An extraordinary legal showdown took place last weekend over President Donald Trump’s invocation of an 18th-century wartime act to deport hundreds of immigrants, most of them Venezuelans, to a prison in El Salvador.
It involved a series of legal filings, White House announcements, court hearings, deportation flights and a mocking social media post from a Central American leader who proudly calls himself the ” world’s coolest dictator.”
Here is a timeline of events surrounding the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. All times are Eastern.
__2:16 a.m.: Two legal advocacy groups — the ACLU and Democracy Forward — file suit on behalf of five Venezuelans held in immigration detention who fear they’ll be falsely labeled members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and deported under the Alien Enemies Act, which lawyers expect to be invoked soon.
__9:40 a.m.: Judge James E. Boasberg issues a temporary restraining order preventing the government from deporting the five plaintiffs. He schedules a 5 p.m. hearing on whether to expand it. The Trump administration swiftly appeals the order.
__Roughly 4 p.m.: The White House posts the order invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
__5 p.m.: Boasberg convenes a hearing and asks the government attorney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, if the government plans to deport anyone under Trump’s new proclamation “in the next 24 or 48 hours.” Ensign says he doesn’t know and asks for time to find out, as the ACLU warns planes are apparently about to depart. Boasberg gives Ensign about 40 minutes to find out and recesses the hearing at 5:22 pm.
__5:26 p.m.: An airplane with the tail number N278GX, believed by activists to be carrying deportees, leaves Harlingen, Texas, near the border with Mexico, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
__5:45 p.m.: Another airplane with the tail number N837VA, believed by activists to be carrying deportees, departs Harlingen.
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