ICE Expulsion Notices: a form in English and only hours to act

On April 7, the Supreme Court judged that the government had to give Venezuelan migrants to note “within a reasonable time” and the possibility of legally challenging their dismissal before being expelled to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

Exactly the amount of the Trump administration deemed appropriate in response to the Supreme Court’s edict was revealed in a document not sealed during a hearing on Thursday before the Federal District Court of Brownsville, Texas.

Before Saturday, when the Supreme Court made a second order, which blocked the expulsion of a group of Venezuelan migrants under the law on extraterrestrial enemies of 1798, prisoners who were deposited for the deportation received a form of a page which indicated “if you wish to make a telephone call, you will be authorized to do so”.

They then had “no less than 12 hours” to “express an intention” to challenge their detention, and 24 hours to deposit a Habeas Corpus petition requesting a hearing before a judge, said the declaration. The form itself is written in English, but “it is read and explained to each extraterrestrial in a language that Alien understands.”

The hearing was part of a case whose complainants are three Venezuelan men detained in the El Valle detention center, about 80 kilometers from Brownsville.

The lawyers for detainees detained elsewhere, which continued in the Northern Texas District, have challenged the government’s allegations concerning notification. They also said that the form was not explained to the prisoners and that they had simply said to sign the document, which the ice declaration identified as the AEA-21B form.