they are assisting civilian authorities, not taking their place,” Nunn said.

‘The magic word’

Two of the executive orders — one designating cartels as terrorist organizations and another on protection of the states — could lead to the rapid detention and deportation of immigrants by using the Alien Enemies Act.

“In one of those early executive orders is a magic word that you should be sensitive to,” said Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School. “And the magic word is ‘invasion.’”

The Trump administration designated the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as a terrorist organization in its use in mid-March of the Alien Enemies Act. 

A federal judge has already blocked the use of the law. However, civil rights groups charge that the Trump administration continued to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants, and a federal judge is demanding clear answers from the administration about the deportation flights.

The Trump administration has defended the deportation flights and Trump has cited his duty to protect Americans from an “invasion.”

“The big question, obviously, is, what constitutes an invasion?” Dycus asked. “In the first Trump administration, the influx of immigrants from the southwest were characterized that way. So I think that’s part of the groundwork that’s being laid.” 

Ilya Somin, an expert in constitutional law and professor at George Mason University, disagrees with the Trump administration’s argument declaring the Tren de Aragua gang as an “invasion” in order to form the legal basis for using the Alien Enemies Act.

The use of the act can circumvent judicial proceedings, based on an immigrant’s country of origin. It’s been invoked in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II and most recently led to the Japanese internment camps.

“The attempt to declare them to be terrorist organizations could be part of an effort to sort of get courts to defer and to accept the invasion framing, and possibly also to accept the use of the Alien Enemies Act,” Somin said.

Targeting Venezuela

In speeches, rallies and social media posts, Trump has often accused Venezuela of sending criminals and gang members to the U.S., despite during his first administration granting deportation protections for Venezuelans, citing the political and economic instability of the Maduro regime.

The Trump administration has pressured the Venezuela government to begin accepting deportation flights of its nationals. Noem has already moved to end temporary protected status for one group of 350,000 Venezuelans, subjecting them to fast-track deportations. Noem cited gang activity as one of her factors in not extending protections.

Somin said that for the Alien Enemies Act to be used, an “invasion” needs to be undertaken by a foreign government.

“Even if the cartels are terrorist organizations, which I deny, they are not foreign governments,” he said.

Katherine Yon Ebright, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said that using the act to go after suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang could ensnare many Venezuelan immigrants, regardless of legal status. 

“You’re getting the ability, really, to target any Venezuelan, age 14 (and up), who’s not a U.S. citizen,” she said of the Alien Enemies Act. “And you don’t have to explain yourself, you don’t have to prove anything.”

Guantanamo

Using a memo rather than an executive order, although related, the Trump administration has already ramped up use of the military in immigration duties, using military aircraft to return migrants to their home countries or to send immigrants to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The base was used to house suspected terrorists in the 9/11 attacks. 

“I think it’s actually a bellwether for understanding how far this escalation trajectory the administration plans to go, because the detention that’s happening at Guantanamo Bay is a big concern,” Mirasola said.

The use of the naval base comes as the Trump administration has tried to increase detention bed space capacity, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is only funded to hold roughly 41,500 beds across the country.

Trump has instructed his administration to hold up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo. There are currently no immigrants detained at the base, though its use has not been ruled out.

But the actions of signing executive orders or memos or proclamations can only go so far, experts say.

“Implementing his commitment to use the military to round up immigrants is not going to be easy,” Dycus, of Vermont Law, said. “Logistically, it’s going to really take a lot of effort and a lot of personnel to do it.”

A Texas National Guardsman observes as Border Patrol agents pat down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing, May 10, 2023. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is gearing up to militarize a stretch of the southern border, according to a Washington Post report Thursday, raising concerns from experts that the move would put U.S. military members in direct contact with migrants, a possible violation of federal law.

The White House is mulling the creation of a military satellite installation across the 60-foot-deep strip of federal land known as the Roosevelt Reservation, according to the report.

