Kilmar Abrego García's lawyers describe ‘severe beatings' in El Salvador prison
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Abrego was kicked in the legs and struck with wooden batons inside El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, lawyers said in the filing. They said he was held in a crowded, windowless cell while guards, who had determined that he wasn't a hardened gang member, threatened to put him in with real gang members who would 'tear' him apart, the filing said.
Advertisement
'Plaintiff Abrego Garcia reports that he was subjected to severe mistreatment upon arrival at CECOT, including but not limited to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture,' the court filing says.
White House and Justice Department spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Three communications officials with the Bukele administration also did not respond to requests for comment.
Advertisement
Damian Merlo, a lobbyist for Bukele in the United States, disputed the filing's assertions. 'None of those accusations are substantiated by facts or truth. … Amazing they make such claims,' Merlo said in a text message.
Abrego, who entered the US illegally as a teenager after fleeing gang members in El Salvador, is now being held in a Tennessee prison after being returned from El Salvador early last month to face federal human smuggling charges, part of the winding legal drama triggered by his mistaken deportation that has highlighted the Trump administration's aggressive campaign to deport millions of people who arrived to the country without authorization.
Before his legal
battle began, Abrego's name was the first called to disembark the plane in El Salvador after the Trump administration sent him there in violation of a 2019 immigration judge's order barring his deportation to that country, the filing by Abrego's legal team says.
As he exited the plane that arrived from Texas, bound by
chains, two men in dark uniforms grabbed him and shoved him downward along the stairs, the court filing says. The detainees exited under bright lights as cameras filmed their arrival. Abrego was pushed toward a bus and into a seat, then fitted with a second set of chains and handcuffs.
'He was repeatedly struck by officers when he attempted to raise his head,' according to the filing's account.
After the bus ride, they arrived at the prison that was built to hold El Salvador's worst gang members, which human rights groups have said is one of the most opaque in the world. They were soon greeted by a prison official who told them: 'Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn't leave,' according to the filing.
Advertisement
The Trump administration paid Bukele's government approximately $6 million for detaining alleged gang members there, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in March.
The arrangement may apply only to the Venezuelan migrants taken there. Justice Department lawyers have since said Abrego and the other Salvadorans were not part of that agreement.
At the prison, Abrego was forced to strip, issued prison clothing, and then kicked in the legs with boots and hit in the head and arms to spur him to change faster, the filing says. 'His head was shaved with a zero razor, and he was frog-marched to cell 15, being struck with wooden batons along the way. By the following day, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia had visible bruises and lumps all over his body.'
Once in Cell 15, Abrego and 20 other Salvadorans were forced to kneel from about 9 p.m. to about 6 a.m., 'with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion,' the filing says. 'During this time, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself. The detainees were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.'
After about a week, the filings says, CECOT officials separated Abrego and the other Salvadorans. Twelve had gang-related tattoos and were moved to another cell. Abrego, whose lawyers have denied he is a member of any gang, remained with eight others who, like him, had no gang tattoos or affiliations, the filing says.
Advertisement
'As reflected by his segregation, the Salvadoran authorities recognized that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was not affiliated with any gang and, at around this time, prison officials explicitly acknowledged that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia's tattoos were not gang-related, telling him 'your tattoos are fine.''
In the days to come, prison officials repeatedly told Abrego that they would transfer him to cells containing real gang members who would cause him severe harm, the filing says. 'Indeed, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia repeatedly observed prisoners in nearby cells who he understood to be gang members violently harm each other with no intervention from guards or personnel. Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards.'
