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The Independent
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
El Salvador officials say deported migrants in notorious jail are Trump's problem, not theirs
El Salvador's government has directly contradicted Donald Trump's administration when it comes to who, exactly, is responsible for the deported migrants locked up in that country's prisons. In high-profile legal battles at the heart of Trump's anti-immigration agenda, administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the government is powerless to bring them back because those deportees are no longer in U.S. custody. But El Salvador has told the United Nations that the country is not responsible for them. 'The jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these people lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities,' according to Salvadoran authorities. The bombshell statement was included in court filings in a legal challenge against the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport more than 130 alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador's brutal Terrorism Confinement Center, where Trump has also mulled sending U.S. citizens. El Salvador 'has only facilitated the use of Salvadoran prison infrastructure for the reception and custody of persons detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement of another State,' authorities told the U.N. Those statements were in response to a U.N. inquiry on behalf of four families who accused the Trump administration of disappearing a relative inside the Salvadoran prison in March. The Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to jail deportees in the Central American nation. The Trump administration 'has sought to operate in the shadows without public transparency as it removes people from the country under false pretenses or without any process at all,' according to Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which serves as co-counsel in the case alongside the ACLU. 'This is a threat to every single American and is a threat to our democracy as a whole,' Perryman said in a statement to The Independent. El Salvador's statements to the U.N. show that the administration has 'not been honest with the court or the American people,' she said. The Independent has requested comment from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Dozens of Venezuelans were deported to the jail on March 15 after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to summarily remove Venezuelan nationals who were accused of being Tren de Aragua gang members. The administration has also deported more than a dozen other alleged MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members to the jail using a different legal authority. Government officials later admitted that 'many' of those Alien Enemies Act deportees did not have criminal records, and attorneys and family members say their clients and relatives — some of whom were in the country with legal permission and had pending cases on their asylum claims — have nothing to do with Tren de Aragua. The Trump administration argues that the gang has carried out an 'invasion' of the United States under the direction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, despite reports from U.S. intelligence agencies disputing those claims. Several federal judges have temporarily blocked immigration officials from deporting more Venezuelan migrants under that centuries-old wartime law, teeing up yet another Supreme Court battle challenging the president's sweeping executive actions. The Supreme Court has already issued several rulings blocking the administration from summarily deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members while their lawyers scramble to challenge the allegations against them. Immigrants detained in Texas under the Alien Enemies Act must have 'sufficient time and information' to contest their arrest and removal, according to the court's 7-2 ruling in May. Lawyers for immigrants inside CECOT have argued for class-action relief, which would give them a chance to challenge the allegations against them. 'Significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations,' District Judge James Boasberg wrote last month. So far, only one person deported from the United States to CECOT has made it back. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran father who was living in Maryland, was abruptly returned to the United States after a weeks-long court battle over his arrest and removal. Administration officials initially said he was deported by mistake before repeatedly insisting the U.S. government no longer had jurisdiction over him. Last month, he was returned to face a federal criminal indictment in Tennessee accusing him of smuggling immigrants across the country. A recent court filing detailed for the first time what current conditions at the Salvadoran prison are like for the dozens of Venezuelan immigrants still inside. Abrego Garcia was subject to 'severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture' at the facility, according to his attorneys.
Japan Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Lawyers say new evidence challenges Trump on El Salvador prisons
Lawyers for Venezuelans sent to a prison in El Salvador say new evidence "contradicts' the U.S. government's assertions that Salvadoran officials, not the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, have legal authority over the men. Attorneys on Monday filed a copy of statements that El Salvador submitted to a United Nations human rights office in April, stating that "the jurisdiction and legal responsibility' for detainees "lie exclusively' with the United States under agreements between the two countries. The U.S. government, however, has repeatedly insisted it had no control over the Venezuelan prisoners once they were turned over to El Salvador. That position was backed by a federal judge in Washington, who ruled in June that the detainees were no longer in the "constructive custody' of the U.S. "The documents filed with the court today show that the administration has not been honest with the court or the American people,' Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, one of the groups representing the Venezuelans, said in a statement. The case is one of the highest-profile challenges to the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. The Venezuelan men, who the U.S. claim are gang members, were sent to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a facility denounced by human rights groups. A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment, nor did public information officers for the office of El Salvador's president and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg relied on a May declaration from a senior State Department official stating that "the detention and ultimate disposition of those detained in CECOT and other Salvadoran detention facilities are matters within the legal authority of El Salvador.' Lawyers for the Venezuelans argue the new evidence from the U.N. undermines that statement. The April documents were part of a probe into says El Salvador was responsible for the disappearance of people sent to its prisons from the United States. El Salvador denied wrongdoing. It wasn't immediately clear how the latest filing will affect the case. The Venezuelans' lawyers suggested they could ask the judge's permission to gather more information from the government. The case is before a federal appeals court on the government's challenge to another part of Boasberg's June order requiring that the Venezuelans in El Salvador be given an opportunity to contest their removal.
