President Trump’s deportation in March of more than 200 alleged gang members from Venezuela to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador has emerged as a flashpoint in his administration’s use of wartime powers to expel immigrants.
Lawyers for those deported say the March 15 operation circumvented due process and swept up those who are not gang members. The Supreme Court is now poised to weigh in on how the White House has sought to apply the Alien Enemies Act, which had previously only been invoked by presidents in time of war.
A team of reporters from The New York Times reviewed court filings and government documents and interviewed government officials and lawyers for deportees and their relatives to reconstruct how the United States secured the deal with El Salvador and seized on the law to supercharge its deportation efforts.
Here are five takeaways.
El Salvador’s president pressed the U.S. for assurances that the deportees had gang ties.
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has championed President Trump and his immigration agenda and publicly celebrated the arrival of the deportees from the United States. But behind the scenes, Mr. Bukele expressed concern about who the United States sent to be imprisoned in his new Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, according to according to people familiar with the situation and documents obtained by The New York Times.
During the negotiations, Mr. Bukele told U.S. officials he would take only what he described as “convicted criminals” from other countries. He made it clear that he did not want migrants from other nations whose only crime was being in the United States illegally.
Almost immediately after the deportations, a senior U.S. official told colleagues that Mr. Bukele wanted evidence that all 238 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador were members of Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang with roots in Venezuela, as the Trump administration had promised.
U.S. officials rushed to provide Mr. Bukele with information they had compiled, which included a scorecard in which each man was designated a gang member based on points for certain affiliations and activities, such as having a range of tattoos.
The scramble underscored the haphazard nature of the deportation operation and deepened questions about whether the Trump administration sufficiently assessed who it sent to a prison designed for terrorists.
President Bukele sought specific MS-13 gang leaders as part of the deal.
In return for opening the doors of his prison to Mr. Trump, Mr. Bukele had a specific request: a list of Salvadoran MS-13 leaders he wanted released from U.S. custody and sent back home, where he said they could be interrogated by his security officers.
That request worried some law enforcement officials. In recent years, the Treasury Department and Justice Department have accused Mr. Bukele’s government of making a secret pact with MS-13, offering its leaders behind bars special privileges to keep homicides down in El Salvador. Mr. Bukele has denied the claims.
Nevertheless, U.S. officials agreed to send El Salvador around a dozen senior members of MS-13, including César Humberto López-Larios, who had been in U.S. custody awaiting trial on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges. Mr. Bukele has so far not received everyone he sought, but U.S. officials say they still intend to send more of the gang leaders he requested.
Early on, Trump aides identified the Alien Enemies Act as a way to speed deportations.
The Alien Enemies Act was passed in 1798, allowing the U.S. government to swiftly deport citizens of an invading nation. The authority has been invoked just three times in the past, all during times of war.
Long before he took office a second time, advisers to Mr. Trump identified the law as a potentially powerful weapon to harness for immigration enforcement. The reason: It gave the government the power to summarily expel people, without normal due process.
The law “allows you to instantaneously remove any noncitizen foreigner from an invading country, aged 14 or older,” Stephen Miller, now a top White House aide, told the right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk in a September 2023 interview, adding: “That allows you to suspend the due process that normally applies to a removal proceeding.”
The White House had confidence in its odds at the Supreme Court.
On the day of the operation, the American Civil Liberties Union rushed to court to try to halt the administration’s use of the wartime act to deport Venezuelan migrants. Judge James E. Boasberg temporarily blocked the use of the law and ordered any planes in the air to turn around.
At the time, two of the flights with deportees were in the air, en route to El Salvador. A third plane had not yet taken off.
Inside the White House, senior administration officials quickly discussed the order and whether they should move ahead. The team of Trump advisers decided to go forward, believing the planes were safely in international airspace, and well aware that the legal fight was most likely destined for the Supreme Court, where conservatives have a majority.
Shortly afterward, the third flight took off. Officials would later say the migrants on that flight were not deported under the Alien Enemies Act, but through regular immigration proceedings.
The U.S. has paid El Salvador millions to imprison the deportees.
The White House initially said the United States paid El Salvador $6 million to jail the Venezuelan deportees. Officials now say the payment amounted to less than $5 million.
Democratic lawmakers have sought more information, with little success. On March 17, the State Department told the Senate Appropriations Committee that sum could grow to $15 million, but refused to provide any additional details.
Alan Feuer and Julie Turkewitz contributed reporting.
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