Judge orders administration to submit plans for return of migrants deported to El Salvador prison under AEA

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has ordered the Trump administration to submit plans to return or otherwise provide hearings for over 100 migrants who were sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison in March.

Boasberg has certified a class representing all migrants sent to the prison and says the government must submit its plans to allow them to contest their designation under the Alien Enemies Act by Jan. 5.

The Trump administration in March invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.

The more than 200 migrants who were sent to CECOT were returned to Venezuela in July in a prisoner swap.