The Department of Homeland Security appeared to be preparing to send a new group of Venezuelan men from the United States to El Salvador and its infamous Secott Prison, even if lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union scramble in court to stop the administration from moving forward.
On Friday afternoon, at least one charter bus rolled up to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, a town about 200 miles west of Dallas, where the man is being held. US District Judge James Boasberg, who had heard of a lawsuit related to a flight to El Salvador, is scheduled for an emergency hearing Friday evening, which will take place a few hours after the bus arrives.
The Centre for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) is a Megaprison located in Tecolca, El Salvador.
As soon as the emergency hearing began, ACLU lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Justice decided earlier this month that the Trump administration could proceed with such removals, but those who were removed must first give a “reasonable time.”
At an emergency hearing on Friday evening, a government lawyer told Boasberg that his understanding would not be made on Friday night, and that while no one was scheduled for Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security reserved the right to carry out the flight on Saturday.
Boasberg thought the arguments of ACLU lawyers were strong, but refused to control them in their favor, refused to prevent clients from being sent from the US, saying, “I really haven’t seen them ask me anything different to what the Supreme Court said I couldn’t do.”
NBC News found that buses and other vehicles left the detention facility and accompanied by law enforcement aides to loop through the airport after the hearing ended before returning to the facility.
On Thursday night, ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt wrote that he filed an emergency court that it seemed there wasn’t much time for the Bluebonnet man to be sent out of the country.
“The petitioner learned that Bluebonnet officers are distributing notices under the alien enemy law. This is in English only, and designated Venezuelan men to be removed under the law, and told the man that rescue was imminent and that it would happen tonight or tomorrow.”
In mid-March, the Trump administration sent over 200 men from the United States to El Salvador, where they sent MegaPrisons, known for their brutal circumstances. Many were removed without being able to inform relatives or lawyers what was going on. The administration claimed that all men were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gangster designated by the administration as a foreign terrorist organization. The relatives of several men have publicly challenged allegations against them.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump summoned the alien enemy law, an 18th century law that the United States was using during the war, and declared Tren de Aragua a force of invasion. His administration uses that call to quickly remove immigrants from the United States.
The ACLU originally challenged the administration’s use of alien enemies in a lawsuit filed in Washington. The Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month was a mixed bag, allowing removal under the law to continue at least temporarily, but said those detained under the law should be allowed to challenge allegations of gang membership against them.
Asked if deportation from Bluebonnet was imminent, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News Friday morning:
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