The move would create a military buffer zone stretching across the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, California and New Mexico, and mean any migrant crossing into the United States would be trespassing on a military base, allowing active-duty troops to hold them until border patrol agents arrive.

Nearly 10,000 military personnel have already been deployed to the southern border, but creating the military buffer zone would be an escalation of the Trump administration’s ramp-up of the use of the U.S. military in its plans for mass deportation of immigrants without permanent legal status, which experts say would be illegal.

“The use of active-duty military for what clearly amounts to law enforcement on the border is absolutely, plainly illegal,” Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School, said during a Thursday interview. “It’s a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.”

The 1878 law generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement.

Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office of Latin America, a research and advocacy group that aims to advance human rights in North and South America, said the escalation of military presence at the border is new.

He added that the military being used to operate deportation flights has “involved an uncomfortable amount of contact between soldiers and migrants.”

“Most of the military that have been sent (to the border) over the years have been a couple thousand National Guard members at a time — a pretty low-level mission,” Isacson said. “So that chance of contact between the soldiers and civilians on U.S. soil (was) very, very, very, very slim. That’s all changing now.”

A Pentagon spokesperson told States Newsroom in an email Thursday that the department has “nothing to announce at this time” regarding the establishment of a base along stretches of the border.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The scenario could spark further legal challenges against the Trump administration, which is already in hot water for potentially defying a federal judge’s order to halt deportation flights of Venezuelans under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.

Transformation of military role

While sending activity duty to the southern border has occurred for more than 20 years in intelligence and logistics roles, military members do not engage in immigration enforcement.

During a visit to the border Feb. 3, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters “guys and gals of my generation have spent decades in foreign countries guarding other people’s borders. It’s about time we secure our own border.”

“All options are on the table,” Hegseth said.

Joseph Nunn, liberty and national security counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, said during a Thursday interview he would expect the Trump administration to face lawsuits for essentially using the military for civilian law enforcement.

“This is a transparent ruse to try to evade the Posse Comitatus Act by taking advantage of something called the military purpose doctrine,” Nunn said.

Under that doctrine, Nunn said, the military can maintain order or take action to further other military purposes, even if the action does have incidental benefits to civilian law enforcement. For example, if a drunken driver attempts to drive onto a base, military police can detain them before handing them over to civilian law enforcement.

But Nunn said specifically installing a base along the border as a way for the military to detain migrants as trespassers has not been tried before.

“It’s an abuse of the doctrine and one that the courts should reject because in that circumstance the military installation will have been created and the soldiers will have been stationed there for the purpose of assisting with a civilian law enforcement operation,” Nunn said. “That is immigration enforcement.”

Migrant encounters down

Transferring federal land to the Department of Defense, which because it’s fewer than 5,000 acres doesn’t need congressional approval, comes at a time when border encounters are relatively low.

Apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters reported in February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

The trend started in February of last year due to Mexico increasing immigration enforcement and policies under the Biden administration that limited asylum claims between ports of entry, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration think tank.

“As with any change in administration, and this was true of the first Trump administration, because of the general rhetoric around immigration, we did see kind of an initial decrease, so it’s not altogether surprising to see that decrease,” Putzel-Kavanaugh, who studies migration trends along the border, said.

“There’s kind of a general wait-and-see period of people trying to figure out what makes the most sense in terms of their own needs and in their journey,” she added.

The sections along the southern border that the Trump administration is eyeing – U.S. Border Patrol sectors based in San Diego; Tucson, Arizona; and El Paso, Texas – are “consistently the busiest,” she said.

Putzel-Kavanaugh added that it’s typical for migration patterns between sectors to change.

“I think it’s certainly plausible to assume that, if they have this militarization campaign across sort of the western side of the border, it’s likely that flows will then start going east,” she said.

Reaction from New Mexico lawmakers

Democrats slammed the idea, questioning why defense funding should be used at the border as global conflict increases.

