The United States has designated the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang as a terrorist organization.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 16 that the Trump administration had sent more than 250 Venezuelans accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang to a prison in El Salvador amid an active federal court ruling ordering the deportation flights to cease.
Rubio said El Salvador has agreed to hold the gang members “in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars,” in a statement posted on the social platform X.
We have sent 2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador. Also, as promised by @POTUS, we sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) March 16, 2025
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador posted a video to X on Sunday showing agents leading men in handcuffs off a plane at night and into a prison. Prison officials are also shown shaving the prisoners’ heads.
“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” Bukele wrote. He said the prisoners were immediately transferred to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to hasten the deportation of accused members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The administration agreed to pay El Salvador $6 million to hold roughly 300 alleged members of the gang, as well as two alleged members of the MS-13 gang in its prisons for a year.
The United States has designated both gangs as terrorist organizations.
The agreement for El Salvador to take the prisoners was made during Rubio’s first diplomatic mission to the nation.
Hours before Trump signed the proclamation, lawyers for five of the Venezuelan detainees being held for deportation from the United States filed a lawsuit to block the flights. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia responded with an order barring the deportation of those five plaintiffs for at minimum two weeks to allow legal proceedings to continue.
The plaintiffs argued that the Alien Enemies Act “plainly only applies to warlike actions.”
Boasberg issued a second order Saturday evening, giving all noncitizens who would otherwise be subject to the presidential proclamation a class action certification.
It is not clear if the deportation flight occurred before or after the court order. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
The judge had also ordered any deportation flights that were already airborne to turn around.
After the flight, Bukele posted a message saying, “Oopsie … Too late,” along with a screenshot of a New York Post article announcing the court orders.
By Jacob Burg
