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.

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

Trump and his inner circle of fascist sympathizers are systematically demolishing legal and constitutional restraints, with each violation setting the stage for even more brazen assertions of absolute power.