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.

President Donald Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II, granting himself sweeping powers under a centuries-old law to deport people associated with a Venezuelan gang.