The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador despite a federal judge's order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th-century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said on Sunday (Mar 16).

Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order on Saturday evening blocking the deportations, but lawyers informed him that two planes with immigrants were already en route — one headed for El Salvador, and the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes to turn around, but they apparently were not, as he did not include the directive in his written order.

“Oopsie… Too late,” noted Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally who agreed to house about 300 migrants for a year at a cost of US$6 million in his country’s prisons, in a social media post regarding Boasberg’s ruling. This post was further circulated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also posted: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

The deportations were conducted following Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law that has been used only three times in U.S. history. This law permits the president to declare extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners during wartime.

The act was previously invoked during major conflicts, including the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, and was notoriously used to detain Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the lawsuit leading to Boasberg's temporary restraining order on deportations, is now questioning whether the removals to El Salvador were conducted in defiance of the court.

"This morning, we asked the government to assure the court that its order was not violated and are waiting to hear back while also attempting to conduct our own investigation,” ACLU’s lead lawyer, Lee Gelernt, stated.

Venezuela’s government condemned the use of Trump’s declaration, asserting it evokes “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”

Tren de Aragua originated from a notorious prison in Venezuela and has been linked to the wider migration issue as many flee dire conditions in their homeland.

For further details, visit Channel News Asia.