The Fight

In spring 2025, after a federal judge in South Texas barred deportations of Venezuelan nationals under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act (AEA), the Trump administration began transferring Venezuelan detainees to the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Jones County — a jurisdiction (N.D. Tex.) where no such blocking order existed. This is a textbook example of the detention system’s forum-shopping pattern: moving detainees across facilities/circuits to land in the district most favorable to rapid removal (see also the 2026 bond-hearing circuit split note in this KB).

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, declined to bar AEA-based removals from Bluebonnet, accepting ICE’s sworn declarations that deportations were not imminent, and declined to issue a broader order protecting all Venezuelan detainees held there.

In mid-April 2025, the ACLU filed an emergency motion after learning that Venezuelan men at Bluebonnet were being told they would be removed as soon as Saturday, on the basis of being labeled members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Sworn declarations from three immigration attorneys described clients being given English-only paperwork to sign despite being Spanish speakers — a due-process defect central to the emergency filing. The ACLU had already sued to block removal of two specific Venezuelan detainees at Bluebonnet and sought a broader order covering the whole facility.

On April 18-19, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, ordering the administration not to remove any Venezuelans held at Bluebonnet “until further order of this court.” Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. This was one of the first SCOTUS interventions constraining the second Trump administration’s use of the AEA for summary removal, and Bluebonnet — a converted rural Texas prison operated by MTC under a Jones County IGSA — became a named site in that fight.

Key Details

• Timeline: South Texas district blocks AEA deportations (early-mid April 2025) → detainees transferred/processed toward Bluebonnet in N.D. Tex. → Judge Hendrix declines to extend protective order to Bluebonnet → ACLU emergency SCOTUS filing (~April 18, 2025) citing imminent Saturday removals and coerced English-only paperwork → SCOTUS order barring removal “until further order” (April 18-19, 2025).
• Legal theory under attack: use of the Alien Enemies Act (normally reserved for declared war/invasion) to fast-track removal of individuals labeled as Tren de Aragua gang members, without adequate opportunity to contest the designation.
• Due process specifics: at least three attorneys swore their clients were presented removal paperwork in English only, despite being Spanish-speaking, and pressured to sign.
• Related case: A.S.R. v. Trump (ACLU of Pennsylvania) — broader AEA litigation track; a separate federal court later found AEA removals unlawful and ordered judicial-process access for Venezuelans already sent to CECOT (El Salvador), establishing the wider legal backdrop against which the Bluebonnet transfers occurred.
• Why it matters for the pipeline: this is a concrete, sourced instance of the “detention outcome is venue-dependent” pattern — a rural Texas county’s IGSA facility functioned as a release valve once one district closed off a removal pathway, and it took Supreme Court intervention to stop it. It also shows federal courts (not county government) as the actual check on this county’s highest-capacity facility, since Jones County itself unanimously approved the ICE contract in 2019 with no recorded local opposition.

Sources

• Venezuelan detainees moved to Texas facility where judge did not halt deportations — Washington Post (May 9, 2025)
• Read the Supreme Court order blocking new deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act — PBS News (April 2025)
• Supreme Court blocks, for now, new deportations under Alien Enemies Act — NPR (April 18, 2025)
• ACLU fights deportation of Venezuelan immigrants in Texas — Spectrum News (April 18, 2025)
• Federal Court Finds Alien Enemies Act Removals Unlawful, Orders Access to Judicial Process for Venezuelans Sent to CECOT — ACLU press release
• A.S.R. v. Trump et al. — ACLU of Pennsylvania case page