| By AP News Photos: YouTube Screenshots The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling. Read more. |
| Why this matters: U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday blocking the deportations but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.” “Oopsie…Too late,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally who agreed to house about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung. |
