Can Trump legally deport the American citizens to prisons of El Salvador? | Donald Trump News

After deporting 238 alleged Venezuelan gang members and 23 members of a Salvadoran gang to a maximum security prison last month, US President Donald Trump is now considering Criminals deport who are citizens of the United States There he also told reporters on Monday.

But Trump’s newest plan will probably get several legal challenges. Sending American passport holders outside the country is probably illegal, experts say, and Trump himself has signed a bill during his first term that could make such deportations even more difficult.

So what is Trump’s plan, what are the legal challenges and can it ever be legal to deport an American citizen from the US?

Who has already deported Trump to El Salvador?

Last month, Trump has deported 238 members From the Venezuelan gang, the Aragua, as well as 23 members of the Salvadoran gang MS -13 to El Salvador.

These men are now being held in the center for the detention of terrorism (Centro de ConConamiento del Terrorismo) or Cecot, a 40,000 capacity, maximum security prison in El Salvador.

To facilitate this, the Trump government concluded a deal under which the American government El Salvador will pay around $ 6 million to hold the Aragua members for a year.

Trump also called on a “zombie” law from 1798, the Alien Enemies Act, to make the deportations possible. With this law, US presidents can hold or deporten non -citizens during wartime. Prior to the use of Trump, the Alien Enemies Act was invoked only three times: during the war of 1812, the First World War and the Second World War.

The use of Trump’s law is controversial, because critics claim that the US is currently not under the threat of “invasion” as a result of war. An explanation article from the Brennan Center for Justice argued in 2024 that the calling of the law “in peacetime to bypass conventional immigration legislation, would be a stunning abuse” and such an attempt should be brought down by the courts.

Another point of controversy is that, like the alleged gang members, Trump also deported Kilmar Armando Abrego GarciaA 29-year-old Salvadoran citizen who has lived in Maryland for 14 years and is married to an American citizen.

In 2019, Abrego Garcia was arrested by American immigration and customs enforcement in Maryland after an informant told the police that Abrego Garcia was an MS-13 terrorist. The lawyers of Abrego Garcia have denied this statement, with reference to a lack of any proof that Abego Garcia is affiliated with the MS-13.

Later in 2019, an immigration court of Abrego Garcia granted an immigration protection called “remembering removal”, which protected him to return to El Salvador and allowed him to stay in the US.

The government has described its deportation as an “administrative error”, but still claims that Abrego Garcia has ties with MS-13. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said that he would not return Abrego Garcia, who is now being held in Cecot, to the US.

“The question is ridiculous. How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States?” Bukele told reporters on Monday.

In a non -signed order on Thursday, however, the American Supreme Court unanimously ruled In a 9-0 decision that Trump should facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the US. The court currently includes a conservative majority of 6-3.

What did Trump say about deporting American citizens to El Salvador?

Trump Organized President Bukele of El Salvador In the White House for bilateral conversations on Monday, in which they discussed the recent deportations and plans for more – this time of American citizens.

Trump said to Bukele during the meeting: “I said that inland cases are the following, the own soil. You have to build about five places.” By ‘Inland’, Trump referred to criminals who held our citizenship.

The US president told reporters on Monday after that meeting that he hopes to deport American citizens who are criminals to El Salvador. Bukele said he would also be open to housing American prisoners. However, Trump acknowledged that he could only continue with this plan if it was legal and that he would only deport citizens who are ‘violent criminals’.

“We always have to obey the laws, but we also have home -grown criminals those people who have affected older ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat if they don’t look, those are absolute monsters,” Trump said.

“I would like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you have to look at the laws there.”

During a media briefing on Tuesday, Pers Secretary Karoline Leavitt of the White House told reporters that Trump would only consider this [sending US citizens to El Salvador]As legally, for Americans who are the most violent, serious, recurring perpetrators of crime that no one wants to live in their community in this room. “She did not give any additional comments about the legal considerations that the administration would make.

Would it be illegal to deport American citizens?

When Fox News -Gastheer Jesse Watters asked Attorney -General, Pam Bondi On Tuesday, if the plan to legally deport American citizens was legally, she said: “These are Americans that he says they have committed the most horrible crimes in our country, and crime will decrease dramatically because he has given us a directive to make America safe again.

“These people must be locked up as long as they can, as long as the law allows it. We will not let them go anywhere, and if we have to build more prisons in our country, we will do it.”

However, immigration law experts say that the plan would not be legal. “No, he [Trump] Can’t send us citizens to El Salvador, “Human Rights Advocate Clive Stafford Smith told Al Jazeera.

Bruce Fein, an American lawyer who specializes in Constitutional and International Law, told Al Jazeera: “It would be unconstitutional to remove American citizens to a foreign country for imprisonment.”

Which legal challenges could be made?

There are a series of legal challenges that can make Trump’s newest idea unfeasible, including:

• Eighth amendment: This constitutional change prohibits “cruel and unusual penalties”. Cecot is notorious for his mistreatment of prisoners, the prohibition of visits, education and recreation according to several reports, including a statement by Human Rights Watch that was released in March 2025.
• Fourteenth amendment: The fourteenth amendment of the American Constitution stipulates that an American citizen cannot lose Their citizenship unless they voluntarily surrender. A citizen of a country are that you cannot be removed from your country and can be sent abroad.
• The first step action: This bill, adopted by the congress and signed by Trump in 2018, includes a term that explains that federal prisoners should be housed as close as possible to their houses. This is to make a family visit, which is not allowed in Cecot, a smoother process. The bill calls for everyone who is more than 800 km in a prison, removed from home to get closer.

Can Trump pass these legal challenges?

A legal Maas in the Trump that the government can use is that in rare cases people who are not born in the US offered Can lose their citizenship.

A resident of a country born abroad can obtain citizenship by having spent naturalization after a certain time in the country and has usually proven that they have been assimilated in American culture. To become a naturalized American citizen, you must be older than 18 years and have continuously lived in the US as a green cardholder for five years or three years if you are married to an American citizen.

Naturalized citizens can lose their citizenship or become memorized if they commit certain crimes, including terrorism, war crimes, human rights violations, sex crimes or fraud. Denaturalization can also happen with someone who commits an act of betrayal against the US, or someone who runs to a public office or joins the army of a foreign country.

Fein said Al Jazeera that if an American citizen is locked up in a foreign country, scenarios could play with the Abrego Garcia case comparable. “Trump was able to secretly violate the constitution and then claim that he was powerless to bring the American citizen back to the United States, similar to Abrego Garcia,” he said.

“The foreign prison sentence would be immediately challenged for the court and create a new collision between Article 2 and Article 3, while we see ourselves unfolding with Abrego Garcia,” said Fein. Article 2 of the US Constitution grants the US President Executive Power while Article 3 places the judicial power in the Supreme Court. In the Abrego Garcia case, the Supreme Court has decided that Abrego Garcia should be sent back to the US, while the Trump government does not intend to bring him back.

“The Constitution is under stress like never before since the civil war,” said Fein.

“The problem is how an American court can enforce an order that it is illegal. The courts are always dependent on the good faith of relevant governments, and in a time of right -wing populism it is sometimes lacking,” Smith said.