Detainees on the Bluebonnet immigrant detention middle within the small metropolis of Anson, Texas, despatched the skin world a message this week: SOS.
With a Reuters drone flying close by, 31 males shaped the letters within the filth yard of the power on Monday.
Ten days earlier, dozens of Venezuelan detainees on the middle got notices by immigration officers that alleged they have been members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and topic to deportation below a wartime legislation, based on paperwork proven to Reuters, recorded video calls and courtroom proceedings.
The households of seven detainees interviewed by Reuters mentioned they weren’t gang members and that they refused to signal the doc.
Nonetheless, hours afterward 18 April, they have been loaded onto a bus certain for close by Abilene Regional airport, based on the American Civil Liberties Union and relations, earlier than the bus was circled and despatched again to the detention middle.
That night time, the supreme courtroom briefly blocked their deportations. The Division of Homeland Safety declined to touch upon the halted deportations.
It was a reprieve for the group of Venezuelans detained at Bluebonnet, who nonetheless face being probably despatched to Cecot, the infamous most safety jail in El Salvador the place the Trump administration has despatched no less than 137 Venezuelans below the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, if the supreme courtroom lifts the block.
The Bluebonnet facility, situated 200 miles (322km) west of Dallas, is privately run by the Administration and Coaching Company below a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Named after the state flower of Texas, it has held a median of 846 detainees a day in fiscal 12 months 2025, based on Ice detention knowledge.
Denied entry to the Bluebonnet facility by Ice, Reuters flew a small aircraft over the middle final week in addition to a drone close by on 28 April to assemble aerial photographs of the detainees being held there. A few of the detainees photographed by Reuters have been carrying pink jumpsuits designating them as excessive danger.
Millan was moved to Bluebonnet in mid-April from the Stewart detention middle in Lumpkin, Georgia, the place he had been held since he was arrested by immigration brokers within the Atlanta suburbs on 12 March, based on a senior Division of Homeland Safety official. Reuters couldn’t discover a felony document for Millan, who had been working in development. The DHS official mentioned Millan was a “documented” member of Tren de Aragua, however supplied no proof.
The DHS official mentioned Ice detained Escalona in January 2025, after he was arrested by native Texas police for evading arrest in a automobile. He arrived at Bluebonnet after he was returned from the US migrant detention facility in Guantanamo Bay in February.
The DHS official mentioned Escalona was a “self-admitted” Tren de Aragua member however didn’t present proof of the declare.
Throughout a cellphone interview from Bluebonnet, Escalona mentioned he had no ties to Tren de Aragua or any gang. He was a police officer in Venezuela, he mentioned. After they detained him, US authorities took his cellphone and he suspects they noticed photographs of him making hand gestures that he mentioned have been frequent in Venezuela.
“They’re making false accusations about me,” he mentioned. “I don’t belong to any gang.”
Escalona mentioned that he has requested to return voluntarily to Venezuela however was denied.
“I worry for my life right here,” he mentioned. “I wish to go to Venezuela.”
Tons of of hundreds of Venezuelans have come to the US over the previous few years, fleeing financial collapse and what critics name an authoritarian crackdown below President Nicolás Maduro.
Underneath the administration of Joe Biden, many got momentary humanitarian protections that the Trump administration is making an attempt to revoke.
“HE IS DESPERATE”
Since their aborted deportation, the boys have been on edge, their households say.
In Millan’s dorm, he and a number of the different Venezuelan males take turns sleeping in order that they will alert relations if immigration officers come to deport them, based on Millan’s spouse, who requested to not be named for worry of being focused by immigration officers.
In the future final week, he advised her the boys within the dorm refused to exit into the yard as a result of they have been nervous they’d be placed on one other bus and despatched to El Salvador.
“He’s determined,” Millan’s spouse mentioned. “He advised me that when he walked out onto the sphere, he sat down and appeared on the sky and requested God to get him out of there quickly.”
In a single latest video name, Millan advised his spouse that they haven’t been given a lot meals, and he tries to sleep extra so that he’s not so hungry, she mentioned, one thing that different detainees’ family members echoed.
A spokesperson for Administration and Coaching Company, which runs the power, mentioned “all detainees housed at Bluebonnet obtain meals based mostly on a menu that has been authorised by a licensed dietitian, guaranteeing the beneficial every day caloric consumption is met.”
In an announcement, DHS mentioned it “makes use of a number of methods to handle capability whereas sustaining compliance with federal requirements and our dedication to humane therapy”.
On Saturday, an immigration official visited Escalona’s dorm and answered a number of the detainees’ questions, based on an audio recording of the go to obtained by Reuters.
The boys, speaking over one another frantically, wished to know why the federal government was making an attempt to ship them to El Salvador and what was occurring with their immigration courtroom dates.
The official defined that the US had tried to take away them below the Alien Enemies Act, which was a separate course of from their scheduled immigration courtroom hearings.
“If he will get eliminated below the Alien Enemies Act, then that courtroom date doesn’t exist, he’ll by no means have that courtroom date,” the official mentioned in English to somebody who was translating.
A number of of the boys wished to know the way it was doable for them to be categorised as “alien enemies” after they weren’t gang members and had dedicated no crime.
“If I don’t have a felony document within the three international locations through which I’ve lived in, how are they going to ship me to El Salvador?” one of many males within the recording requested. Reuters was not instantly capable of set up his identification.
The official mentioned he was not concerned within the intelligence gathering.
A number of of the boys had courtroom hearings of their immigration instances final week and advocates scrambled to seek out attorneys for them.
Millan has a pending asylum case and his subsequent listening to is scheduled for Might 1, until he’s despatched to El Salvador earlier than then.
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