El Salvador Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The removal of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro portends greater U.S. involvement in the Western Hemisphere, both politically and economically.

“al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” U.S. officials have rallied domestic support for this more muscular foreign policy.For countries in the region, the new policy will set off a scramble to adjust. Pro-U.S., and pro-Trump, leaders like Argentina’s Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele have fared well.

Judge gives U.S. 72 hours to bring back Maryland dad wrongfully deported to El Salvador — «Bring Kilmar home.» That’s the message written across signs held tightly by family, friends, and neighbors in Maryland. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a hardworking 29-year-old father and sheet metal worker, was wrongfully deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—a move the government later admitted was due to an “administrative error.” ICE now says the deportation was a mistake. But for Kilmar, that “mistake” landed him in a high-security prison in El Salvador, a country he fled in 2011 to escape violent gangs. His family hasn’t stopped fighting for his return—and now, a federal judge is stepping in.

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law giving him immense powers to deport noncitizens in a time of war. His use of that law was aimed at Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that he has repeatedly and falsely claimed as part of an invasion of criminal immigrants. Over the next 24 hours, more than 130 Venezuelans were deported to an El Salvadoran prison even as a US judge ordered the planes carrying them to turn around. Here's what you need to know about the situation:

Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist, has been sent by the US to a maximum security prison in El Salvador as part of Donald Trump-led administration’s mass deportation campaign. This was majorly due to ‘crown’ tattoos on his wrists that allegedly proved him to be a notorious gang member. The 31-year-old, who fled his home country in a bid to escape persecution for his sexual orientation as well as political beliefs, was detained at the Mexico-US border in August last year when he crossed over to take part in a pre-arranged asylum appointment in San Diego, California, The Guardian reported.

Lawyers for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, 29, maintain he is not affiliated with MS-13 or any other street gang and argue the U.S. government «has never produced an iota of evidence» that he does. Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 after working a shift as a sheet metal apprentice in Baltimore and picking up his 5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother's house, his lawyers' complaint stated. Abrego Garcia was then sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside. Abrego Garcia's wife later saw him in photos and video from the prison, identifying her husband through his distinctive tattoos and two scars on his head. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials admitted in a court filing on Monday to an «administrative error» in deporting him. The government's acknowledgment sparked immediate uproar from immigration advocates while prompting Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials to repeat the allegation that he's a gang member.

US President Donald Trump invoked rarely used US wartime legislation to fly the Venezuelans to El Salvador on March 16, without the migrants being afforded any kind of court hearing. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said 238 Venezuelans were sent to his country after the United States accused them of being part of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang. It is an «embarrassment that has been committed with the kidnapping and forced disappearance of 324 Venezuelan migrants who were taken to a Nazi concentration camp in El Salvador,» Maduro said at a meeting in Caracas with foreign ministers from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) bloc. Maduro did not explain where he got the figure from, and acknowledged that he does not yet have an official list.

asset manager Fidelity Investments is exploring whether to launch its own stablecoin, in the latest sign of mainstream investors looking to cash in on a revival of interest in cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, making it easier for traders to move funds between cryptocurrencies. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years.

U.S. appeals court judge said on Monday that Nazis were given more rights to contest their removal from the United States during World War Two than Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration. In a contentious hearing, U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia Millett questioned government lawyer Drew Ensign on whether Venezuelans targeted for removal under a little-used 18th-century law had time to contest the Trump administration's assertion that they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang before they were put on planes and deported to El Salvador. «Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here,» Millett said, to which Ensign responded, «We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.» Prior to the Trump administration's invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, the law had been used three times in U.S. history, most recently to intern and remove Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during World War Two. The Trump administration was asking the appeals court to halt Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's two-week ban, imposed on March 15, on the use of the law to justify deportation of alleged Tren de Aragua members without final removal orders from immigration judges.

Donald Trump deported 37,660 people during his first month in office, previously unpublished U.S. Department of Homeland Security data show, far less than the monthly average of 57,000 removals and returns in the last full year of Joe Biden's administration. A senior Trump administration official and experts said deportations were poised to rise in coming months as Trump opens up new avenues to ramp up arrests and removals. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Biden-era deportation numbers appeared «artificially high» because of higher levels of illegal immigration.

Alien Enemies Act after U.S. immigration officials accused him of gang ties. Reyes Barrios, who fled Venezuela in 2024 following imprisonment and torture for protesting the Maduro regime, had legally sought asylum via the CBP One app. Despite no criminal history, ICE detained him, citing a social media photo and a tattoo as evidence of alleged ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing that Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg was improperly intruding on presidential discretion to handle sensitive diplomatic and national security matters. Boasberg has issued an order temporarily banning the administration from removing migrants from the United States under the 18th century law that Trump invoked in proceeding with the deportations. Trump invoked the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to declare that the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua was conducting irregular warfare against the United States, subjecting its alleged members to deportation without a final order from an immigration judge, as generally required. «The pending questions are grave encroachments on core aspects of absolute and unreviewable Executive Branch authority,» the Justice Department lawyers wrote. The filing on Wednesday came a day after U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump for calling for the judge's impeachment.

Donald Trump said Tuesday that a federal judge who tried to stop his deportation plans should be impeached, escalating his conflict with a judiciary that's been one of the few restraints on his administration's aggressive plans. Trump has routinely criticized judges, especially as they limit his efforts to expand presidential power and impose his sweeping agenda on the federal government. But his call for impeachment — a rare step that is usually taken only in cases of grave ethical or criminal misconduct — represents an intensifying clash between the judicial and executive branches. The Republican president described U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, as an unelected «troublemaker and agitator» in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. Boasberg recently issued an order blocking deportation flights under wartime authorities from an 18th century law that Trump invoked to carry out his plans. «HE DIDN'T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY,» Trump wrote on Tuesday. «I'm just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!» ALSO READ: Trump's approval rating soars to new high, Americans say US is on right track than any time in 20 years: poll

Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: «The administration did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.» The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday In a court filing Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg's decision, said it would not use the Trump proclamation he blocked for further deportations if his decision is not overturned.

Venezuelan gang to be imprisoned in El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele said Sunday, after US counterpart Donald Trump invoked wartime authorities to expel migrants. Trump signed an order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on Friday, but it was not publicly announced until Saturday. The wartime authority allows a president to detain or deport citizens of an enemy nation, but has been invoked only three times before during major international conflicts. Civil rights groups sued to block the order, with a federal judge Saturday granting a temporary suspension of the order, apparently as planes were already headed to El Salvador. «Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country,» Bukele said on X. Bukele, in a meeting last month with US secretary of state Marco Rubio, had offered to house prisoners from the US in his country. He said in his post that the alleged gang members had been sent to the country's maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center. The detention and expulsion order will apply to all Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members who are over 14 and not naturalized US citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, claiming the United States was being invaded by a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua. This rarely used war-time law grants the president broad powers to expedite mass deportations, potentially advancing Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown. Trump asserted that Tren de Aragua was acting on behalf of Venezuela's government, describing the gang as a hostile force that poses a serious threat to the United States. «Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organisations, including TdA,» Trump's statement read. «The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States.» Hours after Trump’s proclamation, US District Court Chief Judge James E. Boasberg issued an emergency order blocking deportations under the 18th-century law. Boasberg intervened after reports emerged that the government had already begun flying deportees to El Salvador and Honduras for detention.

Anand Mahindra has responded to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s recent proposal to house convicted criminals from the United States in exchange for monetary compensation. Mahindra described this as an outsourcing strategy but firmly stated that he hopes India never implements such a model.

United States, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after lengthy talks with the Central American country's leader.