Some Illegal Immigrants Deported Under Alien Enemies Act Were Returned To US: Filings

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At least 10 illegal immigrants who were recently deported by U.S. authorities to El Salvador were returned to the United States, according to new court filings.

Nine women on one of the planes that landed in El Salvador were kept on board the aircraft and ultimately transported back to America, a Venezuelan national with the initials S.Z.F.R. said in one of the documents that was filed with the federal court in Washington on March 24.

The woman said that after a refueling stop, the plane was said to have landed in El Salvador. The men were led off the plane, but the women were not.

“I was told that the President of El Salvador would not accept women. I was also told that we were going back to detention in the U.S.,” the woman said.

She said that all of the women on the plane were taken to Laredo, Texas, where they had been before departing for El Salvador.

The sworn declaration was entered in a legal case involving the use of the Alien Enemies Act by the Trump administration. After President Donald Trump signed an order declaring an invasion of the United States by the Venezuelan terrorist gang Tren de Aragua, U.S. authorities transported some illegal immigrants suspected of being part of the gang to El Salvador, which entered an agreement with the United States to accept criminal deportees for incarceration.

Venezuelans in immigration custody sued, alleging the proclamation was illegally being used against nationals of a country that is not at war with America.

 U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 15 blocked the administration from deporting alleged gang members solely under the Alien Enemies Act. A U.S. official said that two planes were already outside U.S. airspace when the judge’s order was released. A third plane did depart after the order but contained illegal immigrants who had been ordered removed by U.S. judges, the official said.

In a separate declaration, a Nicaraguan male whose name was redacted said he was placed on a plane on March 15 along with others, including Venezuelan and El Salvadoran nationals. He said the plane flew to El Salvador and that he was removed from the aircraft. After he answered questions about his citizenship, he was told to sit on the floor of one of the planes, he said.

“I overheard a Salvadoran official tell an ICE officer that the Salvadoran government would not detain someone from another Central American country because of the conflict it would cause. I also heard him say that they would not receive the females because the prison was not for females, and females were not mentioned in the agreement,” the man said.

The man said he was sent back to Texas, arriving on March 16.

“These declarations are submitted to refute the government’s contention that it was not ‘feasibl[e]’ for the planes to bring anyone back and that this Court did not account for practical considerations like whether the planes ‘had enough fuel’ to turn around,” lawyers for the illegal immigrants told Boasberg.

In a previous motion, government lawyers said the judge incorrectly suggested that a government attorney was able to divert the aircraft carrying the deportees.

“The comment betrayed a complete misunderstanding of the serious national security, safety, regulatory, and logistical problems presented by a fiat from the Court directed at pilots operating outside the United States and was made without regard to whether any such aircraft could feasibly be diverted or even had enough fuel to safely do so,” the government lawyers stated.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say Boasberg should find that the illegal immigrants were illegally removed in violation of his order and that he should order those who were illegally deported to be returned to the United States.

In other developments in the case on Thursday, a federal court heard the Trump administration’s appeal of Boasberg’s order. The administration invoked a state secrets privilege, informing the judge that officials would not provide information about deportees.

Boasberg said on Friday that plaintiffs must respond to the invocation by March 31 if they want to be heard.