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, expressed skepticism about relying on defense resources to solve migration issues.

“Securing our border and protecting the safety of New Mexicans is a top priority, which is why I supported the bipartisan border security agreement — an effort that was ultimately killed by then-candidate Donald Trump,” Luján said in a statement.

“Diverting military resources for this purpose would weaken our military readiness. There is broad bipartisan consensus that we need comprehensive immigration reform and stronger border security, but not at the expense of existing defense missions.”

Rep. Gabe Vasquez, also a New Mexico Democrat, said in a statement the reported plan is “yet another reckless and wasteful proposal that does nothing to fix our broken immigration system.”

“In a time of global uncertainty, our military resources are best used to combat serious international threats abroad,” Vasquez said.

The offices for the Republican-led Senate and House committees on the Armed Forces did not respond to requests for comment.

Source New Mexico editor Julia Goldberg contributed to this report.

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele said hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to a prison in his country under the Alien Enemies Act would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer.  In this photo, he delivers a speech during the first press conference of the year at Casa Presidencial on Jan. 14, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In new court briefings Thursday, attorneys for several Venezuelan immigrants say their clients either had no criminal record or had cases before an immigration judge when they were deported under the Trump administration’s wartime authority — despite a federal judge ordering the return of the flights to the United States.

Attorneys for four men who were sent to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador said their clients had two things in common: They were accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 the president invoked, and they all had tattoos.

Among those four men deported were a professional soccer player; a father whose son is a U.S. citizen; a political activist who protested the Maduro regime in Venezuela; and an asylum seeker. 

238 Venezuelans on flights

Last week, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allowed the rapid deportation of Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

“If the President can label any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there,” the American Civil Liberties Union, which originally filed the suit, wrote in recent court briefings.

The White House confirmed 238 Venezuelans were deported and flown to El Salvador, but is refusing to answer detailed questions about the timing of the March 15 flights, after a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order that same day on use of the wartime authority.

Thursday’s filings also included sworn statements from four attorneys who had clients initially on the deportation flights heading to the prison in El Salvador, but were removed before the plane left the U.S.

In separate accounts, the four men who disembarked the plane and questioned what was happening said they were told by an immigration official they had “won the lottery” because they were not being deported that day.

The eight exhibits by attorneys came just before a Friday hearing before U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia, who is pressing the government for more details on the timing of the two deportation flights. 

Hard labor

The prison that the men were taken to, known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, has concerned human rights groups like the Human Rights Watch.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that the men deported from the U.S. to his country would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. government paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the men.

In a court filing with the ACLU, Juanita Goebertus, the director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said that “the Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as ‘terrorists,’ and has said that they ‘will never leave.’”

“Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison,” she said.

Tattoos of crowns, rosary, flowers

One of the men taken to CECOT is Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player who marched in two political demonstrations protesting the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, his attorney, Linette Tobin, wrote.

Barrios came to the U.S. in 2024 using the CBP One app, a tool the Biden administration used to help migrants make appointments with asylum officers. The Trump administration shut down the app on the president’s first day in office and have repurposed the app as a self-deportation tool.

Tobin said that Barrios, who had no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela, applied for asylum and had a court hearing in April.

She said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused Barrios of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang because of his tattoos. He has a tattoo on his arm with a soccer ball and a crown on top, with a rosary.

“DHS alleges that this tattoo is proof of gang membership,” Tobin said. “In reality, he chose this tattoo, because it is similar to the logo for his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.”

Another attorney, Austin Thierry, said his client, E.V., fled Venezuela after being tortured by officials for participating in a protest against the regime.

Since E.V. has been in ICE detention, “his partner and infant son have struggled to meet their expenses and maintain housing,” Thierry said, adding that his client’s son is a U.S. citizen.

“EV has various tattoos, such as tattoos of anime, flowers, and animals, that he chose to get for personal and artistic reasons,” Thierry said.

