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nayib bukele
GOP Congressman Wants to Impeach Judge Behind 'Alien Enemies' Order Trump Defied
"The U.S. continues its racist slide toward authoritarian practices," Amnesty International USA said of the administration ignoring the court decision.
Mar 16, 2025
As part of elected Republicans and billionaires' assault on the federal judiciary, a GOP congressman on Saturday night pledged to file articles of impeachment against a chief judge who issued an order against U.S. President Donald Trump's invocation of an 18th-century wartime power—a court decision that the administration intentionally ignored.
In a post on X—the social media platform owned by Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk—Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) shared the New York Post's coverage of the Saturday court order and said, "I'll be filing articles of impeachment against activist Judge James Boasberg this week."
Gill's post garnered support from multiple other Republicans in the House of Representatives as well as Musk, who has endorsed GOP lawmakers' previous efforts to impeach other federal judges who have ruled against his and Trump's agenda.
Boasberg on Saturday issued a nationwide temporary restraining order in response to legal groups challenging Trump's attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for deportations. The judge, who was appointed to the district court in Washington, D.C. by former President Barack Obama, ordered any planes in the air to turn around.
However, "the Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn't apply," Axiosreported Sunday, citing two senior officials.
While leading legal groups argue that Trump's attempted use of the law—previously invoked to send thousands of people to internment camps during World War II—is illegal, a senior White House official told Axios: "This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we're going to win."
Axios' reporting came after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's signaled early Sunday on X that despite Boasberg's order, hundreds of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sent to El Salvador—which the Trump administration will pay $6 million a year to imprison them, according toThe Associated Press.
Also sharing the Post reporting on Boasberg's order, Bukele wrote, "Oopsie… Too late," with an emoji crying from laughing. Separately, the Salvadoran leader posted a video of the prisoners' arrival—which Rubio responded to, saying, "Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele."
Bukele and Rubio noted that the Trump administration also sent to El Salvador over 20 alleged members of the gang MS-13.
The Trump administration's defiance of the judge's directive sparked fresh warnings about what lies ahead. Amnesty International USA said Sunday on X that "the United States is defying a court order in order to accelerate the complete erosion of human rights for Venezuelans seeking safety."
"This is yet another example of the Trump administration's racist targeting, detaining, and deporting of Venezuelans—many of whom haven't even been ordered deported—based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation," the human rights group added. "The U.S. continues its racist slide toward authoritarian practices."
Even before the defiance this weekend, the pro-democracy group Free Speech for People argued that the administration's recent "oversteps of the judiciary branch" provide new grounds for Congress to launch another impeachment investigation in the twice-impeached president.
Trump went into the weekend doubling down on his attacks on the judicial system with Friday remarks at the U.S. Department of Justice that triggered widespread alarm. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero—whose group is involved in the challenge against the 1798 law—said in a statement about the president's speech that "it's increasingly clear that we're entering a modern McCarthy moment. When the government is targeting a former ambassador, a legal permanent resident, law firms, and even universities and treating them like enemies of the state, it is a dark day for American democracy."
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'A Death Sentence': Legislature Overturns El Salvador's Metal Mining Ban
One group called it "the biggest attack on water, health, and life in El Salvador," highlighting "opposition from churches, universities, social organizations, and the majority of the population."
Dec 23, 2024
In a win for Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has dubbed himself "the world's coolest dictator," the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador on Monday overturned the Central American country's 2017 ban on metal mining.
Bukele has fought to reverse the historic ban since taking office in 2019. Despite a prohibition in the Salvadoran Constitution, he ran for and won a second term in February, after his Nueva Ideas (New Ideas) party purged the judiciary.
Reporting on Monday's mining reversal, the Financial Timesnoted that "Bukele's party and its allies hold 57 of 60 seats in the legislature, and all 57 voted to overturn the ban while giving the Salvadoran government sole authority over mining activities."
As the British newspaper detailed:
He has claimed that El Salvador sits on gold reserves potentially worth $3 trillion, citing an undisclosed study, although that has been treated with skepticism by experts.
