ACLU Asks Court To Make Trump Bring All Migrants Labeled ‘Alien Enemies’ From El Salvador Prison

The ACLU asked a federal court on Thursday to order that the Trump administration bring back all of the men it sent to an infamous prison in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act so their cases can be heard by courts and they can receive the due process they were denied.

The new request from the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents a group of Venezuelan men labeled as “alien enemies” by the administration in the case of J.G.G. v. Trump, came in the form of an amended complaint and petition requesting the D.C. District Court to identify those currently detained in CECOT and those who may be sent there as classes that can obtain class-wide relief from the court. The relief the ACLU seeks is the release of all the men designated as alien enemies from prison in El Salvador and their return to the U.S.

The Trump administration must “immediately request and take all reasonable steps to facilitate the return of the subclass to the United States from Respondents’ jailer in El Salvador,” the petition asks the court to rule. “That includes, but is not limited to, requiring Respondents to request that their contractors and agents in El Salvador transfer the CECOT Subclass to the physical custody of the United States, and requiring Respondents to cease paying their contractors and agents in El Salvador to detain the CECOT Subclass.”

This petition represents an expansion of the ACLU’s legal efforts to counter the Trump administration’s rendition policy to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act by seeking to obtain the release and return of all CECOT detainees, not just those at risk of being sent there. The amended complaint adds to the case new plaintiffs who are currently held in CECOT, including Frengel Reyes Mota, a 24-year-old Venezuelan with a pending asylum case, and Andry Jose Hernandez Romero, a 31-year-old gay makeup artist. Previously, the ACLU only represented detainees inside the U.S. and sought to stop their removal to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act.

The Trump administration has accused, without providing evidence, the men removed as “alien enemies” of being part of a Venezuela-based gang called Tren de Aragua. In many cases, individuals were accused of gang affiliation based only on having tattoos of common images, their loved ones and lawyers wrote in declarations. According to a Department of Homeland Security document attached as an exhibit to the ACLU’s amended complaint, tattoos of trains, crowns, stars or clocks, as well as a person wearing “sports attire from U.S. professional sports teams with Venezuelan nationals on them” can be considered signs of Tren de Aragua affiliation.

The Supreme Court ruled in the J.G.G. case on April 7 that those identified as alien enemies must be given due process, but can only do so through habeas petitions filed in the jurisdictions where they are detained. The court did not, however, specify how those already in detention outside the U.S. could challenge their detention.

Nearly all of the people detained in CECOT have had no contact with the outside world since arriving there. Individuals are not guaranteed legal representation for immigration proceedings and many of them did not have lawyers. The Trump administration has not disclosed the identities of the people it sent to CECOT, but in March, CBS obtained an internal government list of people on the first three flights to El Salvador. The publication of that list is how many people learned their loved ones or clients were in CECOT.

Reyes Mota, one of many people sent to CECOT despite applying for asylum in the U.S., came to the U.S. in 2023 with his wife and their son after fleeing violence from paramilitary groups in Venezuela, his wife Liyanara Sánchez wrote in a declaration. During a routine immigration check-in appointment in February, Reyes Mota was detained with no explanation and transferred through multiple immigration detention facilities in the U.S. In subsequent hearings, the government alleged without evidence that he was part of Tren de Aragua, an accusation Sánchez described as “completely false.”

Sánchez last heard from her husband on the morning of March 15. He had been told he would be deported to Venezuela and feared being separated from his wife and son. In the following days, staff at the El Valle Detention Center, where he had last been held, confirmed he had been removed, but refused to say where. It wasn’t until CBS published the list of names a week later that Sánchez realized her husband had been sent to CECOT in El Salvador.

Sánchez has since obtained copies of his immigration paperwork ordering his deportation, which “listed someone else’s last name, referred to him with female pronouns, and used two different A-numbers,” she wrote. “These mistakes make me extremely worried about how the government identified him for deportation.”

The ACLU’s amended petition asserts that those currently held in CECOT are in the “constructive custody” of the U.S. and, despite being held in a foreign country, are still considered to be held in detention at the behest of the U.S. government. This means that they must be afforded the same habeas rights as those held in detention in the U.S.

“There is no question that the U.S. government is responsible for the imprisonment of the CECOT Subclass in El Salvador: it removed these Petitioners to El Salvador for the purpose of detention at CECOT,” the petition states. “Nor is there any question that the U.S. government is working through an intermediary or agent to detain the CECOT Subclass: El Salvador is detaining these individuals at the behest of the U.S. government, and the U.S. government is paying El Salvador to house them.”

This is what other courts have already determined for those removed to CECOT by the Trump administration. The U.S. government “exerts control over each of the nearly 200 migrants sent to CECOT,” District Court Judge Paula Xinis determined in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man that the administration admitted it had wrongly removed to El Salvador.

Relying on a series of “war on terror” cases, including those centered on the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the petition argues that detainees held overseas at the direction of the U.S. can file habeas petitions in the D.C. District Court, since that is the location of the entity ordering this detention: the U.S. government. This is what the Supreme Court determined in 2008 for war on terror detainees held at Guantánamo.

A plaintiff challenging their detention in constructive custody outside the U.S. “may name as respondents any of his custodians (not just the immediate custodians) and may file the claim in the court that has jurisdiction over those respondents,” the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 in Rumsfeld v. Padilla, which the ACLU petition cites.

Sánchez has had no contact with Reyes Mota since he was disappeared to El Salvador, she wrote. “Our son continues to ask for his father and struggles to understand why this has happened,” she added.

“We do not know if or when we will ever see him again.”