According to the filing, Abrego's physical condition deteriorated significantly, and he dropped from 215 to 184 pounds.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Black America Web
an hour ago
- Black America Web
Kilmar Abrego Garcia Says He Was Beaten, Tortured And Terrorized In El Salvadorian Prison
Source: Alex Peña / Getty Early last month, we reported that Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to a detention center in El Salvador by the brazenly unapologetic Trump administration, had finally been returned to the U.S., only to face an indictment on federal smuggling charges that, according to Abrego Garcia's attorney (and any objective observer), appears to be an attempt by the Justice Department to justify the White House's actions. Well, now, Abrego Garcia is speaking publicly about his experience in El Salvador's mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where he said he and other inmates were subjected to daily beatings, torture, terror and substandard living conditions, according to court documents filed Wednesday.. From the Associated Press: He said he was kicked and hit so often after arrival that by the following day, he had visible bruises and lumps all over his body. He said he and 20 others were forced to kneel all night long and guards hit anyone who fell. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported and became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. The new details of Abrego Garcia's incarceration in El Salvador were added to a lawsuit against the Trump administration that Abrego Garcia's wife filed in Maryland federal court after he was deported. The Trump administration has asked a federal judge in Maryland to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it is now moot because the government returned him to the United States as ordered by the court. In the new court documents, Abrego Garcia said detainees at CECOT 'were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.' He said prison officials told him repeatedly that they would transfer him to cells with people who were gang members who would 'tear' him apart. Abrego Garcia said he saw others in nearby cells violently harm each other and heard screams from people throughout the night. As previously reported, President Donald Trump and his administration violated a 2019 court order barring the removal of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador due to credible fears of gang persecution based on credible evidence that MS-13 gang members had already targeted him and his family. Instead of simply admitting their mistake, Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi have been on a campaign to portray Albrego Garcia as an MS-13 member himself. Trump even went as far as to present an image of the tattoos on Abrego Garcia's fingers with the letters and numbers 'M,' 'S,' '1' and '3' photoshopped over each knuckle. (Trump, our 'stable genius' of a president, didn't seem to understand that the letters and numbers were, indeed, photoshopped.) Experts on gang membership have consistently reported that the tattoos on Abrego Garcia's hand are largely unremarkable and that there is no evidence that they are gang-affiliated. As for the new (and suspiciously convenient) indictment against him, Bondi portrayed Abrego Garcia as a central figure in an 'international smuggling ring.' Interestingly enough, sources close to the case claimed the indictment prompted the resignation of Ben Schrader, a respected federal prosecutor out of Tennessee, who allegedly stepped down over concerns that the prosecution was being pursued for political reasons, not legal merit. Here's what we reported on that previously: Indeed, the government's narrative has been riddled with inconsistencies. When Abrego Garcia was stopped in Tennessee in 2022 for a traffic violation — in a vehicle with eight undocumented passengers — he was released with a warning, not arrested. Three years later, that same incident is being used as part of the foundation of the indictment, despite no charges being filed at the time. Federal agents reportedly traced the vehicle's ownership to Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted felon who later told investigators that Abrego Garcia was hired for migrant transport jobs — claims the defense has not yet had a chance to confront in court. Whether Abrego Garcia is ultimately found guilty or not, we should all be concerned that he was possibly tortured and terrorized inside a prison he was never supposed to be sent to by an administration that is doing its best to avoid any accountability whatsoever. SEE ALSO: The Great Diversion: Kilmar Abrego Garcia Returned To Face Human Smuggling Charges Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Wrongful Deportation Is More About Individual Rights Than Trump's Foreign Policy SEE ALSO Kilmar Abrego Garcia Says He Was Beaten, Tortured And Terrorized In El Salvadorian Prison was originally published on
Washington Post
2 hours ago
- Washington Post
Immigration lawyers criticize Justice Department push to pull citizenship
The Justice Department's pledge to prioritize stripping citizenship from naturalized U.S. citizens in more cases is fueling apprehension, with some immigration experts and attorneys calling the directive from a department leader ominous and a threat to due process. Federal authorities have sparingly sought to rescind naturalized citizenships in recent decades, a process known as 'denaturalization,' with a handful of cases each year. In a memo last month, Brett A. Shumate, who leads the Justice Department's Civil Division, said it would now 'prioritize and maximally pursue' court cases aimed at taking citizenship away from people accused of wrongdoing. Shumate wrote that the agency would focus on several categories, including those involving people accused of being threats to national security, committing violent crimes or failing to disclose felonies during their naturalization. Previous administrations have also sought to denaturalize citizens in similar cases. But immigration experts and attorneys expressed concerns that Shumate's announcement — which involved a wider pool of people who could be targeted, including those allegedly affiliated with drug cartels or gangs — may signal a broader use of denaturalization as a tool. Since President Donald Trump's inauguration, his administration has taken an aggressive approach to immigration and sought to ramp up deportations, cut down on border crossings and eliminate birthright citizenship. 