Trump administration prepares to send more deported migrants to notorious El Salvador prison
CNN
The Trump administration is preparing to send more immigrants with criminal records to El Salvador’s notorious mega prison on the heels of a Supreme Court order allowing the use for now of a sweeping wartime authority for deportations, according to two US officials.
The Trump administration is preparing to send more immigrants with criminal records to El Salvador’s notorious mega prison on the heels of a Supreme Court order allowing the use for now of a sweeping wartime authority for deportations, according to two US officials. El Salvador has emerged as a key US ally in Latin America as President Donald Trump pushes to advance his aggressive immigration agenda. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is expected to visit the White House on Monday to discuss the use of the country’s Cecot prison, the largest in the Americas. And the Trump administration has even fielded a recent proposal from private security contractor Erik Prince to establish a US-run migrant detention facility in El Salvador, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday the US would continue using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people. “It’s one of the reasons I went to El Salvador last week was a visit with the President. Asked him to continue to take terrorists from the United States of America that no longer belong here,” she said. But the administration’s reliance on El Salvador as it seeks to ramp up deportations has proven to be controversial — prompting fraught legal battles and public pushback. This week, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed removals, but made clear that officials must give migrants subject to the measure adequate notice, so they have “reasonable time” to bring habeas complaints. Those complaints have already popped up in some parts of the country. Federal judges in New York and Texas on Wednesday issued orders to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act.

Roughly 500 Marines based out of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in California have been mobilized to respond to the protests in Los Angeles, according to three people familiar with the matter, and will join the thousands of National Guard troops that were activated by President Donald Trump over the weekend without the consent of California’s governor or LA’s mayor.