“E.V. also has a tattoo of a crown, which may be why ICE falsely accused him of gang membership. However, this crown is not related to Tren de Aragua but rather, a tribute to his grandmother whose date of death appears at the base of the crown.”

Asylum cases pending

Another immigration attorney, Katherine Kim, said her client, referred to as L.G., had a pending asylum case and that ICE alleged he was associated with Tren de Aragua.

She said L.G. denied being a member and has three tattoos.

“One is a rosary, the other is his partner’s name, and the third is a rose and a clock,” she said. “None of these tattoos are related to Tren de Aragua gang membership or membership in any other gang.”

Immigration attorney Osvaldo Caro-Cruz, said his client, JABV, fled Venezuela due to political persecution and applied for asylum through the CBP One app.

“His tattoos are a Rose, a Clock and a Crown with his son’s name on it,”  Caro-Cruz wrote in a court filing. “These are common in Venezuela and bear no exclusive association with gang affiliation.”

Caro-Cruz said he was able to determine that JABV was deported to the prison in El Salvador because the president, Bukele, published a video and JABV’s brother recognized him.

Tattoo artist

Another filing was by Solanyer Michell Sarabia Gonzalez, who said he fears his younger brother was sent to El Salvador.

Both brothers have asylum cases pending. When they went to their ICE check-in appointment, the younger one, 19-year-old Anyelo Jose Sarabia, was asked about his hand tattoo by an immigration official and later detained.

Sabaria has no criminal record and is a tattoo artist.

Gonzalez said he can no longer find his brother on the ICE detainee locator.  

“I am extremely concerned about the health and safety of my little brother,” he wrote in his court filing. 

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday refused to provide further details about deportation flights that were in flight when a federal judge issued an order blocking the invocation of the wartime law used to authorize the removals.

In new court filings, the Department of Justice said two deportation flights to El Salvador and Honduras were not subject to a restraining order from U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg because they were no longer in U.S. territory or airspace when the order was issued.

In a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department would not answer further questions about those flights, contradicting Boasberg’s order late Monday calling for the administration to answer four specific questions about details of the operation.

“The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were ‘removed,’ before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions,” according to the notice.

“The Government stands on those arguments.”

In response to the filing, Boasberg issued a new order, giving the administration until noon Eastern on Wednesday to give those details under seal.

Specifically, he is asking what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when those immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

The Department of Justice has also argued that an oral order given by Boasberg was “not enforceable” because it was not a written order.

Fighting the judicial order

In a temporary restraining order barring President Donald Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang, Boasberg also ordered those flights carrying Venezuelan men to return to the U.S. Those men instead were taken to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

Boasberg on Monday demanded sworn statements from the Department of Justice to determine if the Trump administration relied on the Alien Enemies Act to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador, which would have violated his Saturday temporary restraining order.

In the Tuesday notice signed by Bondi, the Department of Justice also argued that “the Government should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations.”

Another hearing before Boasberg is set for Friday afternoon.

Authority for deportations

Robert Cerna, the acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a signed statement to the court that the immigrants on a third deportation flight after the Saturday restraining order were not removed under the Alien Enemies Act, but under a separate final removal authority known as Title 8.

“To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue,” he said.

Boasberg issued his temporary restraining order Saturday around 6:48 p.m. Eastern, according to court filings. One of the flights landed in Honduras at 7:36 p.m. Eastern and the other flight landed in El Salvador at 8:02 p.m. Eastern.

Cerna also clarified that the president signed the proclamation invoking the wartime law on Friday, but that ICE understood the proclamation went into effect after the White House published it Saturday afternoon.

Cerna said there are roughly 258 additional immigrants who would be subject to the proclamation. Of those people, Cerna said that 54 were already detained.

18th-century law

The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times, all when the U.S. was at war with other countries. The most recent was during World War II, when it led to the rapid detention and internment camps of nationals from Japan, Italy and Germany.

