Two Dallas-area men were nearly deported under a wartime law, with no charges and no due process.
That’s according to new reporting from Mother Jones, which uncovered how the Trump administration used a centuries-old law — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — to fast-track the deportation of Venezuelan men accused of gang ties.
Stiven Prieto, a Dallas barber, had been raising his partner’s two daughters as his own. Omar Cardenas was working at an H-E-B in Aubrey and doing deliveries on the side. Both had valid work permits. Neither had a criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela — but ICE agents detained them the same morning, citing tattoos as supposed signs of gang affiliation.
“There’s no indication these men had any ties to Tren de Aragua,” reporter Noah Lanard told KERA’s Justin Martin. He said a last-minute order from the U.S. Supreme Court stopped their deportation after they were already on a bus, likely headed for a prison in El Salvador.
Lanard says ICE never provided the men with evidence or formal charges. In Cardenas’s case, one of the tattoos in question was a pocket watch memorializing his father’s death. Experts say the tattoos ICE flagged aren’t associated with Venezuelan gangs — and that targeting migrants based on tattoos is both unreliable and discriminatory.
Both men remain in ICE custody at the Bluebonnet Detention Center in West Texas, along with others who say they were given no warning or legal explanation before being placed on deportation buses.
A federal judge in South Texas has now blocked the government from using the Alien Enemies Act in this way. He ruled that the law only applies when the U.S. is at war or under invasion — and said the conditions cited by the administration don’t meet that standard.
Lanard’s reporting shows how fragile due process has become for migrants caught in this system, especially those without legal counsel. “Most of them didn’t even know what a habeas petition was,” he said. “And ICE gave them just 12 hours to file one.”
For now, Prieto and Cardenas remain detained — their fate still tied to what the Supreme Court decides next.
Listen to the full interview, edited for length and clarity, by clicking the play button at the top of this story.
