A Democracy Drive Thread
A 1798 wartime law, planes that kept flying after a judge said stop, a Salvadoran mega-prison, men with no criminal records, and people shipped to countries they had never seen.
The Constitution guarantees due process to every person in the United States. This thread tracks, in chronological order and with sources, how the Trump administration deported people while trying to avoid it: invoking the Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelan men to El Salvador’s CECOT prison without hearings, defying and attacking the judges who tried to stop it, wrongly deporting a Maryland father and fighting his return, and sending people to Guantanamo and to African countries they had no ties to. The entries are presented in order so the pattern speaks for itself.
January 29, 2025
In his own words
“Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay.”
February 3, 2025
On the ground
The family was stopped at a checkpoint in Texas while driving the girl to an emergency checkup and were deported the next day. Her doctors said she needed ongoing care in the U.S.
March 15, 2025
On the ground
Judge James Boasberg barred removals under the act and ordered planes in the air returned; the administration let them land and handed the men to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s prison, where inmates are cut off from the outside world. Officials argued the judge’s spoken order did not count. In April, CBS’s 60 Minutes could not find criminal records for 75% of the men — 179 people.
On the ground
He had immigration papers and a court date set for 2027. His father said agents arrested him by mistake while looking for others.
March 17, 2025
On March 17, 2025, border czar Tom Homan said on Fox & Friends that the administration would keep flying alleged Venezuelan gang members out of the country regardless of the courts, after it let deportation planes proceed despite a federal judge's verbal order that they turn around. The removals were carried out under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law invoked in peacetime. It was one of the administration's first open defiances of a court order.
“I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming.”
March 18, 2025
In his own words
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. Rep. Brandon Gill filed articles of impeachment. In a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ said the flights were outside U.S. airspace when the written order issued and declined to answer further.
March 21, 2025
In his own words
“Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!”
On the ground
A federal judge ordered the legal aid restored on April 1, but providers said the administration kept denying children counsel. Reporters documented babies and toddlers placed before immigration judges with no lawyer, including a judge telling a baby to file an asylum application.
March 24, 2025
In his own words
“There were planeloads of people,” she said, and “no procedures in place to notify people.” The Justice Department disputed the analogy.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act than has happened here.”
April 7, 2025
The administration admitted it had deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison through what it called an “administrative error” — then fought all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid returning him.
April 10, 2025
On April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld an order directing the administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man it had deported to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison on March 15 despite a court order barring his removal. Rather than comply, officials claimed the ruling was “in our favor,” and El Salvador's president said he would not send him back; Justice Department lawyers stonewalled the district judge over what, if anything, was being done. Abrego Garcia was not returned until June — nearly two months later.
April 11, 2025
On the ground
She had sought and then abandoned the order. DHS posted it unredacted while defending the deportation the government had admitted was a mistake.
April 15, 2025
Trump and his press secretary confirmed the White House was looking for “legal pathways” to send U.S. citizens — whom Trump called “homegrowns” — to El Salvador's mega-prison.
“The homegrowns are next.”
April 16, 2025
DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni was fired after he candidly told a court that Abrego Garcia's deportation had been an error — punished not for the mistake but for admitting it.
On the ground
Boasberg wrote that the government’s actions demonstrated “a willful disregard for its Order.” A divided D.C. Circuit panel later vacated the contempt finding, with its two Trump appointees in the majority and an Obama appointee dissenting that “the rule of law” was at issue.
April 17, 2025
In his own words
He noted that “aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute.” The administration had admitted Abrego Garcia was deported by mistake.
April 18, 2025
Attacked the senator as “a fake” for traveling to El Salvador to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man the government admitted it had wrongly deported.
“He's a fake.”
April 19, 2025
On the ground
The unsigned order barred removals “until further order of this Court.” Justices Thomas and Alito dissented.
April 20, 2025
In his own words
Trump posted on Truth Social that “those lying to the American People on behalf of violent criminals have to be held responsible,” aimed at journalists and Democrats covering the Maryland man deported to an El Salvador prison despite a court order barring it. The government had acknowledged in court that his removal was an “administrative error.” Administration officials attacked reporters covering the case as “despicable.”
“Those lying to the American People on behalf of violent criminals have to be held responsible by the Agencies and the Courts.”
April 21, 2025
In his own words
He wrote that “hundreds of thousands of trials” were “not possible to do,” after the Supreme Court paused his deportations.
“We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.”
April 22, 2025
On the ground
The filing attributed to the Court language it never wrote about what “facilitate” required. The Court had said the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release and handle his case as if he had not been wrongly sent away.
April 23, 2025
On April 23, 2025, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher — a Trump appointee — ruled that the administration had violated a 2019 class-action settlement when it deported a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker identified as “Cristian” to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, despite his pending asylum claim. She ordered the government to facilitate his return; Justice Department lawyers argued she lacked jurisdiction to review the removal at all.
April 24, 2025
In his own words
In posts he called Judge Boasberg a “Radical Left Lunatic.”
April 29, 2025
In his own words
Abrego Garcia’s knuckle tattoos are a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull; the letters and numbers were added on top of the image the White House circulated.
May 1, 2025
On the ground
Rodriguez permanently barred the administration from detaining, moving or removing Venezuelans under the act in the Southern District of Texas, finding that Tren de Aragua’s activity was not an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation. By then, hundreds of men had already been sent to El Salvador’s CECOT prison under the act.
May 12, 2025
On the ground
Fewer than 500 migrants had passed through, never more than 200 at once; military flight time cost about $26,000 an hour.
May 14, 2025
On the ground
The April assessment found the Maduro government “probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA.” A former council chairman said the message to analysts was “one of intimidation.”
May 21, 2025
On the ground
Judge Brian Murphy had ordered that people facing removal to a third country get the chance to argue it would put them in danger. He raised the prospect of criminal contempt.
June 6, 2025
On the ground
The indictment was returned May 21. A judge later found evidence that senior Justice Department officials pushed to prosecute him, calling it a “top priority,” only after he was ordered returned, and ordered internal communications disclosed on possible vindictive prosecution.
June 23, 2025
On the ground
The administration had already deported men to South Sudan in violation of the order. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the government “has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” exposing “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”
July 16, 2025
On the ground
Days earlier eight men had been sent to South Sudan.
August 27, 2025
On the ground
Groups of 150 attorneys are to be sent “as soon as practicable” for renewable 179-day details, after the administration fired many immigration judges amid a backlog of about 3.5 million cases.
August 28, 2025
On the ground
September 5, 2025
On the ground
In December Judge Xinis ordered him released from immigration custody.
September 16, 2025
On the ground
October 24, 2025
On the ground
He had lived in the U.S. since infancy. DHS said it didn’t receive the order until after the plane left; the ACLU asked a judge to order him returned.
November 14, 2025
On the ground
Barco applied for citizenship while deployed in 2006, and his representatives say the paperwork was lost. ICE picked him up in January as he walked out of the Colorado State Penitentiary, where he had served time for a 2008 shooting conviction.
November 25, 2025
On the ground
The advice came from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and then–Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove.
December 17, 2025
On the ground
An ICE memo lays out “Operation Irish Goodbye,” sending agents to border crossings and buses to arrest immigrants trying to leave the U.S. voluntarily for the holidays and put them into formal deportation. A formal removal can bar people from returning for years or permanently. Critics said it would also inflate the administration’s deportation numbers.
December 22, 2025
On the ground
The men had been sent to Venezuela in a July prisoner swap and said they were physically and psychologically abused in CECOT.