The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 22nd, 2025: Trump’s Venezuelan Gang Deportations & U.S. Hits Back At Houthis
Sat, 22 Mar 2025
In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: The Trump administration is deporting hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador using a rarely invoked law from 1798. Art Arthur from the Center for Immigration Studies joins us to explain the legal and political implications. The U.S. intensifies its strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, as President Trump vows to annihilate the group for targeting U.S. ships. Bill Roggio, editor of FDD's Long War Journal, breaks down what’s really happening on the ground. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the controversy behind the Trump administration's deportations?
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start off today with the controversy behind the administration's deportation of hundreds of alleged gang members to El Salvador using a law that dates back all the way to 1798. Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies will join us to provide insight.
Later in the show, the U.S. continues to pound the Iran-backed Houthi rebels as President Trump vows that the Yemen-based group will be annihilated for attacking U.S. ships. Editor of the Foundation for a Defense of Democracy's Long War journal, Bill Roggio, will help us sort out what's happening there, and there's a lot to unpack. But first, our Situation Report Spotlight.
The Trump administration has deported over 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, citing national security concerns and invoking the rarely used Alien Enemies Act of 1798. I believe the last time it was used was some 80 years ago during World War II.
Officials say these individuals are linked to the Trendaragua gang, a TDA gang, and have been sent to El Salvador's notorious CICOT facility. That's the high security mega prison known for housing violent gang members. A federal judge attempted to halt the move while the planes were reportedly still in the air heading to El Salvador.
But the administration pushed forward, sparking outrage from advocates who argue many of the deportees have no criminal ties. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called it a, quote, kidnapping. Well, he's certainly on moral high ground to judge anyone, while the White House insists it's a tough but necessary measure to ensure national security.
Joining me now is the resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, Art Arthur. Thanks very much for joining us here on the PDB Situation Report. Thanks so much for having me, Mike. Absolutely. Well, I guess let's start at 30,000 feet. Talk to me about the recent deportation, the Venezuelans, the TDA gang members. Give us sort of an overview of...
how that took place and then we can kind of dive into the degree to which those sort of actions are going to be stopped by the judges.
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Chapter 2: What is the Alien Enemies Act of 1798?
So generally, when aliens are deported from the United States, they're deported under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the INA, or Title VIII, as the Biden administration would refer to it. And that's the baseline of laws that we use to determine who can come in, who should be sent away, and who should be allowed to stay.
But with respect to the Tren de Aragwa members who were sent by the Trump administration to El Salvador, those individuals were actually expelled under a different authority, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law that was passed during a period of time when France was in the throes of a revolution and the United States was afraid that it was going to get dragged into that war.
And it allows the president to detain and deport individuals who are nationals of countries with which we're at war, or alternatively, individuals who have invaded the United States. And the president's contention is no.
that Tren de Aragua is such a well-organized criminal cartel, transnational criminal organization, that they function sort of as a state, and also that they have ties to the regime of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro.
And thus, the president concludes that the authorities in the Alien Enemies Act are sufficient to allow him to take those Tren de Aragua members and send them outside the United States. What do you think? Is that a correct interpretation? I think it's definitely an authority that the president has. I think that it's appropriate for him to make a determination.
He knows a whole lot more about how Trendy Aragua operates and what relationship they have with the socialist government in Venezuela than most of the American people do. And, Mike, most of that information is, you know, highly sensitive information, law enforcement sensitive stuff.
national security related information and in fact national security has been one of those things that's come up in the court case against this so you know it's
I'm not going to say it's a stretch, but it's definitely a novel interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act, which I think was last used during World War II when certain German, Italian, and primarily Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. Now, again, none of these people are being detained in the United States. They're being sent out of the United States.
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Chapter 3: How does the Trump administration justify deportations of gang members?
