Accused Tren de Aragua gang members at Texas ICE facility barricade themselves, threaten to take hostages after spelling out SOS in prison yard

Sky News AU

14-05-2025

Nearly two dozen Tren de Aragua gangbangers in an ICE detention center in Texas have barricaded themselves and threatened to take hostages in a major uprising — days after migrants spelled out 'SOS' in the prison yard.
Members of the Venezuelan gang threatened to hold ICE officers captive and injure them on April 26 as they barricaded the doors of their unit with their cots, covered surveillance cameras, blocked windows, and flooded the unit by clogging the toilets, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The takeover attempt lasted 'several hours,' with the detainees ignoring the orders of ICE agents.
Alleged Tren de Aragua gangbangers were seen begging to be sent home by flashing a banner reading 'Help, we want to be deported. We are not terrorists. SOS' to a drone overhead this week at the same facility.
And just weeks before, another group of migrants were seen by a Reuters drone forming the letters 'SOS' at the Texas detention center.
In response to the uprising, DHS is asking the Supreme Court to allow deportations to resume under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, which was blocked after the Trump administration deported dozens of alleged gangbangers to El Salvador without giving them a hearing.
'Keeping these foreign terrorists in ICE facilities poses a serious threat to ICE officers, staff, and other detainees,' said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.
'The media repeated these TdA gang members' false sob stories, but the truth is these are members of a foreign terrorist organization that rape, maim, and murder for sport,' she added.
The group was set to be deported to El Salvador's hellhole CECOT prison, but the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration's effort to use the Alien Enemies Act to kick them out of the country.
In the earlier drone footage, alleged Tren de Aragua members Diover Millan, 24, and Jeferson Daniel Escalona Hernandez, 19, were seen in the detention facility yard.
Escalona Hernandez was nabbed in January after he was arrested in Texas for evading arrest in a vehicle and ended up at Guantanamo Bay, where the Trump administration opened a migrant detention center, before being moved to the facility in the Lone Star State.
Escalona Hernandez had 'self admitted' to being a Tren de Aragua member, according to DHS.
He denied having any gang affiliation and said he volunteered to get deported home, but was denied permission to do so, in a phone interview with Reuters from the detention center.
The alleged gangbanger said he believed the feds linked him to the gang after viewing photos on his phone of him making hand signals that are popular in Venezuela.
'They're making false accusations about me,' he said. 'I don't belong to any gang.'
'I fear for my life here,' he said. 'I want to go to Venezuela.'
The feds also tagged Millan as a member of Tren de Aragua after he was let go by the Biden administration at the border and later collared by ICE, according to DHS.
Originally published as Accused Tren de Aragua gang members at Texas ICE facility barricade themselves, threaten to take hostages after spelling out SOS in prison yard