Video from Friday night shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses full of Venezuelan migrants headed toward an airport in North Texas before abruptly turning around before the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must, for now, refrain from deporting Venezuelan men based in the state under the Alien Enemies Act.
At least 28 detainees — most, if not all, understood to be Venezuelan nationals — were placed on buses Friday evening at ICE’s Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, and then driven toward Abilene Airport about 30 miles away.
The motorcade — including at least 18 squad cars from various law enforcement agencies with flashing lights along the north Texas highways — left the ICE facility, with some men on board being told they were being deported to El Salvador and some told they were headed to Venezuela, according to the wife of one of the detainees and two lawyers representing other detainees at the facility. Prior to their departure, it was not clear what their destinations would be.
The video, obtained exclusively by NBC News, shows the ICE motorcade pass the airport’s exit and then turn around, looping back to return to the Bluebonnet detention facility.
The Trump administration is seeking to deport the men, who it says are members of the Tren de Aragua gang. It remains unclear whether the government has the authority to apply the Alien Enemies Act to gang members outside of a war situation, and whether adjudications about gang membership are accurate.
The administration has asked the Supreme Court to stop its pause on these would-be deportation flights.
An abrupt turnaround amid Friday’s court fight
As the motorcade was headed for the airport, a last-minute federal hearing on the matter was taking place in Washington.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who has been hearing a case related to the flights to El Salvador, scheduled an emergency hearing for Friday evening — just hours after a bus rolled up to Bluebonnet.
Shortly before that hearing kicked off, ACLU attorneys also asked the Supreme Court to step in.
“We hear they are on buses on the way to the airport,” said Lee Gelernt, the lawyer for the ACLU arguing on behalf of detainees on the verge of being deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
Upon learning this information, Boasberg asked Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign to make calls to ensure there were no flights deporting immigrants from Bluebonnet under the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night.
Ensign said he understood there would be no flights Friday night and that he was “not aware of any plans” for flights on Saturday, but that the Department of Homeland Security reserved the right to conduct flights on Saturday.
At the same time, the ICE buses were nearing their approach to the airport exit.
The Supreme Court heard the case overnight, after Boasberg declined to rule in favor of the ACLU lawyers and told them, “I just don’t see really how you’re asking me to do anything different from what the Supreme Court told me I couldn’t do.”
The high court then offered its ruling early Saturday that the administration must halt its deportation flights for now.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security would not comment on who was on the buses or why they turned around. NBC News reached out to DHS and ICE but had not heard back as of Saturday night.
Each of the men was asked to sign a removal order, though many refused to sign the document. NBC News has viewed video of numerous men holding up their own copies of the removal order and protesting ICE’s apparent efforts to get them to sign.
If any of the men signed — and if they had been deported less than 24 hours after putting their signature on the form — the Trump administration could have potentially been in danger of violating the Supreme Court’s April 7 order to provide “reasonable time” for those targeted for deportation under the Alien Enemies Act to appeal.
“We are confident we will ultimately prevail against the onslaught of meritless litigation brought by radical activists who care more about the rights of these terrorist aliens than those of the American people,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X Saturday evening.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, also writing on X on Saturday, called the immigrants “documented foreign terrorists who infiltrated the country at the direction of an adversarial regime.”
One detainee’s wife describes the near-deportation
Judy Maldonado Rall, wife of Eduardo Daboin Rall, who is currently being held at Bluebonnet and was among the detainees on the buses Friday, said she drove six-and-a-half hours from El Paso Saturday morning to Anson, where she was able to visit with her husband.
She relayed the chaotic scene her husband described.
Officers came into the facility and “pulled out a bunch of them and told them that they were going to be deported based on the orders that were given and that they needed to sign the documents,” she said, referencing the removal orders.
They were given documents entitled “Notice and Warrant of Apprehension and Removal under the Alien Enemies Act” and told to sign, she said, and some were told they were being sent back to their home country of Venezuela.
“They don’t know what they were signing. They didn’t know what was going on,” Judy Rall said, adding that some of the men refused.
She said her husband and other detainees were then loaded onto the buses, first headed toward the airport before turning around and ending up back at Bluebonnet.
“It happened as fast as they got there, and then they realized they did the turnaround, and that’s when they realized — on this turnaround back to the center — is that they were returning to Bluebonnet,” Judy said.
Upon returning, Eduardo Rall was told by a guard: “Well, you were lucky you were sent back because you were going to El Salvador, not Venezuela,” his wife said.
NBC News reached out to DHS and ICE early Saturday afternoon to request additional information and context about the detention of Eduardo Rall, and then also reached out to the White House late Saturday afternoon for the same information. As of Saturday night, no details had been provided.
Eduardo Rall is a Venezuelan national who entered the U.S. legally in 2023 via the CPB One app — which allowed migrants to apply to legally enter the U.S. as asylum-seekers but which the Trump administration has since tried to eliminate — Judy Rall said. He applied for temporary protected status a year later but has not been granted approval.
Judy Rall said her husband has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13 or any other gang, and that he is being targeted because of his tattoos.
Eduardo Rall was first detained by ICE about a year ago for an incident at home, Judy Rall said. He was initially let go with no citations but ended up being taken to a processing center in El Paso a week later and going through a court process, where he got out on bail and had to wear a tracker.
Then he was detained again last month, and Judy Rall said they have not been told why.
“He’s never been given any documentation to see what are the charges against him,” she said.
NBC News was not able to locate any state or federal criminal records with Eduardo Rall’s name and date of birth. NBC News verified that the man is in ICE custody and that his next hearing is scheduled for May 1 in El Paso.
In video of Eduardo Rall inside Bluebonnet, he said he and his fellow inmates were “simply being unjustly judged because of our tattoos.”
“I am Venezuelan and they put me to sign a detention and deportation order to a country that we do not know. They told us that they did not know where they were going to take us,” Eduardo Rall said. “And we hope that they simply return us to our country safe and sound, so that we can be with our families.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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