Women Were Also Aboard Deportation Flights Taking Venezuelans to El Salvador: 'We Were Lied To'

When the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to conduct its intended mass deportations, it rounded up more than 200 men and took them to El Salvador's infamous CECOT mega-prison. Now, it has been revealed that the administration also attempted to deport women.

According to a new investigation by NBC News, eight women were also on the planes that took the migrants to El Salvador. However, once they got to the Central American country, President Nayib Bukele's government wouldn't take them. So they were shipped back to the U.S. and were held on American soil.

Until now, little details have been known about the deportations and the conditions in which the men are being held at CECOT. But two of the women gave details to the outlet for the first time as part of its investigation, providing more insight about their experiences.

"We were lied to," said one of the women, Heymar Padilla Moyetones, 24. "They told us we were going to Venezuela, and it turns out that, no. When we arrived at our destination, that's when they told us we were in El Salvador."

She also detailed that ICE officials kept her on the aircraft. "They didn't let us leave. They told us that we were going back, that we were coming back here," she said.

Moyetones is currently being held in custody in a detention center in Laredo, Texas, sharing a cell with another woman who was sent to El Salvador, Scarleth Rodriguez.

Both women deny that they are associated with Tren de Aragua and deny that they are criminals.

"I came with a lot of dreams," Moyetones said. Since she was a child, she said, the United States was the country where she wanted "to make a life." She ultimately came about a year ago, with her son, then an infant, in hopes of giving him a better future.

"We thought that perhaps the treatment from people in this country would be different toward us," she said. But after what happened with the flights, she is sad and disappointed with the U.S. and wishes to be deported back to Venezuela, her home country. However, her son, now 2 years old, is in the care of a relative, and she does not know whether they will be reunited.

"I am very afraid, because I have always been with my son," she said. "I have always looked after my son, but I don't know. I wouldn't know what to tell you."

According to the interviews, the women were not aware they were going to El Salvador until they were actually there. They say that ICE had previously attempted to deport them, but ultimately aborted that mission.

Rodriguez said that once they landed, immigration agents kept telling them they had arrived in Venezuela. But the women and men knew there was something wrong.

"We kept asking where we were," Rodriguez said. "They would tell us, 'You're in Venezuela.' We are from Venezuela, we know that airport, it's the only airport that's in Caracas, so, like, we would know where we were, and we were not in Venezuela."

Asked by NBC News what she could see outside the plane, Moyetones said: "Very little. ... But the little we could see was the brutal way they were taking the men down, because [Salvadoran officials] did take them down in a very ugly way. Almost hitting them, dragging them."

The case of the women is not the only time when the Trump administration has accidentally deported a migrant. On Monday, the Trump administration conceded in a court filing that it mistakenly deported a Maryland father to El Salvador "because of an administrative error" and argued it could not return him because he's now in Salvadoran custody.

"It just shows how little process there is and how little due diligence," said Lee Gerlent, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is the lead attorney arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case questioning the legality of sending people to El Salvador. "Whoever heard of sending someone potentially for a life sentence in El Salvador without giving them any due process?"