Venezuelans deported last week included 8 women who were returned to US, court filings say
The two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members who were deported to El Salvador last week included eight female detainees who were later returned to the U.S., according to sworn declarations filed Monday.
A Venezuelan woman identified as S.Z.F.R. described in a sworn declaration how she was transferred to a detention center in El Paso, Texas, last week before being sent to El Salvador last Saturday along with seven other Venezuelan women.
"I asked where we were going and we were told that we were going to Venezuela," the Venezuelan woman said in the filing. "Several other people on the plane told me they were in immigration proceedings and awaiting court hearings in immigration court."
The woman said all the detainees, including the women, were "arm and leg shackled" the entire time, including when they landed in another country for several hours while the plane refueled.
According to the woman, officials asked the detained men to sign "a document they didn't want to."
"The government officials were pushing them to sign the documents and threatening them," the woman said. "I heard them discussing the documents and they were about the men admitting they were members of TdA" or Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang whose criminal activity prompted President Donald Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport its members with little-to-no due process.
During a hearing Monday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, an attorney for the ACLU said the organization plans to file the document that migrant detainees signed before they were sent to El Salvador.
"We will put into the district court the piece of paper that individuals are getting that specifically says, 'You're not entitled to review,'" Lee Gelernt, the attorney for the ACLU, said.
Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a restraining order last Saturday to temporarily block such deportations, leading Justice Department attorneys to challenge his order before the U.S. Court of Appeals.
An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week acknowledged in a sworn declaration that "many" of the noncitizens deported last week under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States. Administration officials have not been clear about the evidence they have that shows the detainees are gang members.
In her declaration filed Monday, S.Z.F.R. said that after they landed in El Salvador, the women remained on the plane after the men got off.
"The remaining women asked, 'What happens to us?'" the woman said in the declaration. "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."
According to S.Z.F.R., she was returned to the U.S. in the middle of the night.
In a separate sworn declaration, a Nicaraguan migrant said he was also returned to the U.S. after being on one of the planes that landed in El Salvador.
"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," the Nicaraguan man said in the declaration.
"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," he said.
The Nicaraguan migrant, who was not named, said he was forcibly removed from the plane when it landed in El Salvador and questioned about his citizenship.
"Everyone was scared, and some people had to forcibly be removed from the plane," he said.
