米、ギャング容疑者をエルサルバドルへ送還　差し止め命令無視か

【サルバドルＡＦＰ＝時事】中米エルサルバドルのナジブ・ブケレ大統領は１６日、米国で拘束されていたギャング構成員とされる２００人超が送還され、国内の刑務所に収監されたと発表した。（写真は、米国からエルサルバドルの「テロリスト拘禁センター〈ＣＥＣＯＴ〉」に送還された、犯罪組織「トレンデアラグア」のメンバーとされるベネズエラ人）
　ブケレ氏は先月、マルコ・ルビオ米国務長官との会談で、４万人の収容が可能な自国の「テロリスト拘禁センター（ＣＥＣＯＴ）」に、米国で収監されている米国および第三国の犯罪者を受け入れることを提案した。
　ブケレ氏はこの日、ドナルド・トランプ米大統領が外国テロ組織に指定したベネズエラのギャング「トレンデアラグア」のメンバーとされる２３８人が、首都サルバドルに到着したと発表した。
　同氏は、手錠と足かせをつけられた数人が、航空機から厳重警備の車列へ移送される様子を撮影した動画をＸ（旧ツイッター）で公開。大統領府も、到着した受刑者を剃髪（ていはつ）する様子を捉えた写真を公開した。
　ブケレ氏は、米国から「わずかな額の支払い」を受け取るとしているが、具体的な金額は明らかにしなかった。
　トランプ氏は自身のＳＮＳ「トゥルース・ソーシャル」への投稿で、エルサルバドルに謝意を表明した。
　トランプ氏は、１７９８年の立法以来、戦時下に３回発動されただけの「敵性外国人法」を発動する命令に１４日に署名したことを、１５日になって公表していた。
　同法は、裁判所の手続きなしに外国人の拘束や送還を可能にするもので、第２次世界大戦中には１０万人以上の日系米国人を収容するために用いられた。
　今回のベネズエラ人の送還は、米連邦判事が国外追放命令の差し止めを認めたにもかかわらず実施され、トランプ政権が意図的に裁判所判断を無視したのではないかとの疑問が浮上している。
　ベネズエラ政府はこの日、「大多数が尊厳と誠実さを持った労働者」であるベネズエラ移民を、トランプ政権が「犯罪者扱い」していると非難した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2025/03/17-16:32）

The United States flew over 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to be imprisoned in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele said Sunday, after US counterpart Donald Trump controversially invoked wartime legislation to expel them.
The deportations took place despite a US federal judge granting a temporary suspension of the expulsions order, apparently as planes were headed to El Salvador -- raising questions over whether the Trump administration deliberately defied the court decision.
Oopsie ... Too late, Bukele posted on social media in response to an article on the judge's ruling, adding a crying-with-laughter emoji.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt denied that officials had refused to comply with the court order, which the Trump administration is appealing, as she said the deportees had already left the United States.
A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil, Leavitt wrote in a statement.
Civil rights groups have warned that, if Trump's invocation of the centuries-old law is upheld in courts, it could allow the deportation of huge numbers of adult migrants without explanation or a court hearing.
Bukele announced Sunday that 238 members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organization, had arrived in El Salvador.
He shared a video on X of several men in handcuffs and shackles being transferred from a plane to a heavily guarded convoy, while the presidency shared photos showing prisoners' heads being shaved upon arrival in El Salvador.
Bukele said the United States would pay a very low fee to El Salvador but did not specify the amount.
- Mega-jail with windowless cells -
In a post Sunday on his Truth Social platform, Trump referred to the deportees as monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, and thanked El Salvador for receiving them.
The US president on Friday had signed an order invoking the little-known Alien Enemies Act of 1798, but it was not publicly announced until Saturday.
The wartime authority allows a president to detain or deport citizens of an enemy nation.
It has been invoked only three times -- during the War of 1812 to expel British nationals, during World War I against nationals from enemy nations and, most notoriously, during World War II for the interment of more than 100,000 Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans.
Bukele, in a meeting last month with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had offered to house prisoners from the United States in his country, including members of Tren de Aragua and El Salvador's own MS-13 gang.
The iron-fisted leader is extremely popular in his country for a successful crackdown on violent gangs, but has faced criticism from human rights groups.
Bukele said the alleged gang members had been sent to the country's maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison southeast of capital San Salvador with capacity for 40,000 prisoners.
Inmates there are packed in windowless cells, sleep on metal beds with no mattresses and are forbidden visitors.
- 'Wartime powers' -
In a sharp rebuke Sunday, Venezuela's government said Trump had criminalized Venezuelan migrants, whom it said were in their immense majority... dignified and honest workers.
Trump, in his order, claimed Tren de Aragua was conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Caracas.
The order will apply to all Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members who are over 14 and not naturalized US citizens or lawful permanent residents.
The ACLU rights group and an allied group, Democracy Forward, asked a US District Court in Washington to bar the deportations -- arguing that the 1798 act was not intended for use in peacetime.
A Democracy Forward statement called Saturday a horrific day in the history of the nation, when the president publicized that he was seeking to invoke extraordinary wartime powers in the absence of a war or invasion.