The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration submitted an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday in an effort to resume the rapid deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties under a wartime law that a lower court blocked.

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that a federal judge’s temporary restraining order this month, and an appeals court ruling Wednesday upholding it, wrongly denied President Donald Trump the authority to make decisions about national security operations, including the removal of Venezuelan nationals the administration says are subject to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

“The district court’s orders have rebuffed the President’s judgments as to how to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,” Harris wrote in her request to the court.

The Alien Enemies Act had only been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.

The Trump administration has tried to use it in a novel way, when the nation is not officially at war. The administration designated the Tren de Aragua – a gang that originated in Venezuela – as a foreign terrorist group, and argued that any Venezuelan nationals aged 14 and older with suspected ties to the gang are subject to the proclamation.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg placed a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration’s use of the law this month, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the order this week. The administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.

“As long as the orders remain in force, the United States is unable to rely on the Proclamation to remove dangerous affiliates with a foreign terrorist organization—even if the United States receives indications that particular (Tren de Aragua) members are about to take destabilizing or infiltrating actions,” Harris said Friday.

Extending restraining order

Boasberg’s temporary restraining order placed on the use of the Alien Enemies Act is set to expire Saturday. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit, requested that order be extended for an additional two weeks.

The ACLU also plans to request Boasberg issue a preliminary injunction, which would block the administration from deportations under the act until the lawsuit is complete. A hearing is set for April 8.

Boasberg has rejected the Trump administration’s move to lift his restraining order, on the grounds that those subject to the Alien Enemies Act should have due process to challenge those accusations.

At the D.C. Circuit this week, Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration argued that those subject to the proclamation do not need to be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration also argued that those who fall under the Alien Enemies Act can bring a challenge of their detention under a habeas corpus claim.

Defied verbal order

The White House quietly implemented the act on March 15 and a verbal restraining order given by Boasberg that day to block it went into effect hours later.

In that order, Boasberg barred the Trump administration from applying the act but three deportation planes landed in El Salvador after the order was issued. The Trump administration has argued that his verbal order was not enforceable.

Boasberg also ordered that anyone subject to the Alien Enemies Act be returned to the U.S., but federal immigration agents took more than 250 men aboard the three flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order in sending the deportation planes to El Salvador, but Attorney General Pam Bondi invoked the “state secrets privilege” to refuse to answer detailed questions about the flights.

Friday’s emergency request is one of several immigration-related appeals the Trump administration has made to the high court, such as the request to lift several nationwide injunctions placed on the president’s executive order that ends the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.

White House Border Czar Tom Homan talks with reporters on the driveway outside the West Wing on March 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration lost a round Wednesday night in its attempts to use a wartime law for deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties.

The 2-1 decision by a U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel will keep in place a temporary restraining order to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and older under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, invoked by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration sent three deportation flights carrying more than 250 men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador after the restraining order was issued.

Judge Patricia A. Millett, a nominee of President Barack Obama, and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush, ruled that the Department of Justice did not meet the requirements to lift the order.

Henderson also noted a presidential proclamation signed by Trump did not set up a due process to allow those accused under the Alien Enemies Act to challenge it.

Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed by Trump, agreed with the Trump administration’s request to block the restraining order.

Shortly after the appeals court order, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit against the Trump administration, filed a request with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking for the temporary restraining order to be extended for another 14 days.

The ACLU noted it plans to file a preliminary injunction request on Friday “in which they intend to submit additional factual material so that there is a more complete record.”

A hearing on the preliminary injunction is set for April 8.

Bondi and state secrets privilege

Wednesday’s decision comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg from obtaining additional information about deportation flights carried out under the Alien Enemies Act.

The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.

Boasberg has sought detailed information about the timing of the three deportation planes to determine if the Trump administration violated his order.

From the bench on March 15, he gave a verbal order that blocked the use of the act and ordered anyone on the deportation flights subject to the Alien Enemies Act to be returned to the United States.

The Trump administration has said only two of the three planes carried Venezuelans subject to the proclamation.

