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Venezuelan migrants held at a detention center in Texas spelled out the distress signal “SOS” with their bodies while awaiting deportation by Donald Trump’s administration.
Thirty-one detainees being held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson and dressed in red and orange jumpsuits came together on Monday to spell out the letters, as a Reuters drone flew overhead. The stunt was to protest against their incarceration by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and appeal for help.
The secure facility, lying 200 miles west of Dallas, has been used to house suspected illegal immigrants from Central America, many of whom the administration has accused of belonging to the notorious Tren de Aragua criminal gang, although in most cases they and their families have denied having any association with the group.
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Reuters reports that 10 days prior to the SOS stunt, on April 18, many of the detainees were formally accused of belonging to the gang and informed they would be deported under the Alien Enemies Act 1798. The act was last used to detain Japanese-Americans as a precaution after the bombing of Pearl Harbor during the Second World War.
Seven inmates interviewed by the news agency said they had denied the gang affiliation allegation and refused to sign documentation with which they were presented.
They were nevertheless loaded onto a bus destined for nearby Abilene Regional Airport a few hours later, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, only for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and temporarily block the administration’s planned flights, causing the deportees to be returned to Bluebonnet.
Should the court lift its ban, the men being held at Anson could yet be sent to the already-infamous CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador, which has taken delivery of an estimated 137 people deported by the Trump administration so far.
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Among their number is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whose cause became a cause celebre and who was visited by Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen last month to draw attention to his plight.
The administration has continued to pursue its aggressive mass deportation policy despite growing hostility over its perceived injustices, with stories emerging about the likes of Maikelys Antonella Espinoza Bernal, a two-year-old marooned in foster care without her parents, which have only served to invite further criticism.
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President Trump himself, his border czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have nevertheless remained defiant, continuing to push hardline anti-migrant rhetoric rather than bow to pressure.
Earlier this week, the administration triumphantly lined the north grounds of the White House with mugshots of people it had deported as part of its crackdown.
Each poster featured the word “ARRESTED” above the subject’s face and listed the crime of which they had been accused but recognized each person only as “illegal alien,” rather than by giving their name.
