The White House is denying that it violated a judge’s order Saturday to halt the deportations of Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador, which, if it did occur, would take legal showdowns over the administration’s claims of vast presidential power closer to the edge of a constitutional crisis.

By Nathan Layne, Jack Queen and Helen CosterThe Trump administration has deported alleged members of a Venezuelan gang from the U.S. despite a court order forbidding it from doing so, saying in an extraordinary statement that a judge did not have the authority to block its actions.

The immigrants were deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used only three times prior and requires a president to declare the United States is at war.