The U.S. is not at war with another country, and Congress has not approved a declaration of war. The Trump administration has argued that by designating the Tren de Aragua gang as a terrorist group, the act can be invoked.

The White House has defended the deportation flights and has argued that it has not violated the court’s order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident it will be successful in court.

She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.

Appeals

The president has lashed out against the temporary restraining order, even calling for the impeachment of Boasberg, along with other federal judges who have ruled against his administration.

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!,” Trump wrote on social media.

It prompted a rare statement of rebuke from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

The Trump administration has already appealed the temporary restraining order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In that appeal, the Justice Department asked the appellate court to remove the case from Boasberg, taking issue with his decision to agree to a class action lawsuit, rather than apply the restraining order to the original five men in the suit.

The American Civil Liberties Union originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.

The case is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Monday ordered the U.S. government to provide answers about details of the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants under an 18th-century wartime law after civil rights groups alleged that the administration defied the court’s restraining order reversing the deportations.

The Department of Justice was given four directives by U.S. Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia that are due in a filing by noon on Tuesday. Among the requirements is a sworn statement that the government did not rely on the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for the authority to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador over the weekend, which would have violated his Friday temporary restraining order.

According to the order, if “the Government takes the position that it will not provide that information to the Court under any circumstances, it must support such position, including with classified authorities if necessary.”

The American Civil Liberties Union wrote in court briefings that the government violated a court order by not turning around deportation flights headed to Honduras and El Salvador late Saturday, despite a restraining order in place hours prior to the flights’ landing.

Four directives

The Trump administration tried to dismiss the case, but Boasberg rejected the motion.

Prior to Monday’s late emergency hearing, the Department of Justice defended the Trump administration’s deportation flights, arguing in a court filing that the federal judge’s “oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction.”

At Monday’s hearing, Boasberg ordered the Department of Justice to issue a sworn declaration that after he issued a restraining order Saturday, none of the men on the deportation flights were removed on the grounds of the Alien Enemies Act.

He also wants to know when the president signed the proclamation and when it went into effect.

Boasberg also asked the Justice Department to report how many people would be subject to the act who are in the U.S. and how many of those people are in custody.

He is asking Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration’s “position on whether, and in what form, it will provide answers to the Court’s questions regarding the particulars of the flights,” according to the order.

President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon posted a highly produced, dramatized video showing what appeared to be the deported migrants in uniform garb, chained, with their hair and beards forcibly shaved by armed prison guards in El Salvador. The men in the video were shoved into maximum security cells in the huge El Salvador prison known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.

“Beyond the concerns raised by the government’s own letter, there has been significant media reporting that Defendants may have defied the Court’s Order,” the ACLU wrote, referring to the Trump administration.

Appeal already filed

The Trump administration has already appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and has urged that court to remove the case from Boasberg.

In a Monday filing to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued that the lower court overreached its authority.

“The Government cannot—and will not—be forced to answer sensitive questions of national security and foreign relations in a rushed posture without orderly briefing and a showing that these questions are somehow material to a live issue,” according to the filing.

The Trump administration is also appealing the lower court’s decision to allow a class action suit to include anyone who is subjected to the proclamation the president issued over the weekend. The ACLU originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.

“The district court has enjoined the President from using his statutory and constitutional authority to address what he has identified as an invasion or predatory incursion by a group undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare,” the Trump administration wrote in its Sunday appeal.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident they are “going to win in court.”

She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.

The high-profile dispute is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Saturday’s events

The administration had said in a presidential proclamation published Saturday it would be using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, last invoked during World War II, to detain and remove anyone 14 or older who is a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang, the Tren de Aragua.

In the proclamation, President Donald Trump said he will detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a suspected member of the Tren de Aragua. There is a carve out for naturalized citizens and lawful permanent residents, or green card holders. 

