Politics
Trump Sends Hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador in Face of Judge’s Order
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador, pushing the limits of U.S. immigration law by carrying out the deportations seemingly after a federal judge ordered that the flights not proceed.
While the precise timing of the deportations remained unclear, White House officials exulted that they had carried out the transfer to a notorious Central American prison. U.S. courts, however, have just begun to wrestle with the serious legal questions raised by a new executive order that Trump officials hope will help them carry out many more rapid-fire expulsions.
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador posted a three-minute video on social media on Sunday of men in handcuffs being led off a plane during the night and marched into prison. The video also shows prison officials shaving the prisoners’ heads.
The Trump administration hopes that the unusual prisoner transfer deal — not a swap but an agreement for El Salvador to take suspected gang members — will be the beginning of a larger effort to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rapidly arrest and deport those it identifies as members of Tren de Aragua without many of the legal processes common in immigration cases.
The Alien Enemies Act allows for summary deportations of people from countries at war with the United States. The law, best known for its role in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, has been invoked three times in U.S. history — during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II — according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy organization. American officials familiar with the deal said that the United States would pay El Salvador about $6 million to house the prisoners.
On Saturday, Judge James E. Boasberg of Federal District Court in Washington issued a temporary restraining order blocking the government from deporting any immigrants under the law after President Trump issued an executive order invoking it.
In a hastily scheduled hearing sought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the judge said he did not believe federal law allowed the president’s action, and ordered that any flights that had departed with Venezuelan immigrants under Trump’s executive order return to the United States “however that’s accomplished — whether turning around the plane or not.”
“This is something you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he said.
A lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, told the judge that he did not have many details to share, and that describing operational details would raise “national security issues.”
The precise timing of the flights to El Salvador is important because Judge Boasberg issued his order shortly before 7 p.m. in Washington, but video posted from El Salvador shows the deportees disembarking the plane at night. El Salvador is two time zones behind Washington, which raises questions about whether the Trump administration ignored an explicit court order.
Judge Boasberg’s order to turn flights around came after he told the government earlier on Saturday not to deport five Venezuelan men who were the initial focus of the legal fight. The Trump administration is appealing Judge Boasberg’s order.
On Sunday, Mr. Bukele posted a screenshot on social media about Judge Boasberg’s order and wrote, “Oopsie… Too late.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio later shared Mr. Bukele’s post from his personal account.
Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized the judge on Saturday night in a written statement that said that he had sided with “terrorists over the safety of Americans,” and that his order “disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk.”
On Sunday, the government of Venezuela denounced the transfer, saying that it flew in the face of U.S. and international laws, adding that the attempt to apply the Alien Enemies Act “constitutes a crime against humanity.”
The statement compared the transfer to “the darkest episodes of human history,” including slavery and Nazi concentration camps. In particular, the government denounced what it called a threat to kidnap minors as young as 14 by labeling them as terrorists, claiming that the minors were “considered criminals simply for being Venezuelan.”
The government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has presented an obstacle to the Trump administration as it plans to step up deportations — and to target suspected Tren de Aragua members — because for years it has not regularly accepted deportation flights. In recent weeks, Mr. Maduro has gone back and forth on whether his government will accept flights of Venezuelans deported by the United States.
As a result, the Trump administration has sought alternative destinations for Venezuelans, including the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where it has sent migrants including accused gang members, though it has since removed them from the base.
In an unusual turn, El Salvador has presented Mr. Trump with another alternative.
In early February, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio was visiting El Salvador, Mr. Bukele offered to take in deportees of any nationality, including convicted criminals, and jail them in part of El Salvador’s prison system, for a fee.
Mr. Rubio, who announced Mr. Bukele’s offer at the time, said that the Salvadoran president had agreed to jail “any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal of any nationality, whether from MS-13 or the Tren de Aragua.”
Officials from both the United States and El Salvador revealed that the deal with the Trump administration also included the transfer of suspected members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 who were being held in the United States awaiting charges.
“We have sent 2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador,” Mr. Rubio posted on social media on Sunday. Mr. Rubio added that “over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua” had also been sent to El Salvador, which “has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price.”
The two MS-13 men mentioned by Mr. Rubio were an accused top leader indicted in 2020 on Long Island on federal charges including terrorism and an accused gang member charged in Newark in February with entering the United States illegally.
The first, Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, was among 14 of the gang’s highest-ranking leaders who were charged on Long Island in 2020. He was arrested last year in Texas and has since been in U.S. custody awaiting trial.
