President Donald Trump’s administration mocked a judge’s order that required them to halt the deportation of accused Venezuelan gang members.
Administration officials shared on Sunday that they had sent hundreds of deportees to El Salvador, even though a federal judge ordered on Saturday that the deportations be halted. Following the news, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung shared a social media post from El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that poked fun at the judge’s order for coming “too late.”
“Oopsie,” Bukele wrote, along with a screenshot of a New York Post article about the judge’s order.
Cheung shared the post along with an image of Denzel Washington saying “boom” in the movie “Training Day.”
Trump had ordered the deportations of suspected gang members under the Alien Enemies Act, a little-used and centuries-old law that gives the president expansive wartime powers. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered that the deportations be stopped while the legality of Trump’s orders is weighed. The Trump administration seemingly ignored that order, as flights were reportedly already on their way to El Salvador.
Trump called the deportees “monsters” in a post to his social media platform, Truth Social. The post included a video of the deportees being ushered off of the flights and having their heads shaved by prison guards.
“These are the monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats. How dare they!” he wrote. “Thank you to El Salvador and, in particular, President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of incompetent Democrat leadership.”
It’s far from the first time that Trump has bragged about flouting the law in his second term. When his newly created Department of Government Efficiency was immediately ensnared in lawsuits over its attempts to reduce the size of the federal government, Trump shared a quote frequently attributed to Napoleon.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he wrote.
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