TRANSCRIPT
US President Donald Trump is bumping up against the boundaries of executive power again - this time by deporting more than 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador.
The deportations were executed under the auspices of an eighteenth century law designed for wartime, known as the Alien Enemies Act.
When civil rights groups challenged Mr Trump's proclamation invoking the use of this law, a Federal Court judge granted a 14-day stay blocking the deportations.
But the Venezuelans were reportedly already on board a plane.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt says the president is acting within his constitutional powers.
“The fact is, everything President Trump is doing is within his executive authority to do it, he is acting within the bounds of the law, all of his actions are constitutional, and our White House and the entire administration are prepared to fight back against this resistance. Don't bet against President Trump. I think his epic return to the Oval Office proves that he is going to win against the this the weaponisation of our justice system.”
The White House defended its actions by saying it did not refuse to comply with the court order, because it was issued after the plane carrying the migrants entered international airspace.
The Trump Administration has also alleged the deportees were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang linked to kidnapping, extortion and contract killings.
These justifications haven't satisfied civil rights groups however.
Lawyer Lee Gellernt is with the American Civil Liberties Union, which launched the legal action against Mr Trump's moves.
"I think we're on very dangerous ground here. This is as lawless an action as the administration has taken. If the administration is allowed to use wartime authorities any time it wants to remove people, I think we are going to see more and more people being subjected to this type of Alien Enemies Act and a blurring of wartime authority with domestic authority. I cannot stress how important it is that the federal courts prevent this from happening."
The Venezuelan government has also rejected Donald Trump's actions.
It says in a statement his use of the law evokes "the darkest episodes of human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps".
For his part, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele reacted with glee.
On social media, he reacted to a news article about the court order blocking the deportations by saying, "Ooopsie ... Too late".
Mr Bukele also posed this slickly produced video on Elon Musk's platform, X.
It shows the Venezuelans being frog marched onto a plane, as well as drone footage of men in fatigues troop single file on an airport tarmac.
We've voiced some Mr Bukele's comments
"Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).
The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.
Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable. As of today, it costs $200 million per year."
There could be more of these deportations to follow - but that is likely to depend on how court cases play out.
Over the weekend, the Federal Court questioned whether gang members satisfied the test under the Alien Enemies Act.
The judge noted that the statute refers to "hostile acts" perpetrated by another country that are "commensurate to war".
Lawyer Lee Gellernt says the legislation has only been used in 1812, when the United States was fighting Britain, and during the two World Wars.
He says the administration is "thumbing their nose at Congress".
"So I think there's there's two parts to what's going on. The first is, even if any of the individuals are members of the gang, the law cannot be used for straight immigration purposes because the TDA (Tren de Aragua) is not a foreign government or nation. But beyond that, even if it were legal to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, these individuals must be given an opportunity to show that they are not members of the gang. And what we understand is that many of the people, including our named plaintiffs, are not members of the gang. So for that reason alone, this is illegal."
The Trump administration is appealing the Federal Court's 14-day stay against the deportations.