The second, Cesar Eliseo Sorto-Amaya, was arrested in February on charges that he entered the United States illegally — for the fourth time since 2015. He was wanted on double aggravated homicide charges in El Salvador, where he had been sentenced in absentia to 50 years in prison. The U.S. charges against both men were dismissed on Wednesday, according to court records that were unsealed on Sunday.
The prosecutors in Mr. Lopez-Larios’s case offered the following reasoning in a letter to the judge for seeking the dismissal of the charges against him. “The United States has determined that sensitive and important foreign policy considerations outweigh the government’s interest in pursuing the prosecution of the defendant,” the letter said.
The two men’s transfers have raised concerns among some U.S. law enforcement officials, who fear that those individuals, once out of U.S. custody, could escape or issue orders that may endanger witnesses in both countries, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
Mr. Bukele came to power on promises to crack down on gang violence and MS-13. His success in restoring safety has won him broad support in El Salvador and around Latin America, but critics say that it has come at the cost of human rights.
By imposing a state of emergency, the Salvadoran leader has sidestepped due process and ordered sweeping arrests that have ensnared thousands of people without any affiliation to criminal groups, critics say. Under Mr. Bukele, the prison population has soared and abuses, including torture, have been documented in the system.
Mr. Bukele has promoted his iron-fisted approach by posting dramatic photographs from his country’s prisons that resemble those shared this weekend: They often feature scores of tattooed inmates with shaved heads held in handcuffs and forced into submissive poses.
Tim Balk contributed reporting.
Politics
Before-and-after satellite imagery offers a rare look at damage inside Iran
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Fresh satellite images give a rare aerial view of the damage across Iran after U.S.-Israeli strikes and what Tehran’s retaliation left behind across the region.
Planet Labs satellite imagery captured burning ships and damaged facilities at the Konarak base in southern Iran, as well as significant destruction at Iran’s naval headquarters in Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, reflecting the scale of the strikes on military infrastructure.
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows damage at Konarak naval base in southern Iran, left, and Iran’s Bandar Abbas naval headquarters in the Persian Gulf, right. (Planet Labs PBC)
Imagery from Vantor shows damage to facilities and vessels located in Iran’s Bushehr port in the Persian Gulf.
In addition to naval assets, satellite photos show a bunker at Bushehr air base hit by a strike, leaving a large crater and destroying several nearby small buildings.
More strikes targeted the Choqa Balk drone facility in western Iran.
Radar systems at the Zahedan air base in eastern Iran — near the country’s borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan — were also struck.
The two facilities are about 800 to 900 miles apart, underscoring the broad reach of the coordinated strikes.
Satellite imagery also reveals damage to aircraft on the tarmac at Shiraz air base, including scorch marks and debris around several parking areas.
Side-by-side photos showing damage to aircraft at Shiraz air base in Shiraz, Iran on March 6, 2026. (Vantor/Maxar/Getty Images)
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows thick smoke plumes rising above Tehran, signaling explosions and fires inside the Iranian capital.
The smoke underscores how the conflict has moved beyond isolated military sites and into the heart of Iran’s political center.
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A satellite image from Planet Labs shows a plume of smoke above Tehran, Iran, on March 1, 2026. (Planet Labs PBC)
Iran has since responded with missile and drone strikes of its own, expanding the conflict across the region.
Satellite images reveal damage to the port city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Sharjah is the third most populous after Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
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The Jebel Ali Port, the region’s largest maritime hub, was also targeted, underscoring how the retaliation extended beyond military sites to key infrastructure.
The new satellite imagery comes on the heels of U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several top members of the regime, triggering a succession crisis.
President Donald Trump warned on Sunday that Iran’s new leader is “not going to last long” without U.S. approval as Operation Epic Fury marches into a third week.
Politics
Khamenei’s son is selected as Iran’s supreme leader; 7th U.S. service member killed
WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran entered its ninth day Sunday with no clear path toward de-escalation, as the U.S. announced a seventh American service member had been killed and Iranian state TV reported the selection of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son as his successor.
Meanwhile, the price of oil surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time in 3½ years.
President Trump said deploying American ground troops to the Middle East remains under consideration and Iran’s foreign minister rejected calls for a ceasefire.
Trump said last week that Mojtaba Khamenei would be an “unacceptable” choice to replace his father, the 86-year-old leader who was killed on the first day of U.S. and Israeli attacks. The clerical body in charge of choosing Iran’s next supreme leader selected him anyway, state TV reported Sunday.
