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FEATURING AHILAN ARULANANTHAM - Within weeks of Donald Trump’s second-term inauguration, he rescinded the designation of Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals living in the U.S. He did so by invoking a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act, and immediately dumped three planeloads of Venezuelan men into El Salvador’s notorious prison for alleged gang members. 

 When an emergency ACLU-led court hearing resulted in U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordering an immediate halt to the deportations, including a demand that the flights be turned around mid-air, the Trump White House simply defied the order and pressed ahead. Their justification was that the planes were outside U.S. airspace and therefore the order didn’t apply. Now, they’re saying details of the removals of Venezuelan nationals are state secrets.

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