The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has led to fear and uncertainty for immigrants across the nation — including in Texas.
A federal judge is pushing the Trump administration for more details about flights that deported hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador, despite his order to turn the planes around.
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, who covers immigration for NPR, said these removal flights are supposed to be paused right now while the court case continues.
“Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the White House’s request to restart the removals under the Alien Enemies Act,” Martínez-Beltrán, said. “(This) is a wartime power that’s rarely used, but the Trump administration used it to remove Venezuelans men the administration alleges have ties to Tren de Aragua.”
Tren de Aragua is an international gang recently designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization.
“It’s important to note that the Trump administration in these particular cases has not provided evidence to back these claims that these men belong to Tren de Aragua,” Martínez-Beltrán said. “The White House has not even provided an official list of names of the people sent to the [Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo/Terrorism Confinement Center] CECOT, which is this notorious prison in El Salvador which human rights groups have these concerns about.”
Martínez-Beltrán said it is not entirely clear why the Trump administration is focusing on Venezuelan migrants specifically.
Millions of Venezuelans have left their country fleeing persecution, violence, and economic instability, and hundreds of thousands have ended up in the U.S., particularly over the last five, six, seven years,” he said. “But we’re not completely sure why the Trump administration has focused so much on people from Venezuela.
In fact, I was talking to an investigative journalist who has covered Tren de Aragua and has covered this organization and she was telling me that it seems like the United States wants to find an external enemy in order to carry out these mass deportation promises.”
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The families of those deported to El Salvador and to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba say their loved ones are not involved in any gang activity.
“In the last story I did, only one of the four men I profiled had an illegal entry in the record, but nothing else,” Martínez-Beltrán said. “So the families are saying their loved ones have been profiled, that the government has used the tattoos the men have as a reason to believe they are Tren de Aragua.
The Trump administration has also conceded that many of the people on these flights to El Salvador did not have any criminal records in the U.S. But the administration says that the ‘lack of specific information about each individual’ actually highlights the risk they pose. So almost like the lack of record for these men is an example of why they’re dangerous. That’s the argument the administration is making.”
Meanwhile, news about U.S. residents with green cards or student visas being detained is leaving people unsure about their status.
“There’s just so much fear among immigrants who have even legal status in the country, because things are changing. I don’t think there has been necessarily an official change on traveling from the U.S. to international destinations, but we’re seeing that the approach of the administration has been different,” Martínez-Beltrán said.
“In the past, green card holders usually would go out of the country, they would come back into the U.S., and if there was something off on their green card or on their background, many times the immigration agent would either give that person a notice to appear in court later or would give them the chance to fix it. And now we’re seeing that these folks who might have something off on the green cards are actually being detained for long periods of time.”
Martínez-Beltrán said these detentions of green card holders are sometimes lasting longer than just a few days, too.
“We are hearing stories of people with green cards not being allowed in the country because they missed a court hearing, for example, or because of a prior fault,” he said. “And I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to attorneys about this. And they are telling me that right now, they’re telling their clients that before they decide to travel abroad – even to places like Puerto Rico, which is domestic – they must consult with a lawyer.”