'This fits into very hostile attitudes towards people who are foreign-born in the U.S.,' said Jean Reisz, who teaches law at the University of Southern California and co-directs the school's Immigration Clinic. Denaturalization cases historically have most often been deployed against people accused of hiding their past ties to war crimes, terrorist groups and human rights violations while applying for citizenship, according to experts and data on cases brought by the government. Many of the most prominent cases, for instance, involved people who hid their connections to the Nazis when applying for U.S. citizenship. 'It is really about proving there was some misrepresentation, a material misrepresentation or fraud in the process itself,' said David Thronson, a law professor at Michigan State University who has worked on and studied immigration matters. 'It's an error-correcting procedure.' Finding errors in the process is not easy, Thronson said, because officials are 'fairly rigorous in vetting people in the front end,' which involves background checks and interviews. 'You don't just walk in and get naturalization,' he said. Naturalized citizens account for a significant portion of the American population. According to the Migration Policy Institute, in 2022 there were more than 24 million naturalized citizens living in the United States. From 1990 to 2017, the government filed an average of 11 denaturalization cases a year, according to research by the Immigration Legal Resource Center, though year-by-year numbers began to tick upward after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and again under an initiative launched by President Barack Obama. Trump's first administration, which began in 2017, sought to expand those efforts even further. His first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, described denaturalization as a 'strategic objective' for the Justice Department. In 2020, the department launched a section focused on denaturalization, with a specialized group of attorneys focused on pursuing criminal and civil denaturalization cases in court. Despite the resources focused on that effort, the administration did not produce a deluge of cases, said Matthew Hoppock, a Kansas-based attorney who represents people in denaturalization cases. 'They didn't file thousands of cases, likely because these cases are so resource-heavy, and their attorneys were so tied up in court defending Trump's various other immigration policies, many of which were found to be unlawful,' he said in an email. Irina Manta, a Hofstra University law professor, began compiling a database tracking denaturalization cases and found 168 in federal courts during Trump's first term in office. During President Joe Biden's term, the Justice Department filed another 64 cases, her research found. The department's Biden-era priorities emphasized denaturalizing alleged human rights violators, national security threats and people with felony convictions who posed an ongoing public safety risk. Shumate's guidelines — issued in a memo dated June 11, the day he was sworn in as an assistant attorney general — incorporated those priorities and expanded the pool of potential targets for denaturalization. The larger group of categories included people who further 'the unlawful enterprise of criminal gangs, transnational organizations and drug cartels,' those 'engaged in fraud' against corporations or individual victims and any other cases referred to Shumate's division that it deems 'sufficiently important to pursue.' Shumate's memo 'is incredibly broad and open-ended,' said Lori Nessel, a law professor at Seton Hall University and director of its Immigrants' Rights/International Human Rights Clinic. Nessel said she was particularly concerned about the unspecified cases that might be deemed important enough to pursue. 'That is so broad, and that really leaves it open for this incredible politicization, just using this as a weapon,' she said. Trump allies have in recent weeks publicly suggested rescinding naturalized citizenships of the administration's political opponents. Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-Tennessee) recently wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking for an investigation into whether Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, should face denaturalization proceedings. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, was naturalized in 2018. Attorneys and experts said the broader list of categories in Shumate's memo could open up more people to facing possible denaturalization if the administration disapproved of their actions. Many of the potential targets for denaturalization described in the memo have been long-standing priorities for Justice Department lawyers under both Democratic and Republican administrations, said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. But the Trump administration has 'taken the view that there are people who are a threat to national security who historically presidential administrations would not have considered threats.' Trump administration officials have labeled student demonstrators protesting Israel and advocating for Palestinians as threats to national security, most notably in its efforts to revoke the green card of Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil. Hoppock noted that the Trump administration has already used allegations of gang activity to summarily deport hundreds of undocumented migrants based on evidence that courts later called into question. 'We have seen this administration use that designation to do bad things already,' he said. Christopher Wellborn, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said in a statement that Shumate's memo 'sends the message that those not born in the United States risk losing their citizenship for previous or future conduct, creating an unacceptable threat that a criminal charge could rip them from their communities.' Attorneys raised other concerns, particularly about the issues being raised in civil cases, rather than criminal ones, where defendants are guaranteed a lawyer. 'Because they're civil, there's no right to a lawyer if the person can't afford to hire a lawyer on their own,' Nessel said. 