Due process

Henderson, in her opinion, noted that the Trump administration “has yet to show a likelihood of success on the merits.”

In oral arguments before the appeals court Monday, the Department of Justice argued that the U.S. District Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case and that the Trump administration’s “conduct is lawful under the plain text of the Alien Enemies Act.”

Henderson also raised due process issues. She noted that the temporary restraining order is simply pausing “the summary removal of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador or other unknown locations without first affording them some semblance of due process to contest the legal and factual bases for removal.

“In the government’s view, based on its allegation alone, Plaintiffs can be removed immediately with no notice, no hearing, no opportunity—zero process—to show that they are not members of the gang, to contest their eligibility for removal under the law, or to invoke legal protections against being sent to a place where it appears likely they will be tortured and their lives endangered,” she said.

Millett in her opinion questioned why the Trump administration would ask for an emergency ruling to lift the order from Boasberg because “the government’s persistent theme for the last ten days has been that the district court’s oral direction regarding the airplanes was not a (Temporary Restraining Order) with which it had to comply.”

“But the one thing that is not tolerable is for the government to seek from this court a stay of an order that the government at the very same time is telling the district court is not an order with which compliance was ever required,” she said.  “Heads the government wins, tails the district court loses is no way to obtain the exceptional relief of a (Temporary Restraining Order) stay.”

Millett also criticized the Department of Justice for appealing to the circuit court first before trying the district court.

“I would deny the stay on this additional ground,” she said. “The government needs to play by the same rules it preaches. And it needs to respect court rules.”

Judge sides with DOJ

Walker, who appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments on Monday, sided with the Trump administration.

In his opinion he reiterated his stance from Monday’s oral arguments.

Walker again argued that the right way for Venezuelans to object to detention under the Alien Enemies Act is a habeas corpus claim, which is used to challenge an unjust imprisonment, including immigration detention.

The original five men who brought the suit under the Alien Enemies Act, before the federal judge moved to a class suit, were in a detention center in Texas, rather than the District of Columbia.

“The problem for the Plaintiffs is that habeas claims must be brought in the district where the Plaintiffs are confined,” he said. “For the named Plaintiffs at least, that is the Southern District of Texas.”

Tren de Aragua gang

Border Czar Tom Homan said Monday that he was confident that the more than 250 Venezuelans on the deportation flights were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to White House pool reports.

Homan said that he got “assurances from the highest levels of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that” everyone on the planes were members of the Tren de Aragua.

“We’re talking about terrorists,” he said. “These are not good people.”

Immigration attorneys for the men and family members have said those sent to the mega-prison had no criminal record or were in asylum proceedings before an immigration judge. 

American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday probed the U.S. Department of Justice about whether the Trump administration knowingly defied his court order to return deportation flights to the United States and questioned the president’s authority to invoke a wartime law during peacetime.

The case, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, will test President Donald Trump’s authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and apply it to any Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and up who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang amid his mass deportation plans.

Three deportation flights containing some Venezuelans subject to the proclamation that Trump signed last Friday were in transit when U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to block the removals. But the administration continued sending the men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

The Trump administration published a highly produced video detailing the operation, but has not been forthright with answers to questions Boasberg posed about it.

“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said Friday.

Wartime law

Boasberg also pressed the Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether the Trump administration can deport people under the Alien Enemies Act without allowing the deportees to prove they are not members or associated with the Tren de Aragua gang.

“How do they challenge that removal?” Boasberg asked.

The Alien Enemies Act allows nationals of a country deemed an enemy of the U.S. to be detained and deported without due process of law regardless of immigration status.

Boasberg also raised concerns of using the proclamation when the U.S. is not at war.

“The policy ramifications for this are incredibly troublesome,” Boasberg said of the Alien Enemies Act. “This is a long way from the heartland of the act.”

A panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Monday afternoon on the Trump administration seeking an emergency stay on the restraining order. 

Restraining order

Boasberg asked DOJ attorney Ensign to clarify how he interpreted the oral temporary restraining order issued on March 15.

