Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate work to avoid a government shutdown, and a Central Florida group seeks to increase state funding for the arts.

Trump administration deports hundreds of migrants while judge orders stop to removals

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, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: "The administration did not 'refuse to comply' with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory."

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday.

In a court filing Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg's decision, said it would not use the Trump proclamation he blocked for further deportations if his decision is not overturned.

Trump sidestepped a question over whether his administration violated a court order while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening.

"I don't know. You have to speak to the lawyers about that," he said, although he defended the deportations. "I can tell you this. These were bad people."

Asked about invoking presidential powers used in times of war, Trump said, "This is a time of war," describing the influx of criminal migrants as "an invasion."

Trump's allies were gleeful over the results.

"Oopsie…Too late," Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who agreed to house about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country's prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg's ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house immigrants, posted on the site: "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 immigrants were deported after Trump's declaration of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used only three times in U.S. history.

The law, invoked during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

Venezuela's government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump's declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of "the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps."

Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation's economy came undone during the past decade. 

"Basically any Venezuelan citizen in the US may be removed on pretext of belonging to Tren de Aragua, with no chance at defense," Adam Isacson of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights group, warned on X.

The Trump administration has not identified the immigrants deported, provided evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States. It also sent two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador who had been arrested in the United States, according to officials.

The litigation that led to the hold on deportations was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans held in Texas who lawyers said were concerned they'd be falsely accused of being members of the gang. 

Boasberg barred those Venezuelans' deportations Saturday morning when the suit was filed, then broadened it to all people in federal custody who could be targeted by the act after his afternoon hearing. He noted that the law has never before been used outside of a congressionally declared war and that plaintiffs may successfully argue Trump exceeded his legal authority in invoking it.

The bar on deportations stands for up to 14 days and the immigrants will remain in federal custody during that time. Boasberg has scheduled a hearing Friday to hear additional arguments in the case.

He said he had to act because the immigrants whose deportations may actually violate the U.S. Constitution deserved a chance to have their pleas heard in court.

"Once they're out of the country," Boasberg said, "there's little I could do."

A prison guard transfers deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (El Salvador presidential press office via AP)

Tallahassee lawmakers discuss tougher term limits for state and local politicians

Florida voters may soon decide whether the state needs stricter term limits in both state and county politics.

Two proposals moving through the legislature would apply to state lawmakers, as well as county commissioners and members of school boards.

If lawmakers pass the measures, then Florida voters would make the final decisions at the ballot box.

Term limits in Florida date back to 1992, when voters decided through a ballot amendment that eight consecutive years in the same seat in Tallahassee is long enough.

Voters may soon decide whether 16 years becomes the new maximum.

That is eight years in either the Florida House or Senate, then another eight in the opposite chamber, if elected.

Then – retirement.

“There's nothing freer as a legislator knowing that you're down to your last two years because you can do and say anything that you want. And I think there's a certain amount of freedom in that,” State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-Spring Hill) said.

Currently, lawmakers can ping pong between the House and the Senate or sit out for a term before starting the term limit clock over again.

State Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-Fleming) says that can be a good thing. 

“If you serve and years later you want to come back and be able to serve your community, I think that’s the most American thing you can do. And for that reason, I do not support this lifetime ban,” she said.

A separate proposal would impose eight-year term limits on school board members and county commissioners, as well.

“You probably have a lot of really good people that are just sitting down saying, ‘You know what, I'm never going to run for county commission because commissioner x has been in there 20 years and, that person's not going to leave,’” Ingoglia said.

Both proposals advanced through their first committee stop Monday and face two more before reaching their respective floors.

If Senate Bills 536 and 802 — which are actually joint resolutions — are approved by the legislature, they will become constitutional amendments next year.

File photo of State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (Spectrum News)