The younger Khamenei, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, has never held government office, but has long been a quiet force within his father’s inner circle. As supreme leader, he will play a central role in deciding Iran’s war strategy moving forward, with the powerful paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps answering to him.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his selection.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump declined to rule out the possibility of sending U.S. forces inside Iran, saying it could “possibly happen” as the conflict intensifies.
“There would have to be a very good reason,” Trump said. “I would say if we ever did that they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level.”
His remarks came ahead of another relentless day of bombings in Iran, and as desalination plants critical to civilian water supplies in the arid region came under attack on both sides of the conflict.
The United States military on Sunday announced that an American service member died Saturday night of injuries sustained March 1 in Saudi Arabia during Iran’s “initial attacks” on U.S. allies and facilities across the region, in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes. The service member was not immediately identified, pending notification of family.
In addition to the seven U.S. service members killed in the war, a National Guard soldier died Friday of a “health-related incident” in Kuwait, where he had been deployed, the military said. The cause of death was under review.
Other deaths were also reported in the region. Israel reported two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon — its first military deaths of the war — while Saudi Arabia reported two people were killed and 12 wounded by a military projectile that fell in a residential area of Al Kharj.
The death toll in Iran has been difficult to nail down, but Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Friday put the number at more than 1,300.
Iran has said it is prepared to continue fighting the war despite sustaining heavy losses and would be ready to fight American ground troops if they set foot in the country.
“We have very brave soldiers who are waiting for any enemy who enters into our soil to fight with them, and to kill them and destroy them,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Araghchi added that Iran is not considering a ceasefire at this time. He said the United States and Israel would first need to explain “why they started this aggression and then guarantee there would be a permanent end of the war.”
“Unless we get to that, I think we need to continue fighting for the sake of our people and our security,” he said.
Araghchi also pushed back on Trump’s demand last week that the president be involved in determining Iran’s future leadership as a condition to ending the conflict.
“We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs. This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader,” Araghchi said. “It’s only the business of the Iranian people, and nobody else’s business.”
In addition to mounting deaths and widespread destruction, the economic toll of the war has also continued to rise, particularly in energy markets — with oil prices jumping above $100 a barrel on Sunday.
“If the war continues like this, there will be neither a way to sell oil nor have the ability to produce it,” Iran’s parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post Sunday. He added that the war would affect not just the U.S., but also the rest of the world “due to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s delusions.”
Israeli strikes Sunday hit an oil storage facility in Tehran, marking what appears to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. Black smoke billowed over the Iranian capital, with officials there warning of the hazardous health effects for residents.
“By targeting fuel depots, the aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment, and endangering lives on a massive scale,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on X.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that there’s a “fear premium in the marketplace” and sought to assure Americans that the soaring oil prices are a short-term problem.
“We never know exactly the time frame of this,” Wright said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months, thing.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the same message in an interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” calling the rising gas prices a “short-term disruption.”
“Ultimately taking out the rogue Iranian regime is going to be a good thing for the oil industry,” Leavitt said. “Those prices are going to come back down just like they have over the course of the past year, because of President Trump’s American energy dominance agenda.”
The strike on the oil storage facility came as Netanyahu promised “many surprises” for the next phase of the conflict.
Israel also claimed Sunday to have destroyed the Tehran headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard air force, which it said operated Iran’s “ballistic missile command, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) array, and other air force units.” It also said it had killed five top commanders in the Revolutionary Guard who were “hiding in a civilian hotel” in central Beirut, Lebanon.
Crucial civilian infrastructure also came under attack, on both sides of the conflict.
Bahrain denounced what it said was an Iranian attack on one of its desalination plants — facilities that supply water to millions of people in the parched deserts of the Persian Gulf. Araghchi said a U.S. airstrike had damaged an Iranian desalination plan on Qeshm Island first.
“Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran,” Araghchi wrote on X.
The United States has also come under scrutiny after evidence suggested that an American strike was probably responsible for an explosion at an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people, most of them children.
Trump administration officials have said that the matter is under investigation and that no determination has been made as to who was responsible for the strike. But on Saturday, Trump said Iran was to blame for the explosion.
“It was done by Iran,” he told reporters. “They’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”
Asked Sunday whether Iran had any evidence that the strike was conducted by the Americans, Araghchi said that it had to have been either the U.S. or Israeli military and that Trump’s suggestion that Iran was responsible for the attack was “funny.”
“It is our school, these are our students and our girls, and they are attacked by an American fighter, a jet fighter, and they have been killed. Why [is] Iran responsible?” Araghchi said.
Other world leaders and nations have called for a halt to fighting and added their own estimates to its toll.