He asked Ensign if he relayed to the Trump administration that his order included returning any Venezuelans back to the U.S. who were deported under the wartime authority.

“I understood your intent, that you meant that to be effective at that time,”  Ensign said of the oral temporary restraining order.

In filings, the Department of Justice has argued that Boasberg’s oral argument was not binding because it was not written.

For nearly a week, the Department of Justice has evaded pointed questions from Boasberg about the timing of the deportation flights on March 15.

Boasberg said Thursday he would give the Trump administration until Tuesday to submit a declaration on whether the government was invoking the state-secrets privilege and a brief “showing cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders by failing to return class members removed from the United States on the two earliest planes that departed on March 15, 2025.”

In Friday filings, Trump officials said they are currently having Cabinet-level conversations about using that privilege to block Boasberg from obtaining details about the timing of the deportation flights.

Flight location an issue

The Department of Justice has also argued that because the flights were no longer in U.S. airspace or territory when Boasberg issued the restraining order, they were not under U.S. courts’ jurisdiction.

Lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Lee Gelernt pushed back on that claim. He told Boasberg that some immigrants on those deportation flights to El Salvador were returned to the U.S. because of mistakes and that the El Salvadoran “government would not take them.”

He said that included someone who was not a Venezuelan national, and a woman because the mega-prison is for men only.

He said the ACLU will submit an affidavit late Friday with more details.

Gelernt said the ACLU is also questioning the type of removal for people on the third flight, even though the Trump administration said those on that flight had final orders of removal and were not subject to the Alien Enemies Act.

Gelernt argued that in immigration law, those with final orders are required to be notified what country they are being deported to. He said that was not the case with the immigrants on the third flight, which originally went to Honduras before heading to El Salvador.

“We asked the judge to clarify that with the government, because it seems very doubtful that Venezuelans had a final order that said you could be removed to El Salvador,” Gelernt said to reporters after Friday’s hearing.

The White House earlier this week said of the men on the deportation flights, 137 were alleged Tren de Aragua members and deported under the Alien Enemies Act.

Attorneys for several of the 238 Venezuelan men deported argue their clients are not members of the gang and were only targeted by immigration officials because they had tattoos and were Venezuelan nationals.  

El Salvador prison

Gelernt said that because the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to imprison the men, he believes those men who were deported under the wartime law can be returned, although it would be a lengthy process.

“I think we very much think the federal court can order the U.S. to get them out, since they’re constructively in U.S. custody,” he said outside the courtroom. “The U.S. is apparently paying for it all. (El Salvador is) doing it at the behest of the United States.”

Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that monitors human rights conditions around the world, has raised major concerns with the conditions of the prison and has noted that the group “is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.”

Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president, called this week for the men taken to the mega prison to be returned to Venezuela, calling on El Salvador president to “not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” according to CNN.

“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro said.

Several of the men who were transferred to El Salvador’s prison initially fled Venezuela because they experienced violence from officials after they partook in political protests against the Maduro regime, according to court filings. 

A section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near El Paso, Texas, on June 6, 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Among the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump signed on the first day he returned to the White House are five that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown. 

The administration has engendered huge controversy in recent days by employing the orders and a presidential proclamation to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants. Administration officials described the Venezuelans as gang members, put them on flights and sent them to a huge prison in El Salvador.

The wartime Alien Enemies Act, used only three times before, allows the president to detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a national from a country the United States deems an enemy.

Together, the interlocking executive orders and proclamation could provide the resources and legal footing needed for the Trump administration’s plans to deploy the military to deport and detain millions of people who are living in the United States without permanent legal status.

National security and military experts interviewed by States Newsroom raised concerns about this domestic deployment of armed forces that could result in violations of civil liberties, as well as the detainment and deportation of immigrants without due process. 

Additionally, the broad actions by the executive branch would test the courts on what guardrails, if any, could be placed on the president. Trump earlier this week  in a social media post called for the impeachment of the judge who questioned his use of the Alien Enemies Act in the case of the Venezuelans, bringing a stunning rebuke by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Besides the Alien Enemies Act, a second archaic law Trump is gearing up to invoke is the Insurrection Act of 1807. It gives the president the power to call on the military during an emergency to curb civilian unrest or enforce federal law in a crisis.

