After deporting 238 alleged Venezuelan gang members and 23 members of a Salvadoran gang to a maximum-security El Salvador jail final month, US President Donald Trump is now considering deporting criminals who’re United States residents there as nicely, he informed reporters on Monday.
However Trump’s newest plan will in all probability face a number of authorized challenges. Forcibly sending American passport holders outdoors the nation is probably going unlawful, consultants say, and Trump himself signed a invoice throughout his first time period that might make such deportations much more tough.
So what’s Trump’s plan, what are the authorized challenges and may it ever be authorized to deport a US citizen from the US?
Who has Trump already deported to El Salvador?
Final month, Trump deported 238 members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, in addition to 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 to El Salvador.
These males at the moment are being held within the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo) or CECOT, a 40,000-capacity, maximum-security jail in El Salvador.
To facilitate this, the Trump administration struck a deal beneath which the US authorities can pay El Salvador about $6m to detain alleged Tren de Aragua members for a yr.
Trump additionally invoked a wartime “zombie” legislation from 1798, the Alien Enemies Act, to allow the deportations. This legislation permits US presidents to detain or deport noncitizens throughout wartime. Previous to Trump’s use of it, the Alien Enemies Act has solely been invoked 3 times: through the Warfare of 1812, World Warfare I and World Warfare II.
A jail guard transfers deportees from the US, alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Heart in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 16, 2025 (File: El Salvador presidential press workplace through AP)
Trump’s use of the legislation is controversial, as critics argue that the US isn’t at present beneath any risk of “invasion” on account of being at warfare. An explainer article from the Brennan Heart for Justice argued in 2024 that invoking the act “in peacetime to bypass standard immigration legislation could be a staggering abuse” and such an try ought to be struck down by the courts.
One other level of controversy is that, in addition to the alleged gang members, Trump additionally deported Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran citizen who has lived in Maryland for 14 years and is married to a US citizen.
In 2019, Abrego Garcia was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Maryland after an informant informed the police that Abrego Garcia was an MS-13 terrorist. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have denied this allegation, citing a scarcity of any proof that Abrego Garcia is affiliated with the MS-13.
Later in 2019, an immigration choose granted Abrego Garcia an immigration safety referred to as “withholding of elimination”, which shielded him from being returned to El Salvador and allowed him to stay within the US.
The federal government has described his deportation as an “administrative error”, however nonetheless claims that Abrego Garcia has ties to MS-13. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele mentioned he wouldn’t return Abrego Garcia, who’s now being held in CECOT, to the US.
“The query is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into america?” Bukele informed reporters on Monday.
In an unsigned order on Thursday, nevertheless, the US Supreme Court docket unanimously dominated in a 9-0 resolution that Trump ought to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the US. The courtroom at present includes a conservative majority of 6-3.
What has Trump mentioned about deporting US residents to El Salvador?
Trump hosted El Salvador’s President Bukele on the White Home for bilateral talks on Monday, throughout which they mentioned the latest deportations in addition to plans for extra – this time of US residents.
Trump informed Bukele through the assembly: “I mentioned homegrowns are subsequent, the homegrowns. You gotta construct about 5 extra locations.” By “homegrowns”, Trump was referring to criminals who maintain US citizenship.
The US president informed reporters on Monday after that assembly that he hopes to deport US residents who’re criminals to El Salvador. Bukele mentioned that he could be open to housing US prisoners as nicely. Trump acknowledged, nevertheless, that he would solely be capable of proceed with this plan whether it is proven to be authorized, and that he would solely deport residents who’re “violent criminals”.
“We all the time must obey the legal guidelines, however we even have homegrown criminals that push individuals into subways, that hit aged girls on the again of the top with a baseball bat once they’re not trying, which might be absolute monsters,” mentioned Trump.
“I’d like to incorporate them within the group of individuals to get them in a foreign country, however you’ll must be trying on the legal guidelines on that.”
