Over the past weekend, images of the more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants, accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, deported from the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, went around the world within minutes.
However, ICE revealed this week that many of them have no criminal record of any kind, at least in the United States. “This does not indicate they pose a limited threat,” the agency added, “It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.” “While it is true that many of the Tren de Aragua gang members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time”, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, Robert Cerna, said.
The statement was included in documents filed in court by the Trump administration, which is asking a judge, James Boasberg, to lift the order temporarily blocking the deportations, a move that government lawyers called “an affront to the President’s broad constitutional and statutory authority to protect the United States from dangerous aliens who pose grave threats to the American people.”
Boasberg, for his part, ordered government lawyers to answer several questions regarding the operation in El Salvador to determine whether officials intentionally violated the court order. According to a document filed by Justice Department lawyers, those answers “will reveal sensitive information affecting national security and foreign relations.”
“The implications of the government’s position are staggering,” lawyers for the Venezuelans deported without trial said instead, “If the President can designate 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.”
At the moment, it would appear that those deported to the CECOT maximum security prison will have to remain in this facility for at least one year. However, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele himself said that the agreement regarding their detention is “renewable.”
Cerna wrote that some of the deported men have been convicted or arrested for crimes in the United States, including murder, assault, harassment, and drug offenses, and added that ICE staff “carefully examined each and every alien to ensure that they were indeed members of the TdA.”
At this time, the Trump administration has not disclosed the identity and status of the Venezuelan prisoners, making it impossible to determine exactly how many have criminal records in the U.S. and beyond.