There has been limited exploration in El Salvador. El Dorado, the most advanced of more than two dozen exploration projects prior to the ban, was once estimated to hold 1.4 million ounces of gold, which would be worth roughly $3.6 billion today, without considering production expenses.
El Salvador's gold belt runs across its northern provinces and the watershed of the Lempa River, which is the small and densely populated country's main source of water.
In a statement earlier this month, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) warned that "El Salvador's 2017 prohibition against metallic mining is a widely popular measure and overturning it would be a death sentence for the small and densely populated country with its scarce water sources, many of which are already contaminated."
"The historic ban, passed in a unanimous 70-0 vote by El Salvador's Legislative Assembly in 2017, was the result of a decadelong campaign to value life over transnational mining corporations' pursuit of profits," IPS explained. "The campaign was ultimately supported by a wide coalition of civil society organizations, educational institutions, some business sectors, legislators and ministers from across the political spectrum, as well as two archbishops. They were all persuaded by substantial evidence of gold mining's destructive effects, and the deleterious impacts of cyanide used in gold mining."
"The struggle also cost the lives of several beloved water defender activists who stood up to the mining companies in Cabañas: Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera, student Juan Francisco Durán Ayala, and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, who was eight months pregnant when murdered, and whose 2-year-old child witnessed and was wounded in the attack," the group added.
The IPS statement came in response to a November 26 ruling that ordered a retrial for the Economic and Social Development Association of Santa Marta (ADES) "Santa Marta Five" water defenders—Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega—a development the group denounced.
ADES forcefully condemned the mining ban reversal on social media Monday, calling it "the biggest attack on water, health, and life in El Salvador," and pointing to "opposition from churches, universities, social organizations, and the majority of the population."
The Salvadoran group also shared images of opponents who gathered outside the Legislative Assembly on Monday.
Luis Gonzalez, one of the environmentalists outside the building,
toldReuters, "We oppose metals mining because it has been technically and scientifically proven that mining is not viable in the country."
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Support the Human Rights Defenders Opposing Bukele’s State of Exception
Since the Salvadorian leader began his war on gangs, easily 25,000 (and likely many more) innocent people have been arrested and held under inhumane conditions, including extreme overcrowding.
Dec 10, 2024
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had a huge (though controversial) electoral victory in February 2024. But a small, stubborn legal movement is challenging his popular, indiscriminate war against gangs.
Even as the reduction of gang violence brings relief to many Salvadorans, many low-income people see their law-abiding neighbors being swept up arbitrarily in Bukele’s war. Understandably, they fear the so-called security forces.
During a November 2024 tour in the United States, attorneys Ingrid Escobar and Óscar Rosales of Socorro Jurídico Humanitario (SJH or Humanitarian Legal Aid ) were clear: They do not oppose the legal arrest and incarceration of gang members. But they’re resisting a suspension of constitutional rights that’s proven to be capricious in practice, cruel, dangerous, and deadly.
Institutionalizing Brutality
MS-13 killed 87 people during the last weekend of March 2022. At Bukele’s direction, the Legislative Assembly implemented Article 29, resulting in an extraordinary emergency measure called a “state of exception.” With it, “the rights to freedom of association and assembly, and privacy in communications, as well as some due process protections” were temporarily suspended. “Temporarily” has become long-term.
Of the 83,000 who have been detained during Bukele’s war against gangs, SJH estimates that only 40% are actually gang members, another 30% have collaborated with gangs (often unwillingly and sometimes under threat of death), and the remaining 30% (most of them also charged with collaboration) are actually innocent of any gang affiliation at all.
The denial of the presumption of innocence and a lack of access to legal representation and family are harrowing for detainees, as well as their loved ones.
So, easily 25,000 (and likely many more) innocent people have been arrested and held under inhumane conditions, including extreme overcrowding. Some released prisoners report 150 detainees sharing a single toilet, multiple people sharing a single bed, and those who can’t access a bed sleeping on floors with excrement.
In mid-November, Bukele stated that 8,000 state-of-exception prisoners had been released. But, according to Escobar, hundreds of release orders have been ignored. Former detainee Melvin Ortiz had received 24 such orders but was only released after his case was taken to the United Nations.