Lebanon said more than half a million people have been displaced by the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday, and urged him to stop strikes in the region. Macron is the first Western leader to speak with Pezeshkian since the war began, the Associated Press reported.
Pope Leo XIV wrote on X on Sunday that reports out of Iran and the wider Middle East “continue to cause deep dismay and raise the fear that the conflict will expand, and that other countries in the region, including dear Lebanon, may once again sink into instability.”
He asked the world to pray “for the roar of bombs to cease, weapons to fall silent, and space to open for dialogue, in which people’s voices may be heard.”
Politics
Trump vows block on signing new laws until SAVE America Act passes Senate
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President Donald Trump is vowing to reject signing any new bills into law until the SAVE America Act is passed by the Senate, a tall order with just 53 Republicans seated and the 60-vote filibuster threshold a high hurdle.
“Great Job by hard working Scott Pressler on Fox & Friends talking about using the Filibuster, or Talking Filibuster, in order to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, an 88% issue with ALL VOTERS,” Trump wrote Sunday morning on Truth Social. “It must be done immediately.”
“It supersedes everything else,” Trump added. “MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE.”
The vow to halt all new law signings is a new one coming from the White House and notable because of the Senate hesitation to follow the urgings of Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to force the Senate to bring the bill forward through the talking filibuster.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during an “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed,” Trump’s post continued, “AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!”
While Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has publicly acknowledged a willingness to bring a vote on the SAVE America Act before the upper chamber, there is hesitation within the Republican Party about forcing the talking filibuster under the current Senate rules.
The talking filibuster would force Democrats to speak on the Senate floor to argue against a voter identification position widely supported by Americans, as Trump noted, but it would also force Republicans to sit in attendance with a quorum. That has been rebuked by longtime Senate GOP veterans as something that would “waste time.”
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has promised to bring the SAVE America Act to the Senate floor, but there remains some GOP hesitation on forcing the talking filibuster. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been publicly opposed to forcing a talking filibuster because of the time constraints it would force on the Senate GOP, and he remains one of the few Senate Republicans not signing on to support the SAVE America Act.
Another development that clouds the SAVE America Act filibuster is the recent appointment of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to serve as the next Department of Homeland Security secretary, perhaps resigning from the Senate by the end of March.
Fox News Digital reached out to Mullin’s office for comment. McConnell’s office declined to comment on Trump’s Truth Social vow to block all new law signings amid the standoff on the DHS funding that has the government in a partial shutdown and the Senate sitting on the House-passed SAVE America Act.
GOP REACHES KEY 50-VOTE THRESHOLD FOR TRUMP-BACKED VOTER ID BILL AS SENATE FIGHT LOOMS
“We’re going to have a vote on this, but in terms of what the president is willing to sign, Maria, we need to get the Department of Homeland Security funded,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wy., told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“The Democrats have blocked that right now. And the greatest threat to the American people today is terrorism. So I want to make sure that the Democrats work with us to pass and fund the Department of Homeland Security, because I’m worried about the lone wolf, the sleeper cells and the cyber terrorism that’s coming our way because of what Iran is telling people around the world to do to continue this reign of terror,” Barrasso said.
Getting to 60 votes in the Senate is unlikely with just Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., as the lone potential Democrat vote to side with the Senate GOP on the SAVE America Act.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH JOHNSON TO GO TO WAR WITH SENATE OVER SAVE ACT
Senate GOP WHIP John Barrasso, R-Wy., and current Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have expressed more support for forcing Democrats to filibuster the SAVE America Act than former GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (Getty Images)
“The Democrats are against so many of the things that I think help this country,” Barrasso added to Bartiromo. “They’d rather stand with illegal immigrant criminals than with the safety and security of the American people. I want to get the Save act to the floor. I want to have a vote.”
“That’s the next step on this need to get the Department of Homeland Security open and funded,” he continued. “The Democrats are bowing to the liberal left: The people that want to eliminate ICE, the people that want open borders again, and the people that really aren’t looking out for the best interest of the American people.
“As the president said in the State of the Union, it is the first duty of the American government to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. But that’s what not one single Democrat stood up for that when every Republican stood and cheered loudly.”
Barrasso, the Senate GOP member whipping up support, considers the SAVE America Act “common sense.”
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“You want to make sure that only citizens can vote,” he concluded to Bartiromo. “You want to make sure that when people show up, they have a photo ID to prove they are who they say they are. You need a you need a photo ID to buy a beer, to board a plane, all of those things. And it’s 90% popular with the American people. The only people against this are the Democrats because they want to make it easier to cheat.”
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