Donald Trump celebrated as a plane carrying suspected members of a notorious Venezuelan gang touched down at a prison in El Salvador despite a judge’s order.
The plane carrying alleged members of Tren de Aragua touched down on Sunday, with the migrants quickly brought to the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center under an agreement between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Photos and videos Bukele shared online showed several men in handcuffs and shackles being transferred from a plane to a heavily-guarded convoy.
Once at the prison, they were seen shackled on the ground as prison guards shaved their heads.
The suspected gang members were already in international airspace when a federal judge abruptly blocked the Trump administration’s use of an 18th century law to deport them.
Judge James Boasberg verbally ordered the plane to return to the United States, but never included it in his written order – allowing the Trump administration to claim it did not disobey the order.
When the plane then landed on Sunday and the gangsters were seen being led into their prison cells, Trump blamed his predecessor and the Democratic party for letting them into the country into the first place.
‘These are monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats. How dare they!’ the president posted on his Truth Social page Sunday night.
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President Donald Trump hailed the sight of migrants arriving at a notorious Salvadoran prison on Sunday, calling them ‘monsters’
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The migrants were brought to the Terrorism Confinement Center under an agreement between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Secretary of State Marco Rubio
The president blamed Democrats for the gang’s arrival in the United States
More than 200 gang members deported to El Salvador from the US
‘Thank you to El Salvador, and in particular President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of Democrat leadership,’ he continued.
‘We will not forget.’
Rubio ad also said in a separate statement that ‘hundreds of violent criminals were sent out of our country.’
‘I want to express my sincere gratitude to President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador for playing a pivotal role in this transfer.’
Of those now being held at the maximum security prison, 137 are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang who were deported just moments after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, declaring that the US was facing an ‘invasion’ from a criminal organization that has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings.
There were also 101 of the deportees to the Salvadoran prison were Venezuelans removed until Title 8, 21 were Salvadoran MS-13 gang members and two were MS-13 ring leaders and ‘special cases’ for El Salvador, a senior White House official confirmed to Fox News.
Trump has claimed that he is justified in invoking the act to deport Tren de Aragua members because he claims the gang has ties to the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Under his order, all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are determined to be members of the gang, are within the United States and are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the country are ‘liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.’
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They were already in international airspace when a federal judge abruptly blocked the Trump administration’s use of an 18th century law to deport the alleged gangsters
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Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center
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Gang members are pictured being taken to their cells on Sunday
Alleged gang members deported from US marched into El Salvador prison
The directive also notes that the notorious gang ‘has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens.’
He contended that the gang is a hostile force noting members of the gang were ‘conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States’ with the goal of destabilizing the nation.
‘Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,’ Trump said in defense of his order.
‘The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.’
DailyMail.com was the first news organization in the US to report on TdA arriving in America over a year ago, however, the gang became a household name after video of them storming an apartment near Denver surfaced in August.
The Trump administration has since designated Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and six other criminal groups as global terrorist organizations.
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The United States sent over 130 suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang
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Bukele, in a meeting last month with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio , offered to house prisoners from the United States in his country
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The gang has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings
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An alleged member of the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua being shaved upon his arrival at the Terrorism Confinement Centre
2,000 gang members seen being moved into El Salvador mega prison
But Boasberg has ruled that the Alien Enemies Act ‘does not provide a basis for the president’s proclamation’ to deport suspected gang members ‘given that the terms invasion, predatory incursion really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by any nation and commensurate to war.’
The Act was previously invoked during World War II, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of around 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-American civilians.
At the prison, the suspected gang members will now spend 23 and a half hours locked in overcrowded cells, with just 30 minutes to stretch – chained in the middle of the hallway.
It is equipped with a system that blocks inmates from contacting the outside world with cellphones.
To enter the jail, staffers, guards and prisoners have to go through a complex registration system before they travel through three sections safeguarded by gates.
Jail cells with steel bars are split among the eight cell blocks and can hold up to 100 detainees.
Each cell comes equipped with 80 bare iron bunks – mattresses are not included – along with two toilets and two sinks.
Every pavilion also has its own windowless cell where unruly prisoners are sent.
Within the cells, the temperature can reach a staggering 95 degree during the day, and there is no other source of ventilation.
Stunning images taken from within the complex usually show inmates shirtless in white shorts as they attempt to keep cool.
Dubbed a ‘black hole of human rights’ by critics, the facility has drawn widespread condemnation for allegedly ignoring international prisoner rights.
Miguel Sarre, a former member of the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, for example, slammed the facility as a ‘concrete and steel pit.’
The $100 million penitentiary, the largest in Latin America, was constructed over a span of seven months in 2022 as part of Bukele’s plan to reign in street gangs after more than 60 people were murdered on March 26, 2022.
The following day, Bukele declared a State of Exception, which granted powers to the police and military as alleged gang members, including those belonging to the MS-13 and Barrio 18, were rounded up in raids without court orders and stripped away rights such as freedom of assembly and communication privacy.