And that then leads to all sorts of questions. Like in the aftermath of this, even while the planes were reportedly still in the air, there was obviously a ruling from, I believe, a trial judge who said, nope, can't do it. Turn those flights around, bring them back to the States. Now,
Does that, I mean, I guess we're dipping into all sorts of legal issues here, but the White House, it was interesting, they came back and said, well, you know, I'm sorry, but a trial judge doesn't have authority over foreign policy decisions, which is how they couched this when they started seeing the legal pushback. To what degree do you think it's appropriate for the justice system to step in?
I mean, we are talking about something that hasn't been invoked for what you pointed out, 80 years or so.
Yeah, the judge in question is Judge Jim Boasberg, who is the chief judge of the district court for the District of Columbia. And he is considering a lawsuit, a challenge to the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act. to deport individuals from the United States.
And generally, when the judiciary gets involved in any situation like this, the first thing that they do is tell everybody to just stop, hold on, so that the court has the opportunity to determine what's going on. He issued a temporary restraining order, which is, you know, that sort of just stop for a moment so I can figure it out.
As it relates to the foreign policy of the United States and Judge Boasberg's order, it gets into a question that the Trump administration had to deal with the first time around, and that is nationwide or universal injunctions. Generally, when you go into a court of law, you're arguing your case on behalf of yourself. Apparently, none of the people who were actually parties to that suit
were removed from the United States. The individuals who were removed from the United States were a larger class of individuals who weren't actually named parties. So, you know, the pushback from the Trump administration, in part, has to do with those universal jurisdictions, particularly given the fact that apparently these planes were outside of U.S.
airspace and therefore outside of the United States. But whenever the president attempts to use any of these novel authorities, he's going to get pushback. The question is how quickly the courts can move. The first time around, courts didn't move very quickly. And so a lot of Trump administration policies were simply sidelined indefinitely.
This time around, the administration's interested in having everything move a lot more quickly, having the courts issue decisions or alternatively not act at all and just let things proceed while the dust settles. So we're going to see how that ends up. All of this is going to the Supreme Court.
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Chapter 4: What are the legal implications of the deportation actions?
It puts the Democrats in a position of having to try to fight for their rights in a way.
Yeah. And, you know, that's an interesting thing, Mike. One of the things that Donald Trump has done during his second go round is that he's identified a lot of what we call in politics 80-20 issues where about 80% of the American people feel one way and a minority of people feel the other.
As it relates to the rights that gang members or cartel members, it's important to note the TDA isn't just a gang. They're a well-organized group that started in a prison in Venezuela and since has become a criminal enterprise of the highest order.
There aren't many Americans who are going to be concerned about the rights those individuals have, and even fewer Americans who want those individuals to remain in the United States. So I think that politically, the president is on great grounds. Picking a fight with the chief justice of the Supreme Court may not win him many friends.
But I think that the American people want somebody who's going to do something to respond to the crime, especially the ailing crime that we've seen over the last four years. And that's definitely the marching orders the president got from the election. And he's followed. Okay.
Yeah. All right. If you could stay with us, just don't go anywhere. We've got to take a quick break right now. But we'll be back with Art Arthur. We're going to dive into this topic. There's a lot to uncover here. And we'll be right back with the Situation Report. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report.
Joining me once again is Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, Art Arthur. Art, thanks very much for sticking around. I've got a couple more questions about this TDA, Venezuelan, El Salvador deportation issue, because I do find, and I think a lot of people find it fascinating, and then I want to kind of veer off towards the Middle East, but...
With this, is this incident where we had a couple of plane loads reportedly of TDA gang members, some MS-13 members sent off to El Salvador where Bukele, the president, then put them into a high security prison, is that the first and only incident so far where the White House has used the Alien Enemies Act?
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Chapter 5: How are the Houthi rebels affecting U.S. foreign policy?
It's the only one that I'm aware of. I anticipate that there are probably more TDA members and perhaps some other cartel members. It's important to note that the president tasked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, with identifying groups that should be designated as foreign terrorist organizations, and that includes cartels.