Throughout a media briefing on Tuesday, White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt informed reporters that Trump “would solely take into account this (sending US residents to El Salvador), if authorized, for People who’re probably the most violent, egregious, repeat offenders of crime who no person on this room desires residing of their communities”. She didn’t present further feedback in regards to the authorized concerns the administration would make.
Wouldn’t it be unlawful to deport US residents?
When Fox Information host Jesse Watters requested Legal professional Basic, Pam Bondi on Tuesday if the plan to deport US residents was authorized, she mentioned solely: “These are People who he’s saying have dedicated probably the most heinous crimes in our nation, and crime goes to lower dramatically as a result of he has given us a directive to make America protected once more.
“These individuals should be locked up so long as they’ll, so long as the legislation permits. We’re not going to allow them to go wherever, and if we now have to construct extra prisons in our nation, we are going to do it.”
Nonetheless, immigration legislation consultants say the plan wouldn’t be authorized. “No, he (Trump) can’t ship US residents to El Salvador,” human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith informed Al Jazeera.
Bruce Fein, an American lawyer specialising in constitutional and worldwide legislation, informed Al Jazeera: “It might be unconstitutional to take away US residents to a international nation for imprisonment.”
What authorized challenges might be made?
There are a collection of authorized challenges which might make Trump’s newest thought unfeasible, together with:
Eighth Modification: This constitutional modification prohibits “merciless and strange punishments”. CECOT is infamous for its mistreatment of inmates, prohibiting visitations, training and recreation in accordance with a number of experiences, together with a press release by Human Rights Watch launched in March 2025.
Fourteenth Modification: The Fourteenth Modification of the US Structure decrees {that a} US citizen can’t lose their citizenship until they give up it willingly. Being a citizen of a rustic entails that you just can’t be forcibly eliminated out of your nation and despatched overseas.
The First Step Act: This invoice, handed by Congress and signed into legislation by Trump in 2018, features a time period stating that federal inmates ought to be housed as near their properties as doable. That is to make household visitation, which isn’t allowed in CECOT, a smoother course of. The invoice requires anybody who’s in a jail greater than about 800km (500 miles) away from residence to be moved nearer.
Might Trump get previous these authorized challenges?
One authorized loophole that the Trump administration might exploit is that, in uncommon instances, people who find themselves not born within the US however are naturalised can lose their citizenship.
A foreign-born resident of a rustic can get hold of citizenship by naturalisation after spending a sure period of time within the nation and sometimes proving that they’ve assimilated into US tradition. To change into a naturalised US citizen, you should be over the age of 18 and have lived repeatedly within the US as a inexperienced card holder for 5 years, or three years in case you are married to a US citizen.
Naturalised residents can lose their citizenship or change into denaturalised in the event that they commit sure crimes, together with terrorism, warfare crimes, human rights violations, intercourse crimes or fraud. Denaturalisation may occur to somebody who commits an act of treason in opposition to the US, or somebody who runs for public workplace or joins the army of a international nation.
Fein informed Al Jazeera that if a US citizen is imprisoned in another country, eventualities just like the Abrego Garcia case might play out. “Trump might secretly violate the structure after which declare he was powerless to return the US citizen to america, just like Abrego Garcia,” he mentioned.
“The international imprisonment could be instantly challenged in courtroom and create one other collision between Article 2 and Article 3 as we see unfolding with Abrego Garcia,” mentioned Fein. Article 2 of the US structure grants the US president government energy whereas Article 3 locations the judicial energy within the Supreme Court docket. Within the Abrego Garcia case, the Supreme Court docket has determined that Abrego Garcia ought to be returned to the US, whereas the Trump administration doesn’t plan to carry him again.
“The structure is beneath stress as by no means earlier than for the reason that Civil Warfare,” Fein mentioned.
“The issue is how a US courtroom might implement an order that it’s unlawful. The courts are all the time depending on the great religion of the related governments, and in a time of right-wing populism, good religion is usually missing,” mentioned Smith.
