President Donald Trump wants to expand his already chaotic and cruel mass deportations. On Monday, he told reporters that he’s looking into the possibility of sending US citizens to a megaprison in El Salvador.
“I’d like to go a step further,” Trump claimed at a press conference with Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele on Monday. “I don’t know what the laws are — we always have to obey the laws — but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters. I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that.”
In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport 300 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, also called CECOT. The law has been on the books since the 18th century but has only been invoked three times before — most recently to incarcerate Japanese-Americans during World War II — and has never been used during peacetime. But Trump claims that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has “invaded” the US, thus allowing him to use the law to deport people the administration accuses of being gang members without due process. The administration is reportedly paying El Salvador $6 million to imprison 238 people for one year. Human rights monitors have documented several instances of systematic beatings and torture in CECOT, where 368 detainees have died since it opened in 2023.
This isn’t the first time Trump has floated the idea of deporting US citizens. After Trump responded enthusiastically to Buekele’s suggestion that the US detain some of its federal prisoners in CECOT, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was serious about the idea. “These would be heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly,” Leavitt told reporters.
It’s unclear what authority Trump would use to send US citizens to CECOT. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the Alien Enemies Act applies to both citizens of “enemy nations” and to its “natives,” or those who were born there, even if they’ve since renounced their “enemy nation” citizenship.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used spurious evidence to accuse people of being linked to Tren de Aragua and send them to CECOT. According to ICE’s “Alien Enemies Act, Validation Guide” which was obtained by the ACLU, Venezuelan men aged 14 and up can be removed under the Alien Enemies Act if they meet certain criteria, including having “gang tattoos,” as determined by ICE, or if they’ve communicated with other people ICE has accused of being gang members. Neri Alvarado Borges, one of the Venezuelan migrants sent to CECOT by the Trump administration, was accused of being a Tren de Aragua because he had three tattoos, one of which is an autism awareness ribbon.
The people deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act weren’t given hearings or any other form of due process, and their families and attorneys deny that they’re involved with Tren de Aragua or any other gangs.
Despite these legal issues, the Supreme Court has allowed Trump to enforce the Alien Enemies Act while litigation continues. The court required the administration to give migrants adequate notice that they’re being removed under the act so they have “reasonable time” to file habeas corpus complaints.
But critics say the ruling will still allow Trump to send migrants to what is effectively a foreign black site without any due process.
The administration admitted to mistakenly deporting a Salvadoran man to CECOT even though an immigration judge previously ruled that he can’t be sent back to the country because he faces persecution there. Officials said Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation was due to an “administrative error” but have refused to return him to the US despite a Supreme Court order. The administration says it can’t order Abrego Garcia’s return since he is now in Salvadoran custody. And Bukele, the president of El Salvador, also claims he doesn’t have the power to return deportees to the US.
Trump is using a centuries-old wartime law to deport people to El Salvador with dubious evidence, and keeping them there in violation of court orders. Now he wants to expand his regime of deporting whoever he wants, including US citizens.