“Evidence irrefutably demonstrates that (Tren de Aragua) has invaded the United States and continues to invade, attempt to invade, and threaten to invade the country; perpetrated irregular warfare within the country; and used drug trafficking as a weapon against our citizens,” according to the Trump proclamation. “As President of the United States and Commander in Chief, it is my solemn duty to protect the American people from the devastating effects of this invasion.”

To block that use of the Alien Enemies Act, the ACLU and other civil rights groups filed an emergency request before Boasberg in the District of Columbia, and a hearing was held at 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Boasberg was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2011.

Flight records and court briefing show that two U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement flights departed from Texas Saturday – one at 5:45 p.m. Eastern for El Salvador and one at 5:26 p.m. Eastern for Honduras.

Roughly an hour later, Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order and, in his order, told the government to turn around any deportation flights that were currently in the air.

“[A]ny plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said, according to the court’s transcript. “However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”

Both flights landed after the orders were given by Boasberg, ACLU argues in its court records.

A third Saturday flight left from Texas to Honduras at 7:37 p.m. Eastern, according to flight records and court briefings.

In filings to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued that the district court did not have the jurisdiction to issue the temporary restraining order and that the president has the authority to use the Alien Enemies Act.

On Sunday, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on social media, reposted a news story about the deportation flights that had continued despite a court order.

He responded, “Oopsie… Too late.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted the response from El Salvador’s president from his personal account.

Rubio has traveled to El Salvador and met with Bukele to talk about accepting deportations of nationals from other countries. In those meetings, Bukele agreed to accept “members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang” and place them in jail, according to State Department records. 

Due process concerns

U.S. immigration law already gives the authority to investigate, arrest and remove immigrants who are engaging in criminal activity or harm in the country, and the wartime authority to go after the Tren de Aragua is not needed, said Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

She said Trump invoking the wartime authority is not about “going after people who are provably committing crimes or harming American communities.”

“It’s about going after Venezuelans without due process because this law gives the president the power to say that … they’re dangerous, and just remove them without proving anything to an independent adjudicator, without any evidence that actually underlies that determination,” she said.

Immigrants subject to the Alien Enemies Act would not have access to an immigration judge or court hearing under the law.

Saturday’s proclamation is similar to an executive order the president signed on Inauguration Day, titled Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

He previewed in his inauguration speech his intentions to designate cartels as foreign terrorist groups in order to use the Alien Enemies Act.

“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” Trump said during the Jan. 20 address.

In order for the Alien Enemies Act to be invoked, an invasion by a foreign government must occur, and in the executive order relating to the cartels, the Trump administration argues that they are a foreign entity. The cartels that the Trump administration singles out in the order are the MS-13 gang and the Tren de Aragua.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has already revoked protections granted to roughly half a million Venezuelans under the Biden administration. In early February, she declined to renew Temporary Status Protections for 350,000 Venezuelans that are set to expire April 2. In her reasoning, she cited gang activity.

Ebright noted that the last time the act was invoked, during World War II, many of the Japanese, Italian and German immigrants who were detained had some form of legal status.

“I would put money on it that this proclamation is going to cover people who are lawfully present,” she said.

Historical use of Alien Enemies Act

The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked was after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

But even after World War II ended in 1945, the Alien Enemies Act was still in place for several years, along with the continuation of internment camps, because Congress and the president had not formally terminated the declaration of war, Ebright said.

She said that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld then-President Harry Truman’s extended use of the Alien Enemies Act three years after World War II on the grounds that “it would be too political for the courts to intercede and say that this wartime authority had lapsed.”

“That is something that makes talking about the Alien Enemies Act and the potential for abuse very important, but it doesn’t mean that the courts truly are powerless to step in and prevent a clear abuse of the authority right,” she said.

Ebright said there’s a distinction between the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II and present day.