New York Times
02-07-2025
- New York Times
Abrego Garcia Was Beaten and Tortured in El Salvador Prison, Lawyers Say
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March, was beaten, deprived of sleep and psychologically tortured during the nearly three months he spent in Salvadoran custody, according to court papers filed on Wednesday evening by his lawyers. The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Maryland, detailed a litany of horrors that Mr. Abrego Garcia's lawyers said he suffered while being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, one of El Salvador's most notorious prisons. His lawyers said that he and 20 other Salvadoran men who were deported to the prison from the United States on March 15 were once made to kneel overnight 'with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion.' During the time he spent there, the lawyers said, Mr. Abrego Garcia was 'denied bathroom access and soiled himself.' He and others prisoners were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell that had no windows, but was outfitted with bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day. When Mr. Abrego Garcia first arrived at the prison, his lawyers maintained, he was greeted by an official who told him, 'Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn't leave.' Two weeks later, the lawyers added, he had lost nearly 31 pounds. The court papers offer a startling glimpse of the conditions under which Mr. Abrego Garcia was held. Even though his description aligns with what is known about the prison and the treatment of detainees, the more than 200 Venezuelans who were sent to CECOT on the same set of flights that day were placed in a separate cell block, leaving it unclear whether they were subject to different conditions. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CTV News
04-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Judge says migrants sent to El Salvador prison must get a chance to challenge their removals
Prisoners look out of their cell as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador a chance to challenge their deportations. U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven't been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges. The judge wrote that 'significant evidence' has surfaced indicating that many of the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador are not connected to the gang 'and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.' Boasberg gave the administration one week to come up with a manner in which the 'at least 137' people can make those claims, even while they're formally in the custody of El Salvador. It's the latest milestone in the monthslong legal saga over the fate of deportees imprisoned at El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. After Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March and prepared to fly planeloads of accused gang members to El Salvador and out of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, Boasberg ordered them to turn the planes around. This demand was ignored. Boasberg has found probably cause that the administration committed contempt of court after the flight landed. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a taunting message on social media — reposted by some of Trump's top aides — that read 'Oopsie, too late.' The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that anyone targeted under the AEA has the right to appeal to a judge to contest their designation as an enemy of the state. Boasberg, in his latest, ruling wrote that he was simply applying that principle to those who'd been removed. Boasberg said the administration 'plainly deprived' the immigrants of a chance to challenge their removals before they were put on flights. Therefore, he says the government must handle the migrants cases now as if they 'would have been if the Government had not provided constitutionally inadequate process.' The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration and its supporters have targeted Boasberg for his initial order halting deportations and his contempt inquiry, part of their growing battle with the judiciary as it puts the brakes on Trump's efforts to unilaterally remake government. The fight has been particularly harsh in the realm of immigration, where Trump has repeatedly said it'd be impossible to protect the country from dangerous immigrants if each one has his or her day in court. 'We cannot give everyone a trial!' the president posted on his social media site, Truth Social, after the Supreme Court intervened a second time in the AEA saga, halting a possible effort to evade its initial ruling by temporarily freezing deportations from northern Texas. Boasberg wrote that he accepted the administration's declaration, filed under seal, providing details of the government's deal with El Salvador to house deportees and how that means the Venezuelans are technically under the legal control of El Salvador and not the United States. He added, while noting there is a criminal penalty for providing false testimony, that believing those representations was 'rendered more difficult given the Government's troubling conduct throughout this case.' He also noted parallels with another case where the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported a Maryland man to El Salvador and has been ordered by a judge, appellate judges and the U.S. Supreme Court to 'facilitate' his return. That man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, remains in El Salvador more than two months later. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt welcomed Boasberg's ruling. 'This is a significant step forward to getting these men the chance to show that they should not ever have been removed under a wartime authority,' Gelernt told reporters in San Diego after a hearing in an unrelated case. Boasberg's order is only the latest of a blizzard of legal rulings in the sprawling AEA case. Several judges have temporarily halted deportations under the act in parts of Texas, New York, California, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, finding the administration's 24 hour window that it gave detainees to challenge their designation under the act did not meet the Supreme Court's requirement of providing a 'reasonable' chance to seek relief. Deportations of people in the country illegally can continue in those areas under laws other than the AEA, Some of the judges in those cases have also found that Trump cannot use the act to target a criminal gang rather than a state, noting that the act has only been invoked three prior times in history — during the War of 1812 and during World Wars I and II. The Supreme Court will likely eventually decide those issues. The Trump administration contends that the gang is acting as a shadow arm of Venezuela's government. Riccardi reported from Denver. Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report. Nicholas Riccardi And Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Migrants sent to notorious El Salvador prison must get a chance to challenge their deportation, judge rules
A federal judge Donald Trump has called a Barack Obama-appointed radical ruled Wednesday that the White House must give migrants sent to an El Salvador prison a chance to challenge their removals. U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven´t been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges. The judge wrote that 'significant evidence' has surfaced indicating that many of the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador are not connected to the gang 'and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.' Boasberg gave the administration one week to come up with a manner in which the 'at least 137' people can make those claims, even while they're formally in the custody of El Salvador. It's the latest milestone in the monthslong legal saga over the fate of deportees imprisoned at El Salvador´s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. After Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March and prepared to fly planeloads of accused gang members to El Salvador and out of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, Boasberg ordered them to turn the planes around. This demand was ignored. Boasberg has found probably cause that the administration committed contempt of court after the flight landed. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a taunting message on social media - reposted by some of Trump's top aides - that read 'Oopsie, too late.' The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that anyone targeted under the AEA has the right to appeal to a judge to contest their designation as an enemy of the state. Boasberg said he was simply applying that principle to those who'd been removed. The judge said the administration 'plainly deprived' the immigrants of a chance to challenge their removals before they were put on flights. Therefore, he says the government must handle the migrants cases now as if they 'would have been if the Government had not provided constitutionally inadequate process.' In a remarkable passage, Boasberg wrote that he accepted the administration's declaration, filed under seal, providing details of the government's deal with El Salvador to house deportees and how that means the Venezuelans are technically under the legal control of El Salvador and not the United States. But, he said, believing those representations was 'rendered more difficult given the Government´s troubling conduct throughout this case.' He noted the Supreme Court had to act again in the saga, to halt an apparent effort to get around that requirement with a late-night flight from Texas in April. He also noted parallels with another case where the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported a Maryland man to El Salvador and has been ordered by a judge, appellate judges and the U.S. Supreme Court to 'facilitate' his return. has reached out to the White House for comment.