The Insurrection Act is also a statutory exception in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Trump vowed to use both the Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act while he campaigned for a second term.

“Invoking the Insurrection Act for immigration enforcement … would be unprecedented,” said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It would be an abuse, both because it’s not necessary, under the circumstances, and also because this is not what the Insurrection Act is for.”

Nonetheless, one Trump executive order directs the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense to issue a report by April 20 to the president with recommendations on whether or not to use the Insurrection Act to aid in mass deportations.

Orders woven together into an agenda

Trump’s five executive orders signed on Inauguration Day are:

• Securing our Borders;

• Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border;

• Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States;

• Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists;

• Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion.

The administration eyes its next moves while apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters for February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

The last time the Border Patrol averaged roughly 8,000 apprehensions per month in a fiscal year was in 1968, according to historical data obtained by the Texas Tribune.

In the executive order titled Securing our Borders, the Trump administration lays out its objectives for that U.S.-Mexico border, such as building barriers and barring migrants from entering the U.S. To carry that out, the president signed another executive order that declared a national emergency.

Chris Mirasola, a professor and national security expert at the University of Houston Law Center, said for roughly 20 years, there has been a military presence at the southern border assisting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with immigration enforcement.

“What made the Trump executive orders interesting was the kind of escalation trajectory that they kind of mapped out for us,” Mirasola said, noting the likely use of the Insurrection Act and Alien Enemies Act.

Since Inauguration Day, that executive order has allowed Trump to send nearly 9,200 troops to the southern border.

Emory University School of Law professor Mark Nevitt, a national security expert who also served in the Navy, notes the executive order declaring a national emergency is limited to the geographic location of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“He’s not tasking (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem to come up with a nationwide immigration enforcement. Having said that, of course, he can change (his mind), he’s the president,” he said.

Sending military to the southern border stretches back to former President George W. Bush in 2006. Over a two-year period, more than 30,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel were sent to the southern border to assist with numerous migrants from Central America.

Northern Command

Continued coordination between Defense and Homeland Security is laid out in another of the executive orders, the one on “clarifying the military’s role,” that reorganizes the U.S. Northern Command to focus on border security.

Northern Command, established after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to coordinate military and homeland security support with civilian authorities, under the Trump executive order has a new mission “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”

The legal underpinnings for Northern Command to carry this out, Mirasola said, are provisions in the Insurrection Act, which he adds is likely to face its own legal challenge.

“I kind of see this, perhaps surprisingly, long ramp up being a way for them to establish a factual record that they could use in litigation,” he said of the executive order that requests a report from DHS and DOD by April 20. 

Trump does not need a report or recommendation to invoke the Insurrection Act. It is an existing presidential authority granting him access to use all federal military forces, more than 1 million members. But his executive orders would undergird his expected use of the act.

“I think it’s no surprise that he’s thinking about using the military for immigration enforcement,” Nevitt said of the president.

The request for a report by April 20, Nevitt said, could be “a way to set up the politics of declaring the Insurrection Act.”

Historically the Insurrection Act, which has only been invoked 30 times, is typically focused on an area of great civil unrest that has overwhelmed law enforcement, Nevitt said.

The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was 1992, during the Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted in the brutal beating of Black motorist Rodney King. 

Federal troops were deployed with local law enforcement to a domestic violence situation. Because of the difference in training between the two, it resulted in soldiers opening fire onto a Los Angeles residence. No one was injured, but more than 200 bullets were fired.

“Soldiers are not trained to do law enforcement,” Nunn, with the Brennan Center, said.

He added that this kind of use could also lead to violations of civil liberties, even though the use of the Insurrection Act does not suspend constitutional rights and he argues is not limitless.

“When the military is operating under the Insurrection Act, they are assisting civilian authorities, not taking their place,” Nunn said.

