A group of inmates at a detention centre in Texas are pleading to be deported as they insist they are not terrorists.
The US government claimed a group of 23 migrants from Venezuela had ‘recently barricaded themselves in a housing unit for several hours and threatened to take hostages and harm ICE officers’.
The Trump administration told the US Supreme Court this action at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility justified lifting a court order blocking their immediate deportation.
The 23 detainees behind the alleged disruption were moved out of Bluebonnet on May 4, and are currently located at the Prairieland Detention Centre.
President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport accused members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal gang originating from Venezuelan prisons that the government has designated a terrorist group.
Around 250 men the government claims are Tren de Aragua members have already been deported to the maximum security CECOT prison in El Salvador, branded ‘Guantanámo on steroids’.
Trump has accused Tren de Aragua of flooding the USA with drugs and ‘mass illegal migration’ to destabilise US democracy at the behest of the Nicolas Maduro government in Venezuela.
But last month the Supreme Court temporarily blocked deportations under the Act after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked for a pause on an ’emergency basis’.
The ACLU said the Alien Enemies Act historically has been employed only in wartime, and the men hadn’t been given a realistic opportunity to contest their removal.
The law was last used to detain 120,000 Japanese people without trial during World War II.
Inmates at the facility have hit back, posing in a formation spelling ‘SOS’ in the yard and holding up a large banner to press cameras and drones on Monday evening.
The message on the banner translates to ‘help we want to be deported we are not terrorists, SOS’ and the inmates waved and shouted to get the attention of the cameras.
It also features the letters VZLA, a reference to Venezuela – meaning the message may be their attempt to avoid being sent to CETOT.
US Solicitor General John Sauer told the Supreme Court on Monday that the government should be allowed to deport at least some of the migrants immediately under other federal immigration laws.
He said: ‘The government has a strong interest in promptly removing from the country those who pose a danger to ICE officers, facility staff and other detainees while in detention.’
He also said moving the detainees to other US facilities “creates ongoing risks of prison recruitment and expansion of Tren de Aragua gang activities within the United States”.’
This isn’t the first time detainees at US immigration centres have tried to escape the infamous El Salvador prison.
It’s been less than two weeks since another group of men arranged themselves in the Bluebonnet Detention Centre yard to spell SOS.
The Trump administration accused them of being members of Tren de Aragua, claims several of their families denied.
Meanwhile British man Pete Belton, 44, was shocked to find a picture of his clockface tattoo, showing the time his daughter was born, in a document used to identify gang members.
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