Attorneys for several Venezuelan migrants who are being held in a detention center in Texas said they believe their clients are at “imminent risk” of being deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
“Petitioners have learned that officers at Bluebonnet have distributed notices under the Alien Enemies Act, in English only, that designate Venezuelan men for removal under the AEA, and have told the men that the removals are imminent and will happen tonight or tomorrow,” said attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union in a filing Thursday night.
The declarations from the attorneys were filed hours after a federal judge in Texas denied the ACLU’s request for a temporary restraining order, saying in an order Thursday afternoon that the ACLU “failed to meet their burden to show a substantial threat of imminent, irreparable injury.”
The judge said that because the government previously stated that authorities would not remove the petitioners during the litigation of the case, the ACLU has “not made a sufficient showing at this stage to convince the Court that the government will violate its representations to that effect.”
After several attorneys submitted declarations saying that several of their clients were informed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that they were being sent to El Salvador, the ACLU filed a new emergency application for a temporary restraining order.
“In the hours after this Court’s order on the TRO, Attorney Brown’s client, F.G.M., was approached by ICE officers, accused of being a member of Tren de Aragua, and told to sign papers in English,” attorneys for the ACLU said. “ICE told him the papers “were coming from the President, and that he will be deported even if he did not sign it.”
In one declaration, Michelle Brane, the Executive Director of Together and Free, said that the sister of Luis Yoender Mercado, who is detained at Bluebonnet Detention Center in Texas, called his sister and informed her that officers told a group of Venezuelans they were being sent to El Salvador.
Brane also linked a TikTok video in her declaration that appears to be of a video call between a family member and a detained individual who showed photos of a notice he received allegedly saying that he is going to be removed.
In the video, the man says in Spanish, “We need help … They’re saying we’re enemies … members of Tren de Aragua. They’re saying we’re going to be removed.”
As part of its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration last month invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
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