SJH claims there were at least 330 deaths in detention between April 27, 2022 and the end of October 2024. About half were due to violence, 40% to medical neglect, and 10% to terminal illness. Notably, 94% of those 330 decedents did not belong to gangs.
Considering the cumulative institutional brutality, these deaths aren’t surprising. Some released prisoners report “welcome beatings” by prison guards upon incarceration, extreme malnutrition, dehydration (prisoners receive four ounces of water to drink daily), torture, and a lack of medications or medical care.
There is psychological trauma, too. The denial of the presumption of innocence and a lack of access to legal representation and family are harrowing for detainees, as well as their loved ones.
Arbitrary and Political Arrests
One government official told Leslie Schuld, director of Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad: “We are throwing out nets to capture gang members and then we will release the innocent people caught in the nets.” But statistics from the past 32 months show that, once imprisoned, it’s easier to become entangled in those metaphorical nets than be released.
In practice, anyone—but it’s usually people in low-income neighborhoods—can be arrested under the state of exception. SJH reports that police and military personnel arrest arbitrarily to fulfill quotas. Allegations against persons can be made anonymously—which has proven handy for unscrupulous people with grudges, unwelcome competitors, or even romantic rivals. People are arrested for their tattoos (one young man was detained for having a rose tattoo honoring his mother, Rosa), for haircuts or clothing deemed suspicious, for having an old criminal record, or for having been deported from the United States.
“The fear we have is that we’ll be the next ones he arrests despite never having broken the law.”
Sandra Leticia Hernández fits several of these categories. After serving a sentence in Ilopango prison, she returned to Isla El Espíritu Santo where she lived with her lesbian life partner. Business competitors resented her thriving motorcycle-taxi service as well as her sexual orientation. Sandra was arrested first—and then her partner, Eidi Roxana Claros de Zaldaña, was detained when she made inquiries about her. Sandra was released eventually, while Eidi remains incarcerated.
Young Salvadorans are deeply affected by state-of-exception injustices. Human Rights Watch has observed that many children in low-income barrios are doubly traumatized: once preyed upon by gangs, they are now targeted by the police and state security forces. Over 3,000 children have been arrested; detainees as young as 12 years old can receive prison sentences of up to 10 years.
Additionally, both SJH and Columbia University’s Center for Mexico and Central America claim that, in El Salvador, “an estimated 100,000 children and adolescents had been effectively orphaned” after their parents disappeared into detention. SJH reports that many of these children lack basic necessities and some of them experience one or more of the following: depression, weight loss, eating disorders, nightmares, hyperactivity, aggressiveness, and fear and anger toward the military and police.
Finally, troublesome critics of corporations and the government—such as union members denouncing corruption, social activists, and human-rights defenders—are targeted. That includes the SJH. At a press conference, Escobar talked about the scrutiny they’re under: “These [investigatory] actions include surveillance and monitoring of our homes, workplaces, and the facilities of the Humanitarian Legal Aid. We have confirmed [this] through license plates on vehicles that are used solely for police purposes.”
Thirsting for Justice
But SJH isn’t deterred. In addition to providing full legal accompaniment to 100 innocent clients, SJH is rendering habeas corpus services to another 2,600. And because many of its clients were sole breadwinners, SJH provides material support to their families. So far, SJH has secured the release of 50 innocents, after taking some of their cases to international courts.
Escobar declares on her X page: “Tengo sed, sed de #Justicia.” She is thirsty for justice—but it’s risky. Elsewhere she’s acknowledged, “The fear we have is that we’ll be the next ones he arrests despite never having broken the law.”
SJH has a loud collective voice that carries far. It regularly denounces the Bukele administration’s violations of human rights in national and international settings. Surely these defenders of El Salvador’s hard-won but vulnerable democratic rights deserve our moral, political, and monetary support.
Please call senators and representatives through the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.Ask that U.S. aid for the Salvadoran armed forces be withheld until all innocents have been released and the prisons investigated independently.
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