DOJ admits DHS Secretary Noem personally decided to deport Venezuelan detainees to El Salvador's CECOT prison

The Department of Justice acknowledged in a Nov. 26, 2025 court filing that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem personally decided to continue deportation flights carrying 238 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador's maximum-security CECOT prison on Mar. 15, 2025, despite federal Judge James Boasberg's order to turn the planes around. During a Mar. 15 court hearing, Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order directing that planes carrying the detainees be turned back, but Justice Department attorneys said his oral instructions were defective and the deportations proceeded as planned. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove offered legal advice to DHS's acting general counsel, who passed it to Noem. After receiving that advice, Noem directed the transfer to El Salvador's custody. The DOJ argued her decision was lawful and consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the court's order.

President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act on Mar. 15, 2025 to order the swift detention and deportation of Venezuelan migrants suspected of being members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang. In his proclamation, Trump argued the gang was 'perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States' - the legal threshold for invoking this wartime authority. The Alien Enemies Act had only been used three times before - during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II - and never outside the context of a war declared by Congress. Trump's invocation marked the first use of the law for immigration enforcement. The administration deported more than 260 migrants to El Salvador over that Mar. weekend, including 137 alleged gang members expelled under the Alien Enemies Act. A distinguishing feature was that instead of detaining designated 'alien enemies' within the U.S. or repatriating them to Venezuela, detainees were placed in a foreign country's maximum-security prison.

Human Rights Watch and Cristosal released an 81-page report on Nov. 12, 2025 titled 'You Have Arrived in Hell: Torture and Other Abuses Against Venezuelans in El Salvador's Mega Prison.' The report documented that Venezuelan nationals the U.S. government sent to El Salvador's CECOT facility in Mar. and Apr. 2025 were systematically tortured and subjected to sexual violence. Between Mar. 21 and Sep. 2, 2025, Human Rights Watch conducted telephone interviews with 150 people, including relatives, friends, employers and lawyers of detainees. Every former detainee interviewed reported being subjected to serious physical and psychological abuse on a near-daily basis throughout their entire detention. The Independent Forensic Expert Group of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims analyzed photographs and confirmed they were consistent with detainees' testimonies of torture.

Human Rights Watch found that roughly half the Venezuelans sent to CECOT had no criminal history, and only 3 percent had been convicted in the United States of a violent or potentially violent offense. Investigators found no evidence that any of the Venezuelans were members of the Tren de Aragua gang - the stated justification for their deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. Additional background checks showed that many had not been convicted of crimes in Venezuela or other Latin American countries where they'd lived. Despite Trump's proclamation targeting gang members perpetrating an 'invasion,' the vast majority of deportees had no gang affiliations and no violent criminal records. The report documented that the U.S. government deported people to systematic torture in a foreign prison based on unsubstantiated gang allegations.

The Venezuelan migrants were held at CECOT prison for approximately four months before being released in Jul. 2025 as part of a prisoner swap with Venezuela that included the release of 10 Americans held in Venezuela. During their detention, they were held incommunicado with no access to lawyers, family members, or consular officials. A federal judge later ruled that the U.S. maintained custody over the men while imprisoned in El Salvador and ordered the administration to either facilitate their return to the U.S. or provide them with hearings that satisfy due process requirements. In Sep. 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit blocked Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, rejecting the notion that immigration constitutes an invasion. In Dec. 2025, Judge Boasberg said the U.S. denied due process to the Venezuelan men it deported to El Salvador.

Judge Boasberg resumed his criminal contempt inquiry in Nov. 2025 to determine which Trump administration officials were responsible for flouting his Mar. orders to turn the planes around. In Apr. 2025, Boasberg had found 'probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt' for violating his temporary restraining order. The Justice Department sought to boot Boasberg from pursuing contempt hearings, arguing against his authority to hold officials accountable. In Dec. 2025, Boasberg wrote that Noem's sworn statement 'does not provide enough information for the Court to determine whether her decision was a willful violation of the Court's Order.' He ordered additional testimony from key officials including Drew Ensign, a top DOJ lawyer, about decisions made by administration officials that resulted in the deportations despite the judge's order.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited CECOT prison and described the arrangement with El Salvador as unprecedented. Noem told reporters, 'This unprecedented relationship we have with El Salvador is going to be a model for other countries on how they can work with America.' Her statement suggested the Trump administration planned to expand the practice of deporting migrants to foreign prisons rather than to their countries of origin. The arrangement represented a fundamental departure from standard deportation procedures, which involve returning migrants to their home countries. Noem's characterization of systematic torture documented by Human Rights Watch as a 'model' for other countries raised alarm among human rights advocates and congressional Democrats.

Congressional Democrats raised alarms about the use of U.S. taxpayer funding to hold people in what they called an 'El Salvadoran torture center.' Representatives Gregory Meeks, Joaquin Castro, and Senators Tim Kaine and Chris Van Hollen led colleagues in pressing the State Department about the arrangement. Senator Peter Welch issued a statement following the Human Rights Watch report calling the documented torture shocking. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus demanded investigations into whether the Trump administration violated international and domestic law prohibiting torture. The deportations to CECOT raised fundamental questions about whether the U.S. can lawfully deport people to facilities where systematic torture is documented, whether such deportations violate the Convention Against Torture, and whether taxpayer funds can be used to facilitate torture in foreign prisons.