‘The magic word’

Two of the executive orders — one designating cartels as terrorist organizations and another on protection of the states — could lead to the rapid detention and deportation of immigrants by using the Alien Enemies Act.

“In one of those early executive orders is a magic word that you should be sensitive to,” said Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School. “And the magic word is ‘invasion.’”

The Trump administration designated the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as a terrorist organization in its use in mid-March of the Alien Enemies Act. 

A federal judge has already blocked the use of the law. However, civil rights groups charge that the Trump administration continued to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants, and a federal judge is demanding clear answers from the administration about the deportation flights.

The Trump administration has defended the deportation flights and Trump has cited his duty to protect Americans from an “invasion.”

“The big question, obviously, is, what constitutes an invasion?” Dycus asked. “In the first Trump administration, the influx of immigrants from the southwest were characterized that way. So I think that’s part of the groundwork that’s being laid.” 

Ilya Somin, an expert in constitutional law and professor at George Mason University, disagrees with the Trump administration’s argument declaring the Tren de Aragua gang as an “invasion” in order to form the legal basis for using the Alien Enemies Act.

The use of the act can circumvent judicial proceedings, based on an immigrant’s country of origin. It’s been invoked in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II and most recently led to the Japanese internment camps.

“The attempt to declare them to be terrorist organizations could be part of an effort to sort of get courts to defer and to accept the invasion framing, and possibly also to accept the use of the Alien Enemies Act,” Somin said.

Targeting Venezuela

In speeches, rallies and social media posts, Trump has often accused Venezuela of sending criminals and gang members to the U.S., despite during his first administration granting deportation protections for Venezuelans, citing the political and economic instability of the Maduro regime.

The Trump administration has pressured the Venezuela government to begin accepting deportation flights of its nationals. Noem has already moved to end temporary protected status for one group of 350,000 Venezuelans, subjecting them to fast-track deportations. Noem cited gang activity as one of her factors in not extending protections.

Somin said that for the Alien Enemies Act to be used, an “invasion” needs to be undertaken by a foreign government.

“Even if the cartels are terrorist organizations, which I deny, they are not foreign governments,” he said.

Katherine Yon Ebright, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said that using the act to go after suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang could ensnare many Venezuelan immigrants, regardless of legal status. 

“You’re getting the ability, really, to target any Venezuelan, age 14 (and up), who’s not a U.S. citizen,” she said of the Alien Enemies Act. “And you don’t have to explain yourself, you don’t have to prove anything.”

Guantanamo

Using a memo rather than an executive order, although related, the Trump administration has already ramped up use of the military in immigration duties, using military aircraft to return migrants to their home countries or to send immigrants to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The base was used to house suspected terrorists in the 9/11 attacks. 

“I think it’s actually a bellwether for understanding how far this escalation trajectory the administration plans to go, because the detention that’s happening at Guantanamo Bay is a big concern,” Mirasola said.

The use of the naval base comes as the Trump administration has tried to increase detention bed space capacity, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is only funded to hold roughly 41,500 beds across the country.

Trump has instructed his administration to hold up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo. There are currently no immigrants detained at the base, though its use has not been ruled out.

But the actions of signing executive orders or memos or proclamations can only go so far, experts say.

“Implementing his commitment to use the military to round up immigrants is not going to be easy,” Dycus, of Vermont Law, said. “Logistically, it’s going to really take a lot of effort and a lot of personnel to do it.”

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele said hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to a prison in his country under the Alien Enemies Act would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer.  In this photo, he delivers a speech during the first press conference of the year at Casa Presidencial on Jan. 14, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In new court briefings Thursday, attorneys for several Venezuelan immigrants say their clients either had no criminal record or had cases before an immigration judge when they were deported under the Trump administration’s wartime authority — despite a federal judge ordering the return of the flights to the United States.

Attorneys for four men who were sent to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador said their clients had two things in common: They were accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 the president invoked, and they all had tattoos.

Among those four men deported were a professional soccer player; a father whose son is a U.S. citizen; a political activist who protested the Maduro regime in Venezuela; and an asylum seeker. 

