Trump has deported 250 Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador (Photo: Robert Crow)
United States president Donald Trump’s administration has deported over 250 people, mainly Venezuelans, to a prison in El Salvador. He has deliberately defied a court order to halt the removals to show the White House’s determination to push through mass deportations.
Trump declared that the Tren De Aragua gang was “perpetrating, attempting and threatening an invasion” against the “territory” of the US. He invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify the deportations of its members.
Yet neither the US government nor El Salvador have identified those deported, currently failing to provide any details of their alleged criminality or gang membership.
On Saturday evening, a federal judge in Washington DC ordered a 14-day halt to the deportations covered by Trump’s declaration to hear further legal arguments.
The judge put forward an order to the government to stop any removals. After lawyers told the judge that the planes had already taken off, the judge gave an order for the flights to turn back.
The Trump administration refused to comply. The administration’s top lawyers thought that, as the flights were over international waters, the court order didn’t apply.
This didn’t happen by accident. There was a calculated plan from the administration to ensure planes were in the air and over international waters prior to any ruling from the judge. It was a deliberate decision to ignore the judiciary and plough ahead with the deportations anyway.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was involved in the lawsuit against the Trump administration, said the court’s order may have been violated. And human rights groups have come out to condemn Trump’s use of a 227-year-old law to bypass the judicial process.
Amnesty International USA wrote on X that the US is “defying a court order” to “accelerate the complete erosion of human rights for Venezuelans”.
“This is yet another example of the Trump administration’s racist targeting, detaining and deporting of Venezuelans” based on “sweeping claims of gang affiliation”. The US “continues its racist slide towards authoritarian practices”.
The far right billionaire Elon Musk backed impeaching the judge who issued the court order as “necessary”.
The defiance of court orders isn’t a one off. The US government deported a Lebanese doctor, who is an assistant professor at Brown University’s medical school, last weekend. This is despite a judge issuing an order blocking the US visa holder’s immediate removal.
The government has not said why Dr Rasha Alawieh was deported. She had held a visa to be in the US since 2018.
What it shows is that anti-racists can’t leave fighting back against Trump’s immigration policies to the courts. They have to mobilise independently on the streets, disrupting immigration officials, vehicles and any raids wherever possible.
Racism first developed as a justification for enslavement
