Trump administration moved Venezuelan to Texas for possible deportation despite judge's order

President Donald Trump's administration moved a Venezuelan man who had worked in construction in Philadelphia to Texas for possible deportation after a federal judge had issued an order blocking his removal from Pennsylvania or the United States, according to court records.

A plane transporting the man took off on April 15 from an airport in the state capital Harrisburg about a half hour after U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines issued an order temporarily blocking the administration from moving him out of her western Pennsylvania judicial district or the country, Justice Department lawyer Laura Irwin told an April 17 hearing, conducted as a conference call.

The Venezuelan, referred to in court papers as "A.S.R.," was then brought to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, according to the government and American Civil Liberties Union, which represents him.

The administration has not been accused of violating the order by Haines, appointed by Trump during his first presidential term, by sending the man to Texas. But his transfer demonstrates the administration's aggressive tactics to try to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants it accuses of being members of the criminal gang Tren de Aragua even as various courts including the Supreme Court impose restrictions.

Representatives of the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Details about the transfer of A.S.R. were revealed in three court filings by his lawyers and a transcript of the April 17 hearing, all previously unreported.

He was believed to be among dozens of Venezuelans at the Bluebonnet facility who the Trump administration had tried to deport last week under a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act that historically has been used only in wartime, the ACLU said.

That deportation effort was blocked by an emergency ruling by the Supreme Court last Saturday.

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March as legal justification for deporting hundreds of men his administration accused of being Tren de Aragua members to a prison in El Salvador under an arrangement in which the United States is paying the Central American nation $6 million. It is part of Trump's hardline approach toward immigration.

The Trump administration has designated the gang as a foreign terrorist organization. The man's lawyers said in court papers he denies gang membership.

A FEBRUARY ARREST

Brennan Gian-Grasso, a Philadelphia-based immigration lawyer also representing the man, said in court papers that A.S.R. entered the United States through Texas in November 2023 with his wife, child and two stepchildren. Born in 1995, he had been employed as a construction worker in Philadelphia since December, Gian-Grasso said.

A.S.R. was arrested on February 26, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers told him a neighbor had reported that he was a Tren de Aragua member, Gian-Grasso said in court papers.

ACLU lawyer Vanessa Stine said on Wednesday it is her understanding that A.S.R. remains detained at the Bluebonnet facility.

Irwin said at the April 17 hearing that the government began moving A.S.R. out of a detention facility in the judicial district where Johnstown-based Haines serves - the Western District of Pennsylvania - before his lawyers filed a petition challenging his possible deportation, according to the transcript.

The Harrisburg airport is located in a different judicial district. Irwin said at the April 17 hearing she did not know exactly when A.S.R. left the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Lee Gelernt, an ACLU lawyer, told the hearing that Haines likely would still have jurisdiction even if A.S.R. had been removed from detention before his petition was filed.

"Our purpose here in this discussion is not to say that the government purposely avoided your court's jurisdiction, but just to get to the bottom of it," Gelernt said, according to the transcript.

Haines has asked both sides to present arguments in written filings about whether she has jurisdiction in the case.

A PRESIDENT'S VOW

Trump, who began his second term in January, has pledged to dramatically step up deportations. The Republican president has lashed out at judges who have ruled against his administration in immigration cases.

Democrats and some legal analysts have said administration officials in some cases have dragged their feet in complying with unfavorable court orders, signaling what these critics call a potential willingness by the executive branch to disobey the federal judiciary, which the U.S. Constitution holds as a coequal branch of the government.

The Supreme Court on April 7 ended a nationwide order issued by Washington-based U.S. District Judge James Boasberg barring further Alien Enemies Act deportations, but imposed certain due process requirements. Following that Supreme Court ruling, detained Venezuelans across the United States who believed they were at risk of being deported under the law raced to secure judicial orders temporarily blocking their removal. Federal judges in Manhattan, Colorado and Texas issued rulings similar to the one by Haines that shielded migrants detained in their judicial districts from deportation.

The government responded by moving dozens of Venezuelans to Bluebonnet, located in a northern Texas judicial district where Trump administration officials believed courts would not block Alien Enemies Act deportations, ACLU lawyer Tim Macdonald said.

"What the government was doing was finding Venezuelan men, rounding them up and shipping them to the Northern District of Texas," Macdonald said at a court hearing in Denver on Monday, adding that the government perceived northern Texas as a "favorable venue."

The judicial district is known for its conservative-leaning judges.

Lubbock, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, on April 17 declined to block Alien Enemies Act deportations in the district. The next day, the ACLU said, the government loaded at least 28 migrants onto buses headed to an airport in Abilene, Texas - inside that judicial district - for deportation.

Macdonald said at Monday's hearing that the buses carrying the migrants to the Abilene airport turned around after the ACLU filed emergency petitions with the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.