Alien Enemies Act Deportations to CECOT Prison
Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison without due process. Courts found the deportations violated due process and held the administration in contempt.
In March 2025, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — a wartime statute never before used outside of a declared war — to summarily deport Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison, bypassing normal immigration proceedings and due process protections.
The deportations were carried out without adequate legal proceedings:
- 238 Venezuelans were deported to CECOT
- El Salvador was paid $6 million to house 300 deportees for a year
- Detainees reported unsanitary and violent conditions
- Many had no criminal convictions and had been living in the U.S. for years
A federal judge found the deportations violated due process and found "probable cause" for criminal contempt against the administration for violating court orders to stop the flights. The judge later ordered deported individuals returned to the United States. The Fifth Circuit subsequently blocked further use of the Alien Enemies Act for this purpose.
The use of a 227-year-old wartime statute to circumvent immigration law and deport people to a foreign prison without trial represented one of the most extreme abuses of executive power in modern American history.