A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to start allowing Venezuelans sent to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador toreturn to the United States for their immigration proceedingsif they choose to.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in an order that it was requiring the administration to allow entry to any of the more than 130 Venezuelan men who were held for four months in the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
"It is worth emphasizing that this situation would never have arisen had the Government simply afforded Plaintiffs their constitutional rights before initially deporting them," he wrote.
The men were sent back from El Salvador to Venezuela in July, as part of a prisoner swap between the two nations. Manyhave said they suffered physical and psychological abuse while imprisoned in CECOT.
Boasberg said the number of men who might seek to return to the U.S. "would likely be very small." Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing the plaintiffs in the case, said previously in court that there would be only a "handful" of his clients who may take them up on this offer.
The judge also ordered the government to offer a boarding letter to any plaintiff in the case who is in a third country and requests commercial air travel to the U.S. at the government's expense.
"It is unclear why Plaintiffs should bear the financial cost of their return in such an instance," he wrote.
The parties in the case agreed that anyone who wants to come back to the U.S. would immediately be detained as their immigration cases proceed.
The government is required to file a status report by March 13, inform the court as to the feasibility of returning plaintiffs still in Venezuela who wish to return for their proceedings, and describe the steps taken to obtain any passports or identification documents of the individuals.
Earlier this week,Gelernt argued in courtthat due process for the Venezuelan men would mean giving them the immediate right to return to the U.S. for a court hearing, or have remote hearings about their cases.
In December, Boasberg ruled the Trump administration should not have sent the 137 Venezuelan men to CECOT after invoking the Alien Enemies Act, finding that the men were denied due process.
He ordered the federal government to either facilitate the return of the men to the United States or otherwise follow due process and provide them with hearings. The men are now living in Venezuela or in nearby countries.
The men were sent to CECOT in March after Trumpinvoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law,declaring the Venezuelan gangTren de Aragua an invading force.Their removal to El Salvador cameeven as Boasberg, in a ruling at the time,blocked the deportations and ordered any flights carrying migrants subject to the presidential invocation to return to the United States.
Trump said heinvoked the AEAto target members of the gang, which the administration deems a foreign terrorist organization and accuses of engaging in "mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens."
By invoking the law, Trump was able to swiftly detain and remove immigrants he claimed were members of the gang at the time.
The men who spoke to NBC News,as well as the families of former detainees and their attorneys,strongly denied any ties to gangs and said they were unfairly targeted because oftattoos that may be popular in Venezuela and are unrelated to Tren de Aragua.
A New York Times investigation, which relied on interviews with prosecutors and law enforcement officials as well as court documents and media reports in multiple countries, found that most of the men sent to CECOT did not have criminal records in the United States or in the region. It found at least 32 of the more than 200 men sent to CECOT, including the 137 under the Alien Enemies Act, faced serious criminal accusations or convictions in the United States or abroad. Very few of them appeared to have any documented evidence connecting them to Tren de Aragua.
Three of the Venezuelan men told NBC Newsafter their release from CECOT and return to Venezuela that they experienced physical and psychological torture, including one man's allegation that he was sexually assaulted at the prison.
