Venezuela rejects US crime gang accusations as slur

Venezuela on Friday said none of the hundreds of deportees sent to a Salvadoran prison had links to the Tren de Aragua gang.

US President Donald Trump last Saturday invoked an obscure wartime law to swiftly deport people that the White House claims were members of the Venezuelan gang.

What has Venezuela said about the detainees?

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said the US-alleged links to the gang were a narrative by the United States to "stigmatize" migrants.

He underlined that Tren de Aragua, which Washington has declared a terrorist group and alien enemy, was no longer considered operational by the Nicolas Maduro government.

"What is the Tren de Aragua? It is a narrative to stigmatize a people," Cabello said in a podcast.

He insisted that none of the 919 Venezuelans who have returned to the country from the United States since February belong to the Tren de Aragua.

"This is a war against Venezuela," Cabello said. "It is a war against Venezuelan men and women that reaches its maximum expression when President Trump issues a proclamation based on a law from 1798," he said.

Cabello criticized Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador — where the detainees were sent — and denounced him as "an instrument of imperialism."

Why were the detainees to sent to El Salvador?

The  Central American country received and arrested more than 200 people from the United States allegedly linked to the Tren de Aragua.

Bukele has offered to take in prisoners in return for payment from the US.

Washington on Wednesday defended having invoked the Alien Enemies Act, normally only used in times of war, to deport the men to a prison in El Salvador.

They are being held at a notorious facility where they are expected to spend at least a year performing hard labor, despite not having stood trial for their alleged membership of the gang.

This prison, called CECOT — an acronym for Terrorism Confinement Center in Spanish — is part of Bukele's popular security policy which has led to a sharp drop in homicides.

Maduro on Friday said he would not rest until the citizens imprisoned in El Salvador were returned to Venezuela. He said his government has hired the "best law firms" in El Salvador and the US.

"They are not criminals, they are innocent," Maduro declared on his Telegram channel.

The White House has insisted that the arrival of undocumented immigrants on US soil is an invasion, claiming that gangs like Tren de Aragua have plunged the country into "a period of war."

Judge: Use of Alien Enemies Act 'troublesome' and 'problematic'

US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington on Saturday issued an emergency order against the deportation of the Venezuelans.

He ordered a hearing on whether the White House had deliberately ignored his orders by flying the deportees to El Salvador. He claimed that the Trump administration had ignored his court order to turn around the plane.

On Friday, the judge called Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans "incredibly troublesome, and problematic and concerning."

Edited by: Sean Sinico