"A Mockery of Due Process": The Men Who Could Be Sent to El Salvador Next

[Nevilledog]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/investigation-el-salvador-venezuelan-trump-removal-bluebonnet-cecot-bukele-alien-enemies-act-migrant-deportation/

As the bus drove away from the Bluebonnet Detention Facility, in Anson, Texas, on April 18, Stiven Prieto Viera feared he was headed to El Salvador. Prieto, a Venezuelan barber detained last month by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, knew that the Trump administration had already sent hundreds of his compatriots to that country’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). Now, he appeared to be facing the same fate.

The day before, ICE had handed Prieto and about 60 other Venezuelan men held at Bluebonnet a one-page document—written only in English—stating they were going to be removed from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act as members of Tren de Aragua (TdA).

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This “Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal under the Alien Enemies Act” contained no evidence to support the allegation that the men were part of TdA, a Venezuelan gang the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Nor did it say how they could contest their removal based on the 18th-century law, which had only been used three times in US history before President Donald Trump invoked it last month. Prieto refused to sign the paper.

Less than 24 hours later, immigration officials loaded Prieto and dozens of other Venezuelans onto a bus and at least one van. Some of the men on board had been told that they were being sent back to Venezuela. They were chanting and praying, in part relieved to be going home. “That’s what we wanted,” one of the men later told Mother Jones, “to return to Venezuela and to our families.” But Prieto doubted that was the case. The imposing police escort in front and behind the bus suggested something more sinister. The men were reportedly en route to a regional airport 30 miles away and, from there, possibly to El Salvador.

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