The 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,

The Trump administration has sparked controversy with its move Sunday to deport 261 people, some of whom it alleges are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, to an infamous maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

On Saturday, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alleged Tren de Aragua gang members. This law has been used three times in U.S. history—during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

The top Trump administration official said deportation flights will continue -- 'Another flight every day' - even after a judge's ruling halting them.

In 1798, with the U.S. preparing for what it believed would be a war with France, Congress passed a series of laws that increased the federal government’s reach. The Alien Enemies Act was created to give the president wide powers to imprison and deport noncitizens in time of war.

A federal judge has stopped US President Donald Trump from using a 227-year-old law meant to protect the US during wartime to carry out mass deportations of Venezuelans. Trump proclaimed on Saturday that immigrants belonging to the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua were "conducting irregular warfare" against the US and that he would deport them under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.