A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people who it accuses of being Venezuelan gang members.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
This weekend, they were flown not to Venezuela but to El Salvador. In an extraordinary move, President Trump relied on a rarely used law from more than 200 years ago to quickly expel them without hearings or due process. A federal judge is trying to stop this.
MARTÍNEZ: We're joined now by NPR's Adrian Florido. So let's start off with what the Trump administration used to justify their actions.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Well, on Saturday, A, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act. It is a law from 1798 that authorizes summarily detaining or deporting citizens of an enemy nation. This is a wartime law. We are not at war with Venezuela, but in his order, Trump described Venezuela's Tren de Aragua prison gang as a force invading the U.S. And hours later, hundreds of immigrants his administration claims are in that gang had been deported to El Salvador. Here's White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Fox News.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: The president invoked this authority to deport nearly 300 of them who are now in El Salvador, where they will be behind bars where they belong rather than roaming freely in American communities.
FLORIDO: El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, said that he would lock them up for a year, and he released photos of shackled men being unloaded from planes and having their heads shaved.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. The ACLU sued to stop these deportations, and a federal judge agreed to temporarily block them. But what happened?
FLORIDO: Yeah. It was an emergency suit from the ACLU on Saturday, and judge James Boasberg of the Federal District Court in D.C. said that he didn't think the Alien Enemies Act authorized the immediate deportations. He told the government to turn back any planes that might already be in the air, but that didn't happen. And it's not clear if the planes had already landed in El Salvador or if officials chose not to divert them back to the U.S. El Salvador's president, who takes pride in flouting due process in his crime crackdowns, mocked the judge's order on social media writing, oopsie. Too late.
MARTÍNEZ: And tell us more about the concerns civil liberties advocates are raising over the president's use of this law.
FLORIDO: Well, the Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before. The last time during World War II, when the government used it to detain Japanese, German and Italian citizens. Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's attorney in this lawsuit told NPR Trump is misusing the law.
LEE GELERNT: The Alien Enemies Act cannot be used during peacetime for regular immigration enforcement. Congress was very clear in the statute that it can only be used against a foreign government or foreign nation.
FLORIDO: He says the ACLU acted fast because once the U.S. has turned someone over to a foreign government, federal courts lose jurisdiction. A judge can't order El Salvador to send people back.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the people who were deported, who the Trump administration claims are gang members, do we really know if they are Tren de Aragua members?
FLORIDO: We don't know who most of them are. The Trump administration hasn't named them, hasn't offered evidence to back up its claim. Since yesterday, some families of men who were in immigration detention in the U.S. have spoken out to say they fear their loved ones may have been in this group and that they are not gang members.
MARTÍNEZ: So what happens now?
FLORIDO: Well, the Trump administration has appealed the judge's order temporarily blocking deportations under the law. The ACLU says it'll fight this vigorously. They insist there is huge danger in allowing the president to invoke wartime authorities during peacetime, that it sets a dangerous precedent.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot.
FLORIDO: Thank you, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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