'I can picture situations where the government is putting incredible resources into this,' she said, and facing off with someone who cannot hire an attorney. The Justice Department said in a statement that it was 'committed to maintaining the integrity of the naturalization program.' 'As stated in the memo, denaturalization proceedings will only be pursued as permitted by law and supported by evidence against individuals who illegally procured or misrepresented facts in the naturalization process,' a spokesperson said in the statement. 'Those who gain citizenship through unlawful means and endanger our national security will not maintain the benefits of being an American citizen.' Immigration experts and attorneys said they doubted Shumate's memo would lead to a sudden flood of denaturalizations. These cases require resources and attorneys to work on them, they said, and the Justice Department would have to persuade federal judges to sign off on them. 'I think the district courts are going to be very skeptical when it comes to denaturalizing individuals,' said Reisz, the law professor, particularly when cases involve something 'less egregious than lying about your identity or lying about a criminal offense. If it's going to be extending to tax fraud or something that isn't clear cut.' Denaturalization cases are brought by the Justice Department's Office of Immigration Litigation, and they typically account for a small fraction of the office's work. Like many other parts of the Justice Department, the office has seen a significant number of departures during Trump's second term, and it is not clear how it would address any large uptick in denaturalization cases. The Justice Department did not respond to a question about whether it planned to dedicate more attorneys to denaturalization cases or how many. Last month, the Justice Department said that it had successfully petitioned a judge to revoke the citizenship of someone naturalized in 2013 and later accused of possessing and sharing child pornography. Some legal experts said that even if Shumate's memo does not lead to a flood of people losing their citizenship, the impact could be felt across the country in other ways. 'Even if they're not going to successfully denaturalize a lot of people, many immigrants or naturalized citizens might not want to stay in a country that is openly hostile to people who are not born in the United States,' Reisz said. Perry Stein contributed to this report.
Forbes
2 hours ago
- Forbes
Here's How Much Trump's Pardons And Commutations Have Cost The Federal Government
President Donald Trump's pardons and commutations have cost more than $100 million in fines owed to the federal government and another $1.5 billion in restitution to victims. President Donald Trump, accompanied by White House staff secretary Will Scharf (L), and Commerce ... More Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick (R), speaks as he signs a series of executive orders including a pardon for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich at the White House on February 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by) Getty Images Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of 16 people or companies whose sentences included fines ranging from $50 to $100,000,000 and total $102,647,458, according to a Justice Department list, though the figure is likely even higher as the DOJ list omits some previously reported fines and restitution payments. Meanwhile, Trump has granted clemencies and commutations to people who owe more than $1.3 billion in restitution money, combined, to victims of white collar crime, according to the former U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer, who tallied the money using court records. Fines are paid to the Treasury Department, while restitution is paid to crime victims. Oyer's tally does not include $2.6 million in restitution payments the 1,270 pardoned Jan. 6 defendants owed, according to a report by House Democrats. Trump issued the pardons at the same time his administration has lamented the size of the federal government's debt. The people included in Oyer's tally include Nikola founder and Trump donor Trevor Milton, who owed nearly $680 million in restitution to Nikoka shareholders; Todd and Julie Chrisley, reality TV stars convicted of bank and wire fraud who were ordered to pay more than $22 million in restitution combined; and Paul Walczak, who was convicted of tax crimes and owed $4.4 million in restitution before he was pardoned by Trump after his mother attended a $1 million-per-person fundraising dinner for the president. It's unclear how much of the fines had already been paid to the federal government at the time of the pardons and commutations. Money already paid would not be refunded to those who received clemencies. Big Number 70. That's the total number of pardons and commutations Trump has issued this year, according to the DOJ, not counting Jan. 6 defendants. Former President Joe Biden granted 4,245 acts of clemency during his time in office, more than any other president in history, according to Pew Research Center. Tangent The Justice Department and some Jan. 6 defendants have argued they should be reimbursed for the fines and restitution they already paid. At least one federal judge, Randolph Moss, ruled recently against a refund request, writing that 'once a conviction has been 'established by judicial proceedings,' any penalties imposed are 'presumed to have been rightfully done and justly suffered,' regardless of whether the defendant later receives a pardon," Law & Crime reported. Key Background Trump has made a multitude of controversial pardons since taking office, many for people he claims were politically persecuted by the Biden administration or those who align with him politically. He pardoned the Chrisleys, for example, after their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, spoke at the Republican National Convention and fiercely advocated for the pardons. Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, both convicted of defrauding Native Americans, were pardoned after they testified in the Republican impeachment inquiry against Biden. Further Reading Pardon Applications Are Being Carefully Crafted With One Man In Mind: Donald Trump (Associated Press) Former FBI Agent Pardoned By Trump For Jan. 6 Charges Now Serving In Justice Department: Sources (ABC News) Trump Pardons Drug Kingpins Even As He Escalates U.S. Drug War Rhetoric (NPR)
