(The Center Square) – Ahead of a court hearing Monday afternoon, the White House continues to defend its decision to violate a court order and deport hundreds of criminal foreign nationals to a high security prison in El Salvador.
The Saturday deportation flights, carrying 261 gang members who had illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, occurred with the cooperation of El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele.
The planes left the U.S. and landed in El Salvador over the weekend, despite a federal judge ruling that the deportations be temporarily halted and those who were illegally in the country and already removed be returned. He cited due process concerns as a major reason.
But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeatedly emphasized during a Monday news conference that President Donald Trump “acted within the confines of the law” and did not violate the due process rights of the deported gang members.
“All of the planes that were subject to the judge’s written order took off before the order was entered in the courtroom on Saturday,” Leavitt said. “The administration will of course be happily answering all of those [due process] questions that the judge poses in court later today.”
Addressing concerns that some of those deported could have been mistakenly labeled as gang members, Leavitt said the administration was certain about the men’s gang affiliations.
According to Leavitt, 137 were recently designated terrorists deported under the Alien Enemies Act. At least 101 were members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), and 23 were MS-13 Salvadoran gang members.
“I can assure the American people that Customs and Border Patrol and ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are sure about the identities of the individuals who were on these planes and the threat that they pose to our homeland,” Leavitt said.
Bukele, El Salvador’s president, has agreed to imprison all 261 criminals for $6 million per year on a renewable basis. Leavitt added that the cost is “pennies on the dollar” compared to the “cost of life” imposed by the gang members’ presence in the U.S.
Under the Biden administration, crimes committed by members of TdA were reported in at least 22 states, The Center Square previously reported.
The Trump administration maintains its aggressive enforcement of immigration law is necessary to stem the border crisis of the past four years.
Last month saw illegal border crossings drop to the lowest levels in U.S. history for the month of February, with border patrol encountering 28,654 migrants, a roughly 90% drop from 2024.
