Foreign News
US deports hundreds of Venezuelans despite court order
More than 200 Venezuelans alleged by the White House to be gang members have been deported from the US to a supermax prison in El Salvador, even as a US judge blocked the removals.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived in the Central American country, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning.
Neither the US government nor El Salvador has identified the detainees, nor provided details of their alleged criminality or gang membership.
A federal judge’s order prevented the Trump administration from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify some of the deportations, but the flights had already departed.
“Oopsie… Too late,” posted Bukele on social media, referring to the judge’s ruling.
A video attached to one of his posts shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the planes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the court ruling had been violated.
“The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” she said.
“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA [Tren de Aragua] aliens had already been removed from US territory.”
US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he had signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as he accused Tren de Aragua of “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion of predatory incursion against the territory of the United States”.
He said members of the gang would be deported for engaging in “irregular warfare” against the US. The Alien Enemies Act was last used during World War Two to intern Japanese-American civilians.
On Saturday evening, US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington DC ordered a 14-day halt to deportations covered by Trump’s proclamation, pending further legal arguments.
After lawyers told him that planes with deportees had already taken off, Judge Boasberg gave a verbal order for the flights to turn back, US media reported, although that directive did not form part of his written ruling.
The written notice appeared in the case docket at 19:25 EDT on Saturday (00:25 GMT on Sunday), the Reuters news agency reports, although it is unclear when the flights carrying the alleged gang members departed from the US.
In a court filing on Sunday, Department of Justice lawyers said the order had not applied because the deportees “had already been removed from United States territory”.
A senior administration official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that 261 people were deported on Saturday, 137 of whom were removed under the Alien Enemies Act over alleged gang ties.
The justice department has appealed against the judge’s ruling.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which was involved in the lawsuit against the Trump administration, said the court’s order may have been violated.
The case raises constitutional questions since, under the US system of checks and balances, government agencies are expected to comply with a federal judge’s ruling.
Venezuela criticised Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act, saying it “unjustly criminalises Venezuelan migration” and “evokes the darkest episodes in the history of humanity, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps”.
Rights groups condemned Trump, accusing him of using a 227-year-old law to circumvent due process.
Amnesty International USA wrote on X that the deportations were “yet another example of the Trump administration’s racist targeting” of Venezuelans “based on sweeping claims of gang affiliation”.
President Bukele, a Trump ally, wrote that the detainees were immediately transferred to El Salvador’s notorious mega-jail, the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).
The El Salvadoran president said they would be held there “for a period of one year”, and that could be “renewable”.
El Salvador’s Cecot jail is part of Bukele’s effort to crack down on the country’s organised crime.
The newly built maximum-security facility, which can hold up to 40,000 people, has been accused by human rights groups of mistreating inmates.
The arrangement between the US and El Salvador is a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties.
El Salvador was the second country that Rubio visited as the US’s top diplomat.
During that trip, which took place in February, Bukele made an initial offer to take US deportees, saying it would help pay for the massive Cecot facility.
The latest deportations under Trump’s second term are part of the president’s long-running campaign against illegal immigration in the US.
In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring Tren de Aragua and MS-13 foreign terrorist organisations.
He won over voters on the campaign trail, in part, by promising to enact the largest deportation operation in US history.
While illegal border crossings have plummeted to the lowest number in decades since Trump took office, the Republican president has reportedly been frustrated by the relatively slow pace of deportations so far.
[BBC]
Along Beirut’s downtown waterfront, Alaa is looking for somewhere to rest his head.
The Syrian refugee, originally from the occupied Golan Heights, is now homeless. He explained that he had already spent the day wandering around the Lebanese capital trying to find shelter.
He used to live in Dahiyeh – the southern suburbs of Beirut that have been pummelled by Israeli attacks, which have now killed MORE THAN 1,000 across Lebanon.
Now, he’s just looking for somewhere he can be safe. And in that context, Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival that began on Friday, is far from his mind.
When asked if he had any plans for Eid, he replied in the negative. Instead, his focus was on getting a tent.
“I got rejected from staying in a school, then I went to sleep on the corniche,” Alaa said. “Then people from the municipality told me to come here to downtown Beirut’s waterfront.”
Alaa wasn’t able to find a tent and is sleeping in the open air for now. But others in the area have, transforming a downtown more famous for its expensive restaurants and bars into a tent city for those displaced by the fighting. Across Lebanon, more than a million people have been displaced.
Lebanese are uncertain when this war will end, particularly as they have barely recovered from the conflict with Israel that ran between October 2023 and November 2024.
It makes celebrations difficult – a common theme across the countries affected by the current conflict.
In Iran, now in its third week of US-Israeli attacks – with no sign of an immediate end and an economic crisis that preceded the conflict, people are struggling to afford any of the items typically bought during the holiday season.
And it is potentially dangerous for people to shop at places like Tehran’s grand bazaar, which has been damaged by the bombing.