You know, the Mexican cartels, we think about CJNG, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, Sinaloa, Gulf, some other smaller cartels. Those have now been designated, and the president could potentially use that same authority because his conclusion is those cartels have also invaded the United States. So stay tuned. There might be more flights taking off soon.
Is that an important link? I mean, so you, in a sense, one has to follow or one follows the other so you can designate as a foreign terrorist organization and then you can use that as your foundation for justifying the deportation under the Alien Enemies Act?
That's one of the hooks. The other hook is this whole idea of invasion, that these groups have you know, that they are, you know, de facto political organizations and that they have invaded the United States. So that's the hook that the president's using. Again, it's a novel hook. I can't say that it's completely fallacious hook or that it has no, you know, legal standing.
You know, this is definitely a power that, you know, At the time that the Alien Enemies Act was passed, we were concerned about pirates. We were concerned about smuggling. There were cases, you know, from Alexandria, Virginia involving smugglers.
So, you know, this is, you know, definitely one of those things that your textualist judiciary is going to be very interested in exploring and determining whether this is an appropriate use of the power.
Okay. Well, now you've got me and a number of PDB listeners making notes to look up the meaning of the word fallacious at some point. So, thank you very much for that. Now, is the problem, again, and this will be the last question then, and like I said, we've got a very interesting other topic here to pursue.
But is the primary concern or are they forming as their primary concern from the Democrat side? Again, not to turn this into a political conversation, but I am fascinated by the pushback. The optic is unusual, right? The Trump administration has kind of now set up a situation where the Democrats are apparently or it appears at first glance fighting for the rights of TDA or MS-13 gang members.
And is it that what they're saying is, look, there's – very serious potential for overreach if you start using this Alien Enemies Act or if you start, you know, pursuing groups that it's not just this group, suddenly you can go out and deport toddlers or puppies.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of the TDA gang in this context?
Mr. Khalil has apparently been implicated in some way in protests that happened at Columbia University by a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest, and CUAD, as they're called, has been accused of some criminal activity that they've threatened Jewish students and other students going to class in Columbia. So it's possible that the foreign policy implication could be
the treatment that foreign students at Columbia University are receiving. If you're a Jewish student from Canada or Germany or the UK and you feel threatened in going to class, you know, that's going to have foreign policy implications because the way we treat foreign nationals in the United States is more or less the way we expect other people to treat us.
I think that Marco Rubio's ultimate letter, which hasn't been disclosed, is going to be very enlightening on these issues.
I think that the issue from the left, right, is I mean, there's a number of issues there but I'm always fascinated to see how they frame their narrative, right, from the outset and obviously, the first thing they said was you know, freedom of speech. Look, Khalil's here, he's got a green card.
Interestingly, it seemed as if when they first went to pick him up, they were under the impression he was just here on a student visa. Have you seen anything related to that?
And so I've actually taken a look at what purports to be the notice to appear in his case. And it both says that he was a student and that he is a lawful permanent resident. So he probably adjusted his status. That's perfectly legal. You can go from being a tourist to being a green card holder or a student. That part is legal.
But to your point, and I have a feeling I know where you're going with this, the law is clear that the Secretary of State cannot make this determination based upon statements, beliefs, or associations or activities and associations in the United States that are lawful in the United States, which means that Marco Rubio seems to think that Mr. Khalil has done something that would be unlawful in this country.
Now, and this is an important caveat that I have to add. Even if Khalil's activities were lawful and even if Rubio has made the determination that they were, if his presence implicates a compelling or compromises a compelling foreign policy issue, then he could still go ahead, Rubio could still go ahead and move to deport Khalil. So, that letter is going to be absolutely crucial.
Do you know when that is coming out? I mean, is there a timeframe for that or is there a requirement to issue that letter within a certain period of time?
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the Khalil case on U.S. immigration policy?
It possesses a military hardware. It's running ministries. It's provided limited but services. It's providing the services. It's really the Houthis are a terrorist state, just as the Taliban is a terrorist state.