238 Venezuelans on flights

Last week, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allowed the rapid deportation of Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

“If the President can label any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there,” the American Civil Liberties Union, which originally filed the suit, wrote in recent court briefings.

The White House confirmed 238 Venezuelans were deported and flown to El Salvador, but is refusing to answer detailed questions about the timing of the March 15 flights, after a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order that same day on use of the wartime authority.

Thursday’s filings also included sworn statements from four attorneys who had clients initially on the deportation flights heading to the prison in El Salvador, but were removed before the plane left the U.S.

In separate accounts, the four men who disembarked the plane and questioned what was happening said they were told by an immigration official they had “won the lottery” because they were not being deported that day.

The eight exhibits by attorneys came just before a Friday hearing before U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia, who is pressing the government for more details on the timing of the two deportation flights. 

Hard labor

The prison that the men were taken to, known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, has concerned human rights groups like the Human Rights Watch.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that the men deported from the U.S. to his country would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. government paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the men.

In a court filing with the ACLU, Juanita Goebertus, the director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said that “the Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as ‘terrorists,’ and has said that they ‘will never leave.’”

“Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison,” she said.

Tattoos of crowns, rosary, flowers

One of the men taken to CECOT is Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player who marched in two political demonstrations protesting the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, his attorney, Linette Tobin, wrote.

Barrios came to the U.S. in 2024 using the CBP One app, a tool the Biden administration used to help migrants make appointments with asylum officers. The Trump administration shut down the app on the president’s first day in office and have repurposed the app as a self-deportation tool.

Tobin said that Barrios, who had no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela, applied for asylum and had a court hearing in April.

She said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused Barrios of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang because of his tattoos. He has a tattoo on his arm with a soccer ball and a crown on top, with a rosary.

“DHS alleges that this tattoo is proof of gang membership,” Tobin said. “In reality, he chose this tattoo, because it is similar to the logo for his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.”

Another attorney, Austin Thierry, said his client, E.V., fled Venezuela after being tortured by officials for participating in a protest against the regime.

Since E.V. has been in ICE detention, “his partner and infant son have struggled to meet their expenses and maintain housing,” Thierry said, adding that his client’s son is a U.S. citizen.

“EV has various tattoos, such as tattoos of anime, flowers, and animals, that he chose to get for personal and artistic reasons,” Thierry said.

“E.V. also has a tattoo of a crown, which may be why ICE falsely accused him of gang membership. However, this crown is not related to Tren de Aragua but rather, a tribute to his grandmother whose date of death appears at the base of the crown.”

Asylum cases pending

Another immigration attorney, Katherine Kim, said her client, referred to as L.G., had a pending asylum case and that ICE alleged he was associated with Tren de Aragua.

She said L.G. denied being a member and has three tattoos.

“One is a rosary, the other is his partner’s name, and the third is a rose and a clock,” she said. “None of these tattoos are related to Tren de Aragua gang membership or membership in any other gang.”

Immigration attorney Osvaldo Caro-Cruz, said his client, JABV, fled Venezuela due to political persecution and applied for asylum through the CBP One app.

“His tattoos are a Rose, a Clock and a Crown with his son’s name on it,”  Caro-Cruz wrote in a court filing. “These are common in Venezuela and bear no exclusive association with gang affiliation.”

Caro-Cruz said he was able to determine that JABV was deported to the prison in El Salvador because the president, Bukele, published a video and JABV’s brother recognized him.

Tattoo artist

Another filing was by Solanyer Michell Sarabia Gonzalez, who said he fears his younger brother was sent to El Salvador.

Both brothers have asylum cases pending. When they went to their ICE check-in appointment, the younger one, 19-year-old Anyelo Jose Sarabia, was asked about his hand tattoo by an immigration official and later detained.

Sabaria has no criminal record and is a tattoo artist.

Gonzalez said he can no longer find his brother on the ICE detainee locator.  

“I am extremely concerned about the health and safety of my little brother,” he wrote in his court filing.