President Donald Trump thanked El Salvador’s president after he posted a stunning video of hundreds of suspected migrant criminals arriving in Central America after being deported from the United States.
Trump thanked President Nayib Bukele on social media after citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which permits the deportation of citizens and natives of an enemy country without a hearing.
“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 incompetent Democrat leadership. We will not forget,” Trump wrote.
Trump also referred to the apprehended migrants as “the monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats.”
A whopping 261 illegal aliens were deported to El Salvador yesterday, according to a senior Trump administration official who spoke to Fox News. Of these, 137 were deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, 101 were Venezuelans deported under Title 8, 21 were Salvadoran MS-13 gang members, and two were MS-13 ringleaders and “special cases” for El Salvador.
Kidnapping, child sexual abuse, aggravated assault, prostitution, robbery, and aggravated assault of a police officer were among the offenses listed on the rap sheets of those who were removed.
Additionally, a Trump administration official told Fox News that when a federal judge ordered the planes to return, the migrants were already outside of U.S. airspace.
To give Trump more time to determine whether his use of the Alien Enemies Act was unlawful, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered an immediate halt to Trump’s attempts to deport the alleged gang members.
“We did not defy a court order. The order came too late, and illegals were already in international airspace,” the official said, as first reported by Axios.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the official’s sentiment, telling Fox News that the order “had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist [Tren de Aragua] aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”
“The written order and the Administration’s actions do not conflict,” Leavitt said. “A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.”
In an X post, Bukele said the migrants arrived in El Salvador and were transferred to a “terrorism confinement center,” where they will stay for at least a year.
The graphic footage showed heavily armed Salvadoran police encircling the suspected gang members, putting their heads down, and escorting each one into a facility.
As the suspects were escorted into their prison cells, the video also showed them walking with their hands behind their necks and shaving their hair.
“Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable,” Bukele wrote. “As of today, it costs $200 million per year.”
He also said that the apprehension of the MS-13 members “will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors.”
“As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime,” he added. “But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place. All in a single action. May God bless El Salvador, and may God bless the United States,” Bukele wrote.
Bukele’s post was also warmly received by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who thanked the Salvadorean leader for his “assistance and friendship.”
“President @nayibbukele is not only the strongest security leader in our region, he’s also a great friend of the U.S.,” Rubio said in an X post. “Thank you!”