US deports another 10 gang members to El Salvador, says Rubio

WASHINGTON: The US has deported another 10 people that it alleges are gang members to El Salvador, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday, a day before that country’s president is due to visit the White House.

“Last night, another 10 criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organisations arrived in El Salvador,” Rubio said in an X post. The alliance between President Donald Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele “has become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere,” Rubio added.

Trump is due to meet Bukele at the White House on Monday. Trump said on Saturday he was looking forward to meeting Bukele and praised him for taking “enemy aliens” from the United States. He said the two countries were working closely to “eradicate terrorist organisations.”

Administration officials have repeatedly made public statements alleging that detained immigrants are gang members that they have not backed up in court. The Trump administration has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Lawyers and relatives of the migrants held in El Salvador say they are not gang members and had no opportunity to contest the US government assertion that they were.