The White House reportedly intentionally defied a federal judge’s court order barring the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan gang members under a sweeping 18th-century law that the president invoked hours earlier that was immediately challenged by civil rights groups.

The reported decision by the administration to openly defy a court order could, if true, mark a new escalation of President Trump’s feud with the judiciary and trigger what some in anti-Trump circles are already calling a “constitutional crisis.” The administration has complained for weeks that activist judges appointed by Democratic administrations are hampering its ability to carry out its efforts to reduce government spending and crack down on illegal immigration. 

According to a report from Axios, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem wanted to deport hundreds of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang to a high-security prison in El Salvador, where President Bukele has agreed to take detainees before they are ultimately returned to their home countries. 

By the time Judge James Boasberg ruled that the deportation flights should be turned around and return to the United States, White House officials say, the aircraft were flying just off the coast of southern Mexico in international waters. Staff then made the decision to ignore the order and deliver the deportees to El Salvador as planned. 

The judge’s ruling came hours after Mr. Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the United States and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows the president broader leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.

The act has only ever been used three times before, all during wartime. Its most recent application was during World War II, when it was used to incarcerate Germans and Italians as well as for the mass internment of Japanese-American civilians.

“I do not believe I can wait any longer and am required to act,” Judge Boasberg said during a hearing Saturday involving attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice Department. “A brief delay in their removal does not cause the government any harm.”

In a proclamation released just over an hour before Judge Boasberg’s hearing, Mr. Trump contended that Tren de Aragua was effectively at war with the United States.

“Over the years, Venezuelan national and local authorities have ceded ever-greater control over their territories to transnational criminal organizations, including TdA,” Mr. Trump said. “The result is a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.”

The order could let the administration deport any migrant it identifies as a member of the gang without going through regular immigration proceedings, and also could remove other protections under criminal law for people the government targeted.

In a statement Saturday night, Attorney General Bondi slammed Judge Boasberg’s stay on deportations. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk,” Ms. Bondi said.

Ms. Bondi’s Justice Department immediately filed an emergency motion with the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court seeking a stay on Judge Boasberg’s ruling pending an appeal by the administration. Furious MAGA supporters in Congress also pledged to file articles of impeachment against the judge in the coming week.

Reports began to surface early Sunday that the flights may have made it to their intended destination despite the judge’s ruling after Mr. Bukele posted images on social media of planes on the tarmac at San Salvador, stating that “today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country.”

America’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, also suggested in a post on X that the deportation operations were already concluded. “We have sent 2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador,” he said. “Also, as promised by @POTUS, we sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

The Tren de Aragua gang originated in a prison in the South American country and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans. Mr. Trump and his allies have turned the gang into the face of the alleged threat posed by immigrants living in the United States and formally designated it a “foreign terrorist organization” last month.

Authorities in several countries have reported arrests of Tren de Aragua members, even as Venezuela’s government claims to have eliminated the criminal organization.

The government said Mr. Trump actually signed the proclamation about the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night. Immigration lawyers noticed the federal government suddenly moving to deport Venezuelans who they would not otherwise have the legal right to expel from the country, and scrambled to file lawsuits to block what they believed was a pending proclamation.

Judge Boasberg issued an initial order at 9:20 a.m. Saturday blocking the Trump administration from deporting five Venezuelans named as plaintiffs in the ACLU suit who were being detained by the government and believed they were about to be deported. The Trump administration appealed that order, contending that halting a presidential act before it has been announced would cripple the executive branch.

If the order were allowed to stand, “district courts would have license to enjoin virtually any urgent national-security action just upon receipt of a complaint,” the Justice Department wrote in its appeal.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign contended that the president had broad latitude to identify threats to the country and act under the 1798 law. He noted the U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Truman to continue to hold a German citizen in 1948, three years after World War II ended, under the measure.

“This would cut very deeply into the prerogatives of the president,” Mr. Ensign said of an injunction.