And it's a terrorist state sponsored, as you pointed out, and funded, trained, resourced by the Iranian regime, while, correct me if I'm wrong, the Saudis, primarily the Saudis, have been on the other side of that equation, supporting what still is or was the established or recognized government of Yemen in this proxy war between the two.
That's absolutely correct. And I do believe that that was another reason the Biden administration delisted the Houthis, because of animosity with the Saudis over the Saudis, how it was fighting the Houthis. That was a major mistake by the U.S. It caused serious rifts. And look, I have my issues with the Saudi government.
But you have few allies in the region, and they were fighting an Iranian client. you know, an Iranian proxy. And that was a fight that we should have been supporting. But the Biden administration, because of the Saudi government's murder of a reporter, the Saudi reporter Khashoggi, there was, you know, that was a big issue for the Democratic Party.
Yeah, it's sort of that... Hope and change concept, right? You actually have to deal with the people that, you know, live in the world that you have rather than the world that you'd love to have. And I think sometimes, you know, moving from one administration to another, you know, you can see the differences, right?
You have to be a little bit more pragmatic about the way that the world operates, I think. And sometimes your allies or your friends may not, you know, have all your best interests at heart. But you got to deal with, you know, the real world as it exists rather than you'd love for it to exist. You know, hey, Bill, I'm climbing down off my soapbox now.
Talk to me about what the US government is doing, what the military is doing at this stage to try to get this under control.
So over the last week, the US military has launched airstrikes against the Houthis. They're targeting... So the Biden administration did this, but in a limited capacity. It was primarily fighting a defensive war against the Houthis, used up a lot of air defense. But what they were doing was targeting... which you have to target things, military hardware.
They were targeting missiles on launch pads, weapons storage sites, but it was infrequent and it wasn't done with an intensity that could actually set back the Houthis. They refused to go after military leaders and political leaders of the Houthis. The Trump administration, I'm seeing they're not as concerned with going after the people aspect. And if you wanna go after the Houthis,
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Chapter 8: How might the Supreme Court influence these immigration cases?
Do you believe they're doing that? Or is that just window dressing for plausible deniability?
Within that, there is a deniability. The Iranians are insisting they don't tell the Houthis what to do. The Houthis are their own entity. The Iranians will claim that they're not directing their activities. That's, of course, all is a lie. I do believe that there is some truth to that. The Houthis may have overreached here, not because of... Well, only because of change of administrations.
And this is where the change of administrations works against the Iranians, right? If there was a Biden or a Harris administration and you had continuing policies, I'd be very much willing to bet that these would be resuming strikes. So they do act rationally to ensure their survival.
Okay. But they, I mean, it's written on their flag, right? I mean, their objective is aligned with the Iranian regime's objective, which is essentially the destruction of Israel.
Their motto is death to Israel, death to America, long live Islam. I'm paraphrasing it, but that's really it. Yeah. At the end of the day, they want those things, but they need to survive. And this is stunning. If you would ask me about nine months ago, the Iranians and their proxies had all the advantages, but they definitely overreached.
They didn't calculate that the Israelis were willing to launch strikes deep into Israel, which has really, I think, shocked the Israelis at the... I'm sorry, the Iranians at the Israeli abilities to launch targeted strikes against their... against their infrastructure.
Okay. So where does this, I know this is a tough question to answer, but top line, where do you think this goes with this current conflict related to the Houthis?
I believe that they are going to back down. They're not going to admit it, but I don't think we're going to see it continuing attacks against U.S. shipping, particularly if the Trump administration directly targets Houthi leadership. Their leaders, they want to survive. They want to follow through on their death to America and death to Israel pledge.
But a Trump administration, I've always felt that the Houthis are one of the strengths of the Axis of Resistance, but also one of the weaknesses, too. They're exposed. They don't fully control the state. It's not a very populous country. And they're along the ocean where the U.S. Navy, if properly pointed at military and political leadership, it could seriously arm the Houthis.
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