A group of 238 alleged Venezuelan gang members, plus 23 alleged members of the international MS-13 gang, were sent from the US to a prison in El Salvador. Some of them were removed from the country under a law not used since World War Two.

The move came despite a temporary block issued by a judge. The White House said the judge’s order itself was not lawful and was issued after the group was deported.

Neither the US government nor El Salvador has identified the detainees, or provided details of their alleged criminality or gang membership.

Announcing the move on Saturday, Trump accused Tren de Aragua (TdA) of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States”.

He invoked the Alien Enemies Act – a piece of legislation that dates to 1798, which was designed to allow non-citizens to be deported in times of war or invasion. Campaigners have questioned Trump’s justification.

The act was used to process 137 of the total of 261 people who were deported, a senior administration official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

The basis on which the other deportees were removed from the US remains unclear, and details of the group as a whole have not been disclosed.

Several relatives of men believed to be among the group told the New York Times that their loved ones did not have gang ties.

The order to halt the deportations came from US District Judge James Boasberg on Saturday evening, who demanded a 14-day pause pending further legal arguments.

After lawyers told him that planes with deportees had already taken off, the judge reportedly gave a verbal order for the flights to turn back, although that directive did not form part of his written ruling.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the court ruling had been broken. “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” she said.

“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA [Tren de Aragua] aliens had already been removed from US territory.”

The justice department echoed Leavitt, saying the deportees had already left before the judge’s ruling – which it has appealed against.

The case raises constitutional questions since, under the US system of checks and balances, government agencies are expected to comply with a federal judge’s ruling.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele confirmed the arrival of deportees. “Oopsie… Too late,” he said of the judge’s order, writing on social media. His team also published footage of some of the men inside one of its mega-jails.

Rights groups accused Trump of using a 227-year-old law to circumvent due process.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) questioned Trump’s use of a sweeping wartime authority which allows fast-track deportations. “I think we’re in very dangerous territory here in the United States with the invocation of this law,” said Lee Gelernt from the organisation.

The Alien Enemies Act only allowed deportations when the US was in a declared war with that foreign government, or was being invaded, Mr Gelernt said. “A gang is not invading,” he told BBC News.

The act was last used during World War Two to intern Japanese-American civilians.

Making matters worse was the fact “the administration is saying nobody can review what they’re doing”, Mr Gelernt added.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International USA said the deportations were “yet another example of the Trump administration’s racist targeting” of Venezuelans “based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation”.

Venezuela itself criticised Trump, saying he “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration”.

The latest deportations under Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-running campaign against illegal immigration.

The US president has also moved to strengthen ties with El Salvador.

The two gangs targeted with the mass deportation were declared “foreign terrorist organisations” by Trump after returning to the White House in January.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.

Their arrival in the central American nation came after a federal judge blocked US President Donald Trump from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify the deportations – something Bukele made fun of in a later post.

“Oopsie… Too late,” he said.

The move by the US to send alleged criminals from other countries to El Salvador was an arrangement US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously called “the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world”.

Bukele wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) “for a period of one year”, something that was “renewable” – suggesting they could be held there for longer.

“The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us,” he added.

Rubio confirmed the alleged gang members arrival in El Salvador and thanked Bukele, calling him “the strongest security leader in our region”.

Hours before, on Saturday evening, US District Judge James Boasberg ordered a halt to deportations covered by Trump’s proclamation, which invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The law allows the government to detain and deport people threatening the country’s safety without due process.

Venezuela criticised invoking the wartime measure, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration”.

After hearing that planes with deportees had taken off, Judge Boasberg ordered them turned back, the Washington Post reported.

Rubio confirmed in a statement on Sunday that the deportations happened under the Alien Enemies Act, and made no mention of the judge’s ruling.

He said: “Hundreds of violent criminals were sent out of our country.”

A video attached to one of Bukele’s social media post shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the plane.

Some of the detainees are placed into the back of armoured vehicles, while others, hunched over as officers push their heads down, are forced onto buses.

The video also shows an aerial view of a long, winding police escort leading the buses into El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail Cecot.

The newly-built maximum-security jail is a proud achievement of Bukele’s, and part of his effort to crack down on the country’s organised crime.

The facility, which can hold up to 40,000 people, has been criticised by human rights groups for maltreatment of inmates.

