The Venezuelans spared from Bukele’s mega-prison after Supreme Court blocks deportation

At the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Dallas, Texas, the inmates are restless — a bundle of nerves and fears. Though they suspect what’s coming, none of them knows for sure. It’s Friday, April 18, and word is that they’ll be the next group of detainees the U.S. government will send to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) in El Salvador. But nothing is certain — no one tells them anything, no one explains. Diover José Millán León, a 24-year-old Venezuelan, grabs the phone from jail, in tears, and calls his wife in Atlanta.

“He told me he thought they were going to deport them in the afternoon. It was being said that they were going to take them to the CECOT,” says his wife, who asks to remain anonymous.

León was given the red uniform used by authorities to identify high-risk inmates and was made to sign a letter in English, a language he doesn’t understand. However, he was able to make out the name of the criminal gang Tren de Aragua (TdA). The document, obtained by EL PAÍS, is an expulsion order stating that President Donald Trump “has found” that the TdA is “perpetrating, attempting and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.” Therefore, TdA members are deportable under Title 50 of the United States Code, Section 21

León meets the criteria outlined in the letter: he is “at least 14 years old,” not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and he is Venezuelan. He is also, according to authorities, “an enemy alien,” allegedly a member of the criminal gang. León refused to sign the document. He says he doesn’t understand what he’s being accused of — aside from having tattoos: the Cheshire Cat with a watch, a hand holding a rose, the word “family,” the names of his mother and aunt, and a few other inked designs on his skin.

At 6:52 a.m. on April 12, León — who arrived in the U.S. in 2023 from Maracaibo and worked in construction — left his house and started his car. Security cameras captured the moment several plainclothes officers approached, arriving in a black pickup truck and pointing a gun at him. León managed to ask one of the officers why he was being detained if his documents were in order: he was a recipient of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which covers around 600,000 Venezuelans, and an asylum seeker. The officer’s reply was blunt: “You may have all your papers in order, but you’re not American, nor are you a resident.”

The next day, León was already in Texas, just another inmate at Bluebonnet. On April 18, after speaking with his wife by phone, he and a group of more than 60 people were loaded onto a bus — “almost hidden,” his wife says — escorted by nine patrol cars in front and nine behind, forming a convoy that left the detention center and headed straight to the airport.

“I was crying, so scared. He told me, ‘It’s good people who go through things like this,’” she recalls.

Someone on the bus who spoke English asked where they were being taken. An officer responded, “You’re going to the CECOT in El Salvador, because you’re criminals.”

Also on the bus was Luis Eduardo Marín, a 24-year-old Venezuelan detained by ICE four days earlier in Atlanta and later transferred to Texas. On the morning of April 18, from Bluebonnet, he called his mother, Eucaris Prieto, in their hometown of Maracaibo, in Zulia state, and told her he had also been made to sign a deportation order. Her mother told him: “My son, if they’re going to deport you to Venezuela, praise God.”

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Luis Eduardo Marín

But the plan was to send them to El Salvador, just like the more than 250 Venezuelans that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has accepted since mid-March — for whom he will reportedly receive around $20,000 per person annually. That very night, however, the families of the dozens of detainees en route to the airport learned that the buses had turned around and returned everyone to the detention center. The U.S. Supreme Court had issued a ruling halting the deportation “until further order from this court.”

This is one of several recent clashes between the executive branch and the judiciary, part of an ongoing legal tug-of-war. The struggle has also included rulings like that of a federal judge in Colorado, who temporarily blocked the deportation of Venezuelans in the state and ordered the Trump administration to uphold due process — a principle that has been repeatedly violated since the start of his presidency. Going forward, authorities must notify potential deportees in their native language and provide at least 21 days’ notice, during which time they can seek legal representation and appeal their cases.

Although dozens of detainees remain at Bluebonnet for now without being deported, they live in constant uncertainty — aware that at any moment, they could become part of the next group sent to CECOT.

“Until they take this red uniform off me, I won’t feel at ease — or unless they send me to another detention center,” León told his wife during a video call.

León also told her that he barely sleeps, and the conditions in the facility are harsh. “They haven’t been given decent food, there aren’t enough beds, and they have to take turns,” his wife says. “When they’re hungry, all they do is drink water, got to bed early, and start praying.”

Prieto, whose two other children — Kevier Marín Prieto, 19, and Elvia María Prieto, 27 — are also held in a detention center in Louisiana, says what’s happening to them is “unfair.”

“They’re not guilty,” she insists. “They’re hard workers, parents. If they don’t want them in that country, they should send them back to Venezuela. But our children are not criminals.”

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