US paid El Salvador to take Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members: 'pennies on the dollar,' White House says

The United States paid El Salvador $6 million to take in Venezuelan illegal immigrants slated to be deported to their home countries, the White House said Monday. 

The Trump administration sent at least 238 members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang living illegally in the U.S. to El Salvador around the same time a federal judge moved to block deportations of illegal immigrants under a wartime law involved by President Donald Trump. 

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt detailed the cost to U.S. taxpayers. 

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In this photo provided by El Salvador's presidential press office, prison guards transfer deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador on Sunday.  (El Salvador presidential press office via AP)

"It was approximately $6 million, to El Salvador, for the detention of these foreign terrorists," she told reporters. "And I would point out that is pennies on the dollar in comparison to the cost of life, and the cost it would impose on the American taxpayer to house these terrorists in maximum security prisons here in the United States of America."

In a social media post over the weekend, El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele said the U.S. "will pay a very low fee" for his country to house the migrants, "but a high one for us."

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President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele casts his vote in a ballot box during the Municipal and Parliament (PARLACEN) elections on March 3, 2024 in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by APHOTOGRAFIA/Getty Images)

"Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable. As of today, it costs $200 million per year," Bukele wrote on X. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated the Salvadoran president as "the strongest security leader in our region" and "a great friend of the U.S." for accepting criminal illegal aliens. 

The deportations of the gang members came as U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to halt its deportations of illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 that Trump invoked on Friday to target Tren de Aragua members in the U.S. 

A mega-prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) stands in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 5, 2023.  (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

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Boasberg ordered flights that were "actively departing" to return. 

The wartime powers act allows the deportation of natives and citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing. It has been invoked three times before, including, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.