by Ariana Figueroa, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 20, 2025
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.
