According to sworn declarations filed Monday, eight female detainees were among the two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members deported to El Salvador last week and later returned to the United States.
S.Z.F.R., a Venezuelan woman, described in a sworn declaration how she was transferred to a detention center in El Paso, Texas, last week before being deported to El Salvador last Saturday 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 stated that all of the detainees, including the women, were “arm and leg shackled” the entire time, including when the plane landed in another country for several hours to refuel.
According to the woman, officials required 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,” said the female employee. “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 use the Alien Enemies Act to deport its members with little to no due process.
During a hearing Monday before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, an attorney for the ACLU stated that the organization intends to file the document that migrant detainees signed before being sent to El Salvador.
“We will file in district court the piece of paper that individuals are receiving that specifically states, ‘You are not entitled to review,'” said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU.
ABC News requested comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, but they did not respond.
Last Saturday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a restraining order to temporarily halt such deportations, prompting Justice Department attorneys to file a challenge before the United States Court of Appeals.
Last week, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official admitted in a sworn declaration that “many” of the noncitizens deported under the Alien Enemies Act had no criminal records in the United States. Administration officials have been unclear about the evidence they have that the detainees are gang members.
In her declaration filed on Monday, S.Z.F.R. stated that after landing in El Salvador, the women remained on the plane after the men disembarked.
“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 returning to detention in the United States.”
S.Z.F.R. reported that she was returned to the United States in the middle of the night.
In a separate sworn declaration, a Nicaraguan migrant claimed he was also returned to the United States 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 gentleman said in his statement.
“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,” according to him.
The unnamed Nicaraguan migrant claimed he was forcibly removed from the plane after 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 told me.