The arrangement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties.

“Thank you for your assistance and friendship,” Rubio told Bukele on Sunday.

El Salvador was the second country Rubio, the US’s top diplomat, visited after he was sworn in.

During that trip, which took place in February, Bukele made an initial offer to take US deportees, saying it would help pay for the massive Cecot facility.

The latest deportations under Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-running crusade against illegal immigration in the US.

In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organisations.

He won voters on the campaign trail, in part, by promising to enact the largest deportation operation in US history.

The agenda has so far not met expectations, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents not meeting Trump’s daily quota for arrests.

A recent report suggested ICE agents had deported fewer immigrants in February than they had the same month a year prior during the previous administration under Joe Biden – 11,000 in February 2025, compared to 12,000 in February 2024 – according to NBC News.

The deal was announced after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele during his visit to the central American nation.

Bukele – whose iron-fist approach to gangs has won him plaudits from voters but been heavily criticised by human rights groups – said he had offered the US “the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system”.

Rubio said the US was “profoundly grateful” to Bukele, adding that “no country’s ever made an offer of friendship such as this”.

Rubio told reporters: “He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those with US citizenship and legal residency.”

Referring to two of the region’s most notorious transnational crime gangs, Rubio added that El Salvador would also take in deported migrants and “criminals from any nationality, be the MS-13 or Tren de Aragua”.

Bukele later confirmed the offer on X, specifying that “we are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee”.

He added that “the fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison sustainable”.

Since he came into office in 2019, Bukele has made cracking down on crime his government’s priority.

The newly built maximum-security jail he referred to, Cecot [Terrorism Confinement Centre], is at the centre of his drive to lock up and punish the most violent gang members.

The government celebrated the opening of the jail – which it says can hold up to 40,000 inmates – by releasing photos and videos of shaven-headed and tattooed prisoners stripped down to the waist being frogmarched along its corridors.

The treatment of inmates at Cecot, where scores of inmates are locked up in each windowless cell, has been criticised by rights groups.

But Bukele’s crackdown on crime continues to be very popular with the vast majority of Salvadoreans who say they can go about their lives without threats from gang members for the first time in years.

However, some relatives of the tens of thousands of people which have been rounded up and jailed under emergency measures brought in by Bukele say their loved ones have been wrongfully rounded up in sweeping police round-ups.

Amnesty International has criticised the “gradual replacement of gang violence with state violence” in the country – a criticism dismissed by Bukele, who points out that his hardline approach to crime last February won him re-election to a second term with more than 84% of the votes.

El Salvador was the second stop on Secretary of State Rubio’s first overseas tour as the US top diplomat.

His first stop was Panama, where he demanded that Panama make “immediate changes” to what he called the “influence and control” of China over the Panama Canal.

On Tuesday, he will hold meetings with officials in Costa Rica and Guatemala expected to focus on migration as well as countering Chinese influence in the region.

Since coming to office, US President Donald Trump has focused on speeding up the removal of undocumented migrants, with the promise of “mass deportations”.

The global lender said risks related to the adoption of the world’s largest cryptocurrency had eased now that businesses will be allowed to decide whether or not to accept bitcoin.

In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender.

This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high of more than $108,000.

“Legal reforms will make acceptance of Bitcoin by the private sector voluntary. For the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin-related economic activities and transactions in and purchases of Bitcoin will be confined.”

The deal, which is aimed to help support El Salvador’s economy, still needs to approved by the IMF’s executive board.

The IMF had opposed the Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele’s crypto-friendly policies, warning they could become an obstacle to it offering financial assistance.

Still, Bukele celebrated on social media as bitcoin rallied after Donald Trump’s US election victory in November.

Earlier this month, as the price of bitcoin topped $100,000 for the first time, Bukele said in a social media post that his country’s holdings in the cryptocurrency had more than doubled in value.

He also blamed his political opponents for causing many Salvadorans to miss out on bitcoin’s rise.The cryptocurrency has rallied since Donald Trump’s election victory on the 5 November.

The incoming Trump administration is seen as being far more friendly towards cryptocurrencies than President Joe Biden’s White House.

On Thursday, the cryptocurrency retreated along with global stock markets after the US Federal Reserve signalled a slower pace of interest rate cuts next year.Bitcoin is currently trading at around $100,000.