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alien enemies act
Salvadoran Officials Say for First Time US Has Authority Over 130 Detainees at Notorious Prison
"We are pleased that El Salvador publicly told the truth about what we all knew: that it's the United States that controls the fate of the Venezuelans," said one attorney.
Jul 08, 2025
A Monday court filing by attorneys for migrants being held in El Salvador's notorious maximum-security prison contained what one expert called a "huge" admission by Salvadoran officials that casts new doubt on the Trump administration's claims that it can't bring back the 130 men it sent to the facility.
In a filing submitted to Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., lawyers for four of the migrants included a document that the Salvadoran government had sent to the United Nations in response to an inquiry about their detention at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Contrary to the Trump administration's claims—and those of far-right Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele—officials representing the Bukele government said in the filing that "the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities, by virtue of international agreements signed and in accordance with the principles of sovereignty and international cooperation in criminal matters."
The four men whose disappearances are being investigated by the U.N. Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights Working Group are among the more than 100 migrants whom the Trump administration swiftly sent to CECOT in mid-March after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a centuries-old law that allows the U.S. government to expedite the deportations of non-citizens deemed to be a national security threat.
The law has previously only been invoked during wartime, but the administration has claimed the people sent to CECOT—citing questionable and threadbare evidence in many cases—are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the White House has claimed is working in connection with Venezuela's government.
As Common Dreams reported in May, the U.S. intelligence agencies never endorsed Trump's claim that the street gang was taking orders from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro—raising one of many legal questions about the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act and his claim that Tren de Aragua has "invaded" the United States.
The filing on Monday by lawyers at Democracy Forward and the ACLU also called into question the administration's repeated claims that it has no authority to bring the migrants back from El Salvador, which has agreed to detain the men under a $6 million deal.
"The actions of the state of El Salvador have been limited to the implementation of a bilateral cooperation mechanism with another state, through which it has facilitated the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure for the custody of persons detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement of that other State," the Salvadoran authorities told the U.N., according to the filing.
The lawyers also told Boasberg that the Trump administration was clearly aware of El Salvador's statements about the men being held at CECOT, as U.S. officials were copied in the Salvadorans' communication to the United Nations.
"We are pleased that El Salvador publicly told the truth about what we all knew: that it's the United States that controls the fate of the Venezuelans," Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the ACLU, told The New York Times. "That the United States did not provide us or the court with this information is extraordinary."
Boasberg has expressed frustration with the White House several times since first taking on the case regarding the use of the Alien Enemies Act. He ordered two deportation flights to be turned around in March, and said the following month that there was "probable cause" to hold administration officials in contempt of court for disobeying the order.
Last month, the judge ordered the administration to provide detainees at CECOT with habeas corpus relief and said the mass removal of the men was unlawful.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on whether the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was lawful, but ordered the White House to provide people with sufficient opportunity to contest their removal under the law.
Last week, a federal appeals court in New Orleans held a hearing on Trump's use of the law in a case that is likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.
In March, the case of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia became one of the most high-profile cases of the migrants who were sent to CECOT. The forced removal of Abrego Garcia, who had no criminal record and was accused by an anonymous police informant of being a gang member, was the result of an "administrative error," according to the U.S. Department of Justice, but both Trump and Bukele claimed they had no authority to bring him home.
Last month Abrego Garcia was transferred from El Salvador to a prison in Tennessee, where he faces charges of transporting migrants.
His lawyers last week described "severe beatings" that Abrego Garcia and other migrants sent to CECOT suffered when they arrived at the prison. A court filing also detailed "severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture."
"This," said journalist Megan Stack after Abrego Garcia's account was made public, "is where our government sends people with no due process."
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Whistleblower Says Top DOJ Official Pushed to Ignore Court Orders to Carry Out Deportations
Emil Bove "does not belong on the federal bench," said one Democratic lawmaker ahead of confirmation hearings on the Justice Department official's judicial nomination.
Jun 24, 2025
With the Senate scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing on federal judicial nominee Emil Bove on Wednesday, Democrats urged the Republican Party to consider an explosive whistleblower complaint as they weighed Bove's nomination—one that revealed allegations that he directed U.S. Department of Justice staffers to ignore court orders to carry out the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda.
