Salvadoran Authorities Allegedly Refused Women and Central Americans—Legal Battle Over Trump’s Alien Enemies Act Intensifies
Summary
Several deported migrants claim they were sent back to the U.S. after being flown to El Salvador under a controversial deportation policy enacted by President Donald Trump using the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act. A Venezuelan woman reported that she and seven others were returned because El Salvador’s president allegedly refused to accept women. Another migrant, a Nicaraguan man, stated that Salvadoran officials did not want to detain individuals from other Central American countries to avoid conflicts.
Full Article
Multiple migrants aboard controversial flights deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador—under President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a war-era law now at the center of a high-stakes legal battle—say they were returned to the U.S. because Salvadoran authorities refused to accept them, according to new court documents.
One migrant, a Venezuelan woman, stated that she and seven other women were sent back to the U.S. after their plane landed in El Salvador. She claimed she was told that “El Salvador’s president would not accept women.”
Another migrant, a Nicaraguan man, was also on one of the flights on March 15 and was later returned to the U.S. He reported hearing a Salvadoran official tell ICE authorities that El Salvador “would not detain someone from another Central American country due to the conflict it would cause.”
These statements were presented to Judge James Boasberg, who is reviewing whether the Trump administration violated his March 15 court order requiring the U.S. government to return deported Venezuelans who were expelled under the Alien Enemies Act.
At the time of Boasberg’s order, two deportation flights had already taken off. The administration has resisted disclosing further details on whether the court order was followed, arguing that reversing the flights would have posed “serious national security, regulatory, and logistical challenges.”
Migrants’ attorneys argue that these new testimonies disprove claims that complying with Boasberg’s order was impossible. The Venezuelan woman stated that “within minutes” of taking off from Laredo, Texas, she overheard government officials discussing the court order. One official allegedly said, “There’s an order saying we can’t take off, but we already have.”
The attorneys also raised concerns about confusion regarding the timing and legitimacy of Trump’s deportation proclamation. Trump himself stated over the weekend that he “didn’t know when it was signed” because he “didn’t sign it; other people took care of it.”
The legal battle over Trump’s order is progressing on two fronts:
- A federal appeals court is reviewing a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to overturn Boasberg’s order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
- Judge Boasberg continues to examine the legality of the deportations but has refused DOJ’s requests to reverse his prior rulings.
