Administration officials said they expect the fight over using the wartime act to ultimately head to the Supreme Court.
An alleged Venezuelan gang member is escorted from a plane in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador after being deported by the U.S. on Sunday.
The Trump administration announced Sunday that it had deported hundreds of immigrants—whom the White House claims are members of a Venezuelan gang—to El Salvador under the wartime Alien Enemies Act, despite a judge’s temporary block on the effort the day before.
“The president invoked this authority to deport nearly 300 of them, who are now in El Salvador, where they will be behind bars where they belong, rather than roaming freely in American communities,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox News’ *Sunday Morning Futures.*
Vice President JD Vance echoed the administration’s stance in a post on X Sunday night, stating that President Donald Trump had deported “violent criminals and rapists.”
It remains unclear how the government determined that the nearly 300 men were affiliated with the gang or whether they received U.S. court or immigration hearings. The Alien Enemies Act allows for the deportation of certain foreign nationals during wartime without trial.
On Saturday, a judge ordered any deportation flights carrying individuals subject to Trump’s proclamation to return to the U.S. if they were still in transit. However, the ruling did not apply to migrants who had already landed in foreign countries before the order or to those being removed for reasons unrelated to Trump’s directive.
The government stated in a court filing Sunday that “some gang members subject to removal under the Proclamation had already been removed from United States territory” before a judge issued a ruling blocking deportations under the order.
However, it remains unclear whether any of the deported individuals had landed in El Salvador before the judge’s decision or whether the Trump administration defied the order.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied any defiance of the ruling, stating that the judge’s decision was issued after “terrorist [Tren de Aragua] aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”
“The written order and the administration’s actions do not conflict,” Leavitt said. “Moreover, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear—federal courts generally have no jurisdiction over the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act, and his core Article II powers to remove foreign alien terrorists from U.S. soil and repel a declared invasion.”
Two senior Trump administration officials told NBC News they expect the legal battle over the Alien Enemies Act to ultimately reach the Supreme Court, where they believe the administration will prevail.
Trump invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on Saturday to deport individuals he claimed were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. However, ahead of his proclamation, the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit arguing that the administration was preparing to use the law to deport five Venezuelan men.
A federal judge initially issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the administration from deporting those five individuals under the act, later expanding the order to block its use for deporting all non-U.S. citizens in custody subject to Trump’s directive.
“Any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said Saturday. “Those people need to be returned to the United States.”
According to a source familiar with the matter, two flights carrying Venezuelans were in transit during the judge’s ruling. NBC News could not confirm whether those flights turned around.
Flight tracking data analyzed by NBC News showed that a blue “Global X” plane took off from Harlingen, Texas, on Saturday afternoon and landed at El Salvador International Airport about an hour after the judge’s ruling. On Sunday, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted a video on X appearing to show several deportees being escorted off a blue “Global X” plane into the custody of heavily armed Salvadoran authorities.