The whistleblower complaint was filed Tuesday with federal lawmakers and the DOJ's inspector general by a veteran lawyer in the agency's Office of Immigration Litigation, Erez Reuveni, who was fired in April after expressing concerns in federal court that the administration had wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
In the 27-page complaint, filed by Reuveni's lawyers at the Government Accountability Project, the attorney described a meeting on March 14 in which Bove, the principal associate deputy attorney general, told his subordinates that President Donald Trump would soon invoke the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to quickly remove a group of immigrants from the U.S., sending more than 200 people to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Bove "stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what," the complaint reads. He noted that "a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated," but said the DOJ "would need to consider telling the courts 'fuck you' and ignore any such order."
"Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned, and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room," reads the complaint.
Reuveni also alleged that DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign lied in court on March 15, the day Trump invoked the AEA, when he told Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. that he didn't know whether any deportation flights were scheduled to leave in the coming 24-48 hours.
"Ensign had been present in the previous day's meeting when Emil Bove stated clearly that one or more planes containing individuals subject to the AEA would be taking off over the weekend no matter what," reads the complaint.
Reuveni said that by April, he was "frozen out" of discussions about the Trump administration's use of the AEA to carry out deportations.
That month, he said in a court hearing that the deportation of Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man with no criminal record, had been a mistake. Abrego Garcia was sent to CECOT in March. The administration repeatedly said it would not facilitate his return to the U.S. as it was ordered to by the U.S. Supreme Court, before Abrego Garcia was indicted in Nashville on smuggling charges and abruptly returned to the U.S., where he is still detained, earlier this month.
After the hearing, Ensign asked Reuveni in a phone call why he hadn't supported the administration's claims in court that Abrego Garcia was a terrorist and gang member. He replied that no evidence supported the claim, and noted that even if Abrego Garcia was a criminal he would still be entitled to due process, which he was not afforded when he was sent to El Salvador.
As The New York Times reported:
The next day, Mr. Reuveni was told he should sign an appeal brief making the terrorism claim against Mr. Abrego Garcia.
Mr. Reuveni's lawyers say he resisted, arguing that the law does not allow advocates to make new factual claims, which he saw as "contrary to law, frivolous, and untrue."
That led to a final standoff with his supervisor... who told him "he should sign the brief and that he had signed up for the responsibility to do so," the account states.
Mr. Reuveni responded, "I didn't sign up to lie."
He was placed on administrative leave hours later, and fired the next week.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) responded to the report by saying that Bove "does not belong on the federal bench."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged Republicans on the panel "not to turn a blind eye to the dire consequences of confirming Mr. Bove to a lifetime position as a circuit court judge."
"The accusations against Emil Bove are serious. Not only do they speak to his failure to fulfill his ethical obligations as a lawyer, they also demonstrate his part in a broader pattern by the Trump-Bondi DOJ to undermine the rule of law," he said, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi—who has been accused of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, applauded Reuveni "for having the great courage to come forward to expose the lawlessness of Mr. Bove and Trump's DOJ."
"Whistleblowers are the first line of defense to hold those in power accountable," said Raskin. "The extraordinary nature of the disclosure demands further investigation by Congress, and Judiciary Democrats are committed to getting to the truth on all of the Trump administration's efforts to turn the Department of Justice into a gangster state law firm devoted to violating the rights of the people, lying to federal judges, violating court orders, and persecuting those who uphold their oaths and speak the truth."
The news of the whistleblower complaint came two days after Judge Barbara Holmes of the Federal District Court in Nashville said Abrego Garcia should be freed from immigration detention.
Holmes took issue with the Trump administration's central claim about Abrego Garcia: that he is a member of the gang MS-13.
"Abrego has no reported criminal history of any kind. And his reputed gang membership is contradicted by the government's own evidence," said Holmes.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Holmes' ruling was "remarkable."
The opinion, she said, "completely [dismantled] all the allegations and 'evidence' against him as 'defy[ing] common sense' and not credible."
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Trump in Los Angeles Is Exactly What We Have Been Warning About
This is a critical moment in U.S. history, and it demands that we stand strong in our opposition to the administration’s reckless and unlawful use of military force.
Jun 11, 2025
For years, we have warned against the danger of an unchecked president turning the military against American civilians.
