Administration officials said they expect the fight over using the wartime act to ultimately head to the Supreme Court.

More than half of the 261 immigrants expelled to El Salvador on Saturday were swept out of the United States using a wartime powers act, a White House official said Sunday, amid questions about whether the Trump administration flouted a judge’s order barring use of the statute to hasten deportations.

U.S. District judge James Boasberg halted Trump's use of the centuries-old wartime power and ordered five men to be returned to the U.S.