Supreme Court halts deportations to third countries and forces ICE to return buses carrying Venezuelans in Texas

More than twenty Venezuelans were saved from deportation at the last minute, on Friday, April 18, thanks to the United States Supreme Court. ruled to halt, for now, the expulsion of Venezuelan men accused of being gang members under an 18th-century wartime law.

Some 28 detainees, considered Venezuelan citizens, had been put on a bus Friday night at the Bluebonnet ICE Detention Center in Anson, Texas, to be transferred about 48 kilometers away to the Abilene Airport, as two deportation flights were scheduled to depart from there, carrying foreigners to El Salvador, and another group to Venezuela.

However, when the Supreme Court's order became known, the ICE caravan had to turn back and return with the Venezuelans to the Bluebonnet Detention Center.

Judy Maldonado Rall, wife of one of the Venezuelans detained at Bluebonnet, identified as Eduardo Daboin Rall, said she drove six and a half hours from El Paso, Texas, on Saturday morning to visit her husband.

The woman revealed that the officers entered the facility abruptly, and "took out a group of them and told them they were going to be deported according to the issued orders and that they had to sign the documents," she explained, referring to the deportation orders.

"They didn't know what they were signing, they didn't understand what was happening," said Maldonado Rall, who added that some of the detainees refused.

"It happened as fast as they arrived, and then they realized they had turned around, and that's when they realized, on this return to the center, that they were returning to Bluebonnet," he said.

When her husband returned to the detention center, a guard told him he was lucky, because he was going to be sent to El Salvador, or Venezuela, at best.

Eduardo Rall arrived in the United States through the CBP One application in 2023, and later applied for Temporary Protected Status in 2024, but has not yet been granted approval.

His wife claims that Rall has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other gang, and that he is only targeted for his tattoos.

The Venezuelan was first arrested last year for an incident at his home. Although he was initially released, a week later he was transferred to a processing center in El Paso and, following a court proceeding, was released on bail, wearing a tracker.

He was finally arrested again last March, and no details were given to him.

Rall, in ICE custody, is scheduled for his next hearing on May 1 in El Paso, Texas.

In another legal setback for the Donald Trump administration, a federal appeals court on Friday rejected the Republican's request to allow him to move forward with eliminating temporary legal protections for some 350.000 Venezuelan migrants who would be at risk of imminent deportation.

The decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans is part of a series of restrictive immigration measures promoted by Trump since his return to the White House.

In addition, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, refused to suspend a federal judge's March 31 order blocking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's decision to eliminate temporary status granted to certain Venezuelan citizens.