In an extraordinary show of force, President Trump has federalized 4,000 members of the California National Guard and deployed 300 of them, in addition to deploying 700 Marines, to quell protests in the Los Angeles area. All over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Why this abrupt, camera-ready escalation? White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller posted a video of a peaceful protest parade. “If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country,” he shuddered. “Pass the BBB” — the budget bill now facing turbulence in Congress.
Trump’s administration is spoiling for a fight. It pops out emergency declarations like a Pez dispenser. It is also relying on flimsy legal justifications, as my colleagues have pointed out.
Presidents have deployed troops to control civil unrest only 30 times before in U.S. history. The Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits federal troops from engaging in civilian law enforcement. Soldiers are trained to defeat an enemy, not to de-escalate protests.
The situation in Los Angeles is bad. What might come next could be worse.
The last time that a president sent in the Guard without a clear request from a state’s governor was 1965, when troops were used to protect the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. (And even in that case, George Wallace waffled.)
To be clear, violent protests are not acceptable or productive. The federal government should be unobstructed in carrying out its lawful duties. Of course, the specter of masked ICE agents lurking in the lobbies of immigration courts, as has happened here in New York City, is itself willfully provocative.
In fact, in Los Angeles, protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful. The LAPD — hardly a department of pushovers — has been adamant that it has the situation under control. Not surprisingly, the troops have only fanned the protests. Newsom formally requested that the administration rescind the deployment, saying that it is “inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed.”
The situation in Los Angeles is bad. What might come next could be worse.
Trump’s executive order authorizes deployment of the Guard “at locations where protests against [ICE] functions are occurring or are likely to occur.” Where might that be? “We’re gonna have troops everywhere,” Trump declared.
As my colleague Elizabeth Goitein notes, “No president has ever federalized the National Guard for purposes of responding to potential future civil unrest anywhere in the country. Preemptive deployment is literally the opposite of deployment as a last resort. It would be a shocking abuse of power and the law.”
The most powerful repressive tool would be the Insurrection Act — a law that lets presidents deploy troops to suppress a rebellion or insurrection or curb domestic violence in extreme scenarios. Trump threatened to invoke it against Democratic-run cities during his 2024 campaign.
The Insurrection Act is, unfortunately, a mess of a law. Key words such as “rebellion” and “insurrection” are left undefined. Courts have given presidents a wide berth. Trump winked at this law by calling the protesters “insurrectionists.”
He has so far chosen to rely on a different law — one that has never been used to quell civil unrest without an accompanying Insurrection Act invocation. The administration claims that it is invoking this law only to protect federal personnel and property. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has requested that soldiers be authorized to detain and search protesters, functions normally prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act.
It’s clear that Trump wants to use this showdown to expand enforcement powers.
The week before he stages a strongman-style military parade along the National Mall — complete with tanks, missiles, and military aircraft — Trump has claimed the right to preemptively authorize deployment of the military all across America.
That should be chilling to most Americans, who have enjoyed a firm line between police and the military as an essential component of our democracy. The deployment of the military against civilians should only be used in the most extreme cases as a last resort. Otherwise, as Elizabeth Goitein notes, “an army turned inward can quickly become an instrument of tyranny.”
Experts have already identified worst-case scenarios. George W. Bush administration official David Frum has sounded the alarm on the possibility of Trump using the military to influence the 2026 election.
If you want to learn more about all of this, here are reports we’ve published in the last few years on emergency powers, the Insurrection Act, the Posse Comitatus Act, the Alien Enemies Act, and martial law.
Once again, in the face of a lawless executive, the courts must now step up. The Supreme Court may want to avoid a conflict, but here, it may have no choice. It is imperative that it uphold checks against the use of military force against civilians.
And now that we know that the existing laws can be used, however tendentiously, to justify provocative military action, we must fix those laws so they cannot be abused again.
The Brennan Center has proposed reforms to the Insurrection Act, including defining the law’s critical terms and enforcing more checks on its use. We have also proposed reforms to strengthen the Posse Comitatus Act. Americans must be adamant, too, that even under existing statutes, presidents lack the power to declare martial law.
This is a critical moment in U.S. history, and it demands that we stand strong in our opposition to the administration’s reckless and unlawful use of military force, in Los Angeles and across the country.
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