Rubio Says 10 More People Have Been Expelled to El Salvador

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that the United States had sent 10 members of two gangs — MS-13, which originated in the United States and operates in South America, and Tren de Aragua, rooted in Venezuela — to El Salvador late Saturday.

Mr. Rubio added in a social media post that “the alliance” between President Trump and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador had “become an example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.”

The deportees sent to El Salvador this weekend came from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to a social media message posted by El Salvador’s justice minister, Gustavo Villatoro. The administration has been holding some detainees at the U.S. naval base there.

Mr. Villatoro also posted a video of men being marched off a military plane and led in shackles into a prison called the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.

The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans to the notorious prison in El Salvador at the invitation of Mr. Bukele, who is positioning himself as a crucial regional ally to Mr. Trump and is scheduled to meet with the president in Washington on Monday.

The administration has portrayed those deportees as violent criminals or terrorists, but court papers have shown that the evidence on which the government acted was often little more than whether they had tattoos or had worn clothing associated with the criminal organization.