“Today, you don’t have anything remotely close to a wartime context,” she said. “Judges have eyes, they can see that there has not been a second Pearl Harbor perpetrated by a gang.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth receives a briefing from Navy Adm. Alvin Hosley at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Feb. 25. 2025.(Photo by Army Staff Sgt. ShaTyra Cox)

WASHINGTON — A federal district court judge late Friday denied a temporary restraining order request from legal advocacy groups seeking access to their clients while they were detained at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following a last-minute transfer by the Trump administration.

Because there are no longer any detainees at Guantanamo, the request was denied by U.S. District of Columbia Judge Carl J. Nichols, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019.

He also denied a request in a separate suit brought before him to bar the potential transfer of 10 individual detainees to Guantanamo because it had not happened yet and therefore could not constitute irreparable harm.

“None of these 10 plaintiffs is currently detained at Guantanamo Bay,” Nichols said of the second request.

Nichols is hearing both cases related to immigration detention at Guantanamo after Trump directed his administration to prepare for up to 30,000 beds there to be used for detention space as part of his plans for mass deportations.

The first suit argued the Trump administration denied legal access to migrants at the base.

The second challenged the legal authority of the Trump administration to send immigrants on U.S. soil and without legal status to a military base outside the country.

The second suit also included the request to block 10 detainees’ potential transfer. Nichols said he was skeptical the detainees would fit the “high profile” that would warrant detention at the base.

Taken to Louisiana

The American Civil Liberties Union filed both suits on behalf of legal aid groups for the immigrants and their family members.

Within days of the hearing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred all detainees — including the ones whose family filed suits on behalf of them — from Guantanamo to the U.S. mainland in Louisiana.

The ACLU’s Lee Gelernt, who argued on behalf of the advocacy groups and families and 10 individuals, said the federal government has twice cleared out all migrants from Guantanamo just before court hearings.

Even though there are now no immigrants at the base, there is irreparable harm because detainees have been chained, strip searched and subjected to “the general trauma of being sent to a military base,” Gelernt said.

He argued that it’s unprecedented for an administration to transfer detainees already on U.S. soil to a military base.

Gelernt argued that the Trump administration was using detention at Guantanamo Bay “for general deterrence.”

He noted how highly publicized the administration had made transfers to the base, distributing photos and using military planes.

Judge skeptical

Nichols seemed skeptical the Trump administration had admitted to using detention as an immigration deterrent.

“They’re saying mass removal is the deterrent, not sending people to Gitmo,” Nichols said. 

Nichols also raised issue with the family members who filed on behalf of the men who were taken to Guantanamo Bay. He said that because those  detainees are back on U.S. soil, they should be allowed to bring their own suit.

Additionally, he said because those individuals were no longer at Guantanamo, the harm of the family members “has already subsided.”

However, Nichols said that “there’s a serious question on the government’s authority to open detention facilities (that) extends to military bases overseas.”

Nichols also told U.S. Department of Justice attorneys that the court should be notified if one of the 10 individuals in the suit trying to bar the government from sending those detainees to Guantanamo is transferred to the naval base.

Gelernt pressed to have the Department of Justice give notice before any transfer occurred, but Nichols held off on immediately doing that.

Nichols asked the Department of Justice attorneys to determine with the Department of Homeland Security how quickly a notification can be made to the court and asked them to report back an answer by Wednesday.

Last month, a judge in New Mexico blocked the Trump administration from moving three men detained in that state to Guantanamo. Less than 24 hours after the judge blocked the transfer, ICE deported the three men back to Venezuela. 

The Trump administration Thursday called on the U.S. Supreme Court to take action on three cases from lower courts dealing with the president's executive order ending the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.  (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Thursday called on the U.S. Supreme Court to limit the scope of three nationwide injunctions from lower courts against the president’s executive order ending the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. 

It’s the first time the administration has asked the high court to intervene in cases challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that aims to redefine birthright citizenship, under which children born in the United States are legal citizens.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris is asking the Supreme Court to scale back the nationwide injunctions to apply to only the individual plaintiffs in the cases brought before federal courts in Maryland and Washington, or 18 people.