The religious element of Eid adds an extra sensitivity for antigovernment Iranians, some of whom now see any sign of religiosity as support for the Islamic Republic. The fact that Nowruz – the Persian New Year – falls on Friday this year means that some in the antigovernment camp will be focused on that celebration instead, and eschewing any events to mark Eid.
[Aljazeera]
King Charles has hosted a spectacular state banquet for the president and first lady of Nigeria, praising the strengths of Nigeria’s partnership with the UK.
After greeting the 160 guests in the Yoruba language, the King spoke of the “living bridge” of the Nigerian community in the UK, in a speech in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle.
Famous figures at the banquet included England rugby union captain, Maro Itoje, Olympic athlete Christine Ohuruogu and poet Sir Ben Okri, alongside senior royals including Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales.
There were special adaptations for Muslims, with the banquet taking place in the fasting month of Ramadan.
A prayer room was set aside in Windsor Castle and the usual lunch hosted by the King on such state visits did not take place.
It’s become a tradition to invent a cocktail for state visits – and in this case the “crimson bloom” was made from non-alcoholic ingredients, combining the Nigerian drink Zobo with English rose soda and hibiscus and ginger syrup.
There were also alcoholic drinks available for guests in St George’s Hall, including fine red and white wines, port and whisky.
The King’s speech reflected on the importance of religious tolerance, in which “people of different faiths can, do, and must live alongside one another in peace”.
He also told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and First Lady Oluremi Tinubu of the importance of partners such as Nigeria and the UK standing together in difficult times “when rain clouds gather”.
As well as diplomatic ties, King Charles spoke of “Afrobeats filling our concert halls and Nollywood captivating our screens”.
There was also a reflection by the King on the “painful marks” of a shared history, in a reference to colonialism.
“I do not seek to offer words that dissolve the past, for no words can,” said the King, but he hoped for a more optimistic future “worthy of those who bore the pains of the past”.
The banquet, on an elaborately decorated table filled with spring flowers, saw a meat-free menu.
It included:
- Soft boiled quail egg tartlet with watercress and kale and a basil sabayon
- Fillet of turbot, lobster mousse wrapped in spinach, beurre blanc sauce, sprouting broccoli with hollandaise sauce, fricassee of peas and broad beans, Jersey Royal potatoes
- Iced blackcurrant souffle with red fruit coulis
The two-day state visit began on Wednesday morning with a ceremonial welcome at Windsor.
In warm spring sunshine, the president and first lady – wearing traditional robes – were given the ceremonial grandeur of a royal welcome.
There was a carriage procession, bringing the Nigerian visitors into the quadrangle inside Windsor Castle, where a military band, with careful symmetry, paraded on the chequerboard lawn.
There was a gun salute, national anthems were played, guards were inspected and the Household Cavalry kicked up dust as they paraded inside the castle, in front of a viewing stand for the King and Queen and their visitors.
Official gifts were exchanged. The president and Mrs Tinubu were given hand-crafted pottery, a silver photo frame containing a picture of the King and Queen and a silver and enamel bowl.
In return, the King and Queen were given a traditional Yoruba statuette and a jewellery box featuring the faces of important Nigerian women.
President Tinubu is a Muslim and his wife is a Christian and the couple attended an interfaith event at Windsor Castle, designed to build bridges between religions.
It’s at a time of tensions within Nigeria, with a series of suspected suicide bombings this week in the north-eastern state of Borno, in which at least 23 people were killed and 108 injured in attacks blamed on hard-line Islamist militants from the Boko Haram group.
This is Nigeria’s first state visit to the UK for 37 years and such visits are a way of building relationships with international partners.
The Nigeria visit will see a strengthening of business links, including financial services. And there are personal and family connections, with more than 270,000 Nigerian-born people living in the UK.
“This state visit is about turning a historic relationship into a modern economic partnership – transforming trust into opportunity,” said Nigeria’s government spokesman Mohammed Idris.
“Nigeria’s economic reforms are unlocking the potential of Africa’s largest consumer market. The United Kingdom is a natural partner in what comes next.”
Iran’s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib has been killed, the country’s president has confirmed.
Masoud Pezeshkian said the “cowardly assassination” had left Iran “in deep mourning”, after Israel said on Wednesday it had killed Khatib in an air strike.
It comes a day after Israel announced it had killed Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, and head of the paramilitary Basij force, Gholamreza Soleimani, in strikes.
Since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war on 28 February, multiple senior Iranian officials and commanders have been killed in efforts by Israel and the US to weaken the regime’s leadership.
In a post on X, Pezeshkian extended his condolences to the Iranian people over the officials’ deaths, adding he was “certain their path will continue more steadfastly than before”.
Speaking to the BBC, a woman from Tehran said the “killing of Khatib might help the people since he was among the leadership”.
“It might be that when people come out after a call to protest, the likelihood of them being killed is lower now,” she said. “Even though they all have replacements, these were the main figures.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz announced that Khatib had been “eliminated” in an Israeli strike on Tehran.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorised the IDF to eliminate any senior Iranian official for whom the intelligence and operational circle has been closed, without the need for additional approval,” he said.
[BBC]
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