As a result, the Trump administration busted dozens of Venezuelan men at an airport in Texas to be expelled, the ACLU asked several courts on Friday to temporarily arrest the ablation of dozens of prisoners accused under a law in wartime to be members of a foreign gang.
Friday evening, at least one judge, the American district judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, DC, denied the request, saying that it was beyond his authority. Requests from the United States Supreme Court and the American Court of Appeal for the 5th New Orleans circuit are underway.
Drew C. Ensign, a lawyer for the United States Ministry of Justice, told Boasberg that there were no current plans to expel individuals on Friday or Saturday by plane probably in Salvador, but the Trump administration reserved the right to withdraw people on Saturday.
The ACLU asked the courts an emergency prescription after Venezuelan detainees from across the country, including California, were transferred to the Bluebonnet detention center in Anson, Texas, and, according to their deposits, they would be removed on Friday evening.
The Trump administration piloted hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants considered as members of Tren of Aragua last month in Salvador, where they are detained in a notorious mega-prison called the Center for Terrorism Confainment. The families of many men sent to Salvador on previous planes say they are not gang members.
The deportations launched a legal battle with high issues testing the limits of President Trump’s expulsion plans and his power.
The United States Supreme Court ruled earlier this month than the war authority invoked by the administration could resumeBut immigrants must have an appropriate opinion and a chance to assert their cause in places where they were detained.
Boasberg, who had heard the previous case concerning the invocation by the Administration of the Act respecting extraterrestrial enemies, had ordered the temporary judgment to withdraw. But despite order, expulsion planes were sent to Salvador, where more than 200 people stay in prison.
The Trump administration said that individuals are outside the American jurisdiction, they cannot do much to bring them back to the United States.
“If these people are returned to a foreign prison, perhaps for the rest of their lives, without any regular procedure, it would be in clear violation of the opinion of the Supreme Court,” said Lee Gelerent, a lawyer of the ACLU leader on Friday.
The case began in a Texas Federal Court earlier in the week, when the ACLU asked Judge Wesley Hendrix to temporarily stop a referral on behalf of two people because they did not have the opportunity to challenge their affairs.
Hendrix denied the request. Lawyers learned that more people were detained on Friday and once again asked for the reports that the moves were imminent. When the lawyers did not receive an answer that afternoon, they asked for help from the American Court of Appeal for the 5th district and asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
ACLU lawyers argued that this decision was necessary because BlueBonnet officials told detainees that they would be expelled and asked them to sign dismissal notices according to their alleged affiliation with Tren de Aragua.
A man from the establishment sent his wife a video Tiktok representing various detainees, according to a declaration submitted by the lawyers of the ACLU of Michelle Brane, executive director of a non -profit organization which provides services to asylum seekers. In this document, a young man says that they are all labeled as members of Tren de Aragua. They are not allowed to call their families and the prisoners do not know where they will be sent, he said in the video.
“They say that we must be removed quickly, because we are a terrorist threat to the country,” he said.
Another detainee says they received a newspaper to sign but they have been told, whether they are signed or not, they would be withdrawn from the country.
A third detainee says, “We are not members of Tren from Aragua. We are normal, civilians. ” A fourth said: “I have no expulsion order. I have all my documents in order. I have my American children here. I was illegally brought. I was arrested without an arrest warrant and they want me to be expelled. ”
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