The Trump administration is asking for a full stay of a third suit filed by Democratic attorneys general in Massachusetts.

Harris argued “universal injunctions compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions….”

“These cases — which involve challenges to the President’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order concerning birthright citizenship — raise important constitutional questions with major ramifications for securing the border,” she wrote in her emergency request. “At a minimum, this Court should stay all three preliminary injunctions to the extent they prohibit executive agencies from developing and issuing guidance explaining how they would implement the Citizenship Order in the event that it takes effect.”

Appeals underway

The Trump administration has appealed to the 4th Circuit of Appeals the case from Maryland, brought by two nonprofits — Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and CASA — that represent five women who are currently pregnant and do not have legal status. Other individual plaintiffs belong to the two organizations.

The Department of Justice has also appealed to the 1st Circuit the case out of Massachusetts brought by Democratic attorneys general.

The third case is in Washington state and the Trump administration has appealed to the 9th Circuit. It was filed by attorneys general from Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington state and includes two individual plaintiffs.

The executive order that brought a flurry of legal challenges says that the federal government will not recognize or issue citizenship documentation to any child born after Feb. 19 to parents who are in the country without proper authorization, or if the parent is in the United States on a temporary visa and the other parent is a noncitizen or green card holder.

14th Amendment

The Supreme Court in 1898 upheld the 14th Amendment, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, extending birthright citizenship.

In that case, Ark was born in San Francisco, California, to parents who were citizens of the Republic of China, but had legal authority to be in the country. Ark’s citizenship was not recognized when he left the United States and he was denied reentry due to the Chinese Exclusion Act— a racist law designed to restrict and limit nearly all immigration of Chinese nationals.

The high court ruled that children born in the United States to parents who were not citizens automatically become citizens at birth.

Attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration have argued that the case was misinterpreted.

The Trump administration contends that the phrase in the 14th Amendment means that birthright citizenship only applies to children born to parents who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. That would mean, under their view, people in the U.S. without legal status or temporary legal status are “subject to the jurisdiction” of their country of origin. 

President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 24, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Monday that tariffs would be placed on Canada and Mexico, and additional ones on China, beginning Tuesday, a move that could affect the cost of goods anywhere from tequila to cars to iPhones.

While at the White House, and alongside Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the president said he would levy 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and additional 10% tariffs on China.

“The tariffs, they’re all set. They take effect tomorrow,” Trump said.

Trump said that there was “no room left for Mexico or Canada” to make a deal with the United States to avoid the tariffs, which are meant to punish those countries for fentanyl trafficking.

“Just so you understand, vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from Mexico, and as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico and goes to Canada,” Trump said.

The comments came during an event at the White House to tout building new semiconductor manufacturing plants in Arizona.

Trump also argued that the tariffs would encourage Canada and Mexico to build car manufacturing plants in the U.S. to avoid being hit by the tariffs.

“What they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs,” Trump said.

Stocks quickly slipped after the announcement. Tariffs are essentially taxes on foreign goods that are paid by those importing the goods.

Trump initially walked back his threat of placing tariffs on Feb. 1 on Mexico and Canada, but still placed a 10% tariff on China. He gave Mexico and Canada a month to address drug trafficking and unauthorized immigration.

Last week, Trump said that he would instead place tariffs on April 2, and then over the weekend said March 4 would be the date for tariffs.

Democrats have raised issues with tariffs, especially those from states that border Canada.

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said during a Monday press conference that Trump’s threats of tariffs have already impacted the U.S. – Canada economic relationship.

“We depend on our trading partnerships with Canada on a broad range of products and things,” Murray said. “We are already seeing our Northern communities that rely on tourism from Canada drop significantly because of the way they’re being treated.”

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said during the press conference that the tariffs would harm farmers as well.

“This has been one of the, really, crown jewels of (the) American economy, the fact that we are able to export agriculture and have free trade back and forth,” Klobuchar said.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.