Category Archives: El Salvador

Noem made decision to continue deportation flights to El Salvador, justice department says

Posted on by

Justice department maintains that Trump administration didn’t violate judge’s order to return flights to US

The Department of Justice said in a statement that Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was the one who made the decision to continue with the deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge’s directive that the flights must be returned to the United States.

In a court filing on Tuesday, the justice department said that “Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove provided DHS with legal advice regarding the court’s order as to flights that had left the United States before the order issued, through DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara” and that “after receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador”.

Continue reading...

Noem made decision to continue deportation flights to El Salvador, justice department says

Posted on by

Justice department maintains that Trump administration didn’t violate judge’s order to return flights to US

The Department of Justice said in a statement that Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was the one who made the decision to continue with the deportation flights of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador in March, despite a federal judge’s directive that the flights must be returned to the United States.

In a court filing on Tuesday, the justice department said that “Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove provided DHS with legal advice regarding the court’s order as to flights that had left the United States before the order issued, through DHS Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara” and that “after receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador”.

Continue reading...

Top judge resumes contempt inquiry into Trump El Salvador deportations

Posted on by

James Boasberg demands sworn testimony to determine whether US officials defied March court order

A federal judge on Wednesday said he was resuming his long-stalled court proceeding to determine whether Trump administration officials willfully violated a court order by deporting hundreds of men to El Salvador in March.

US district judge James Boasberg said he would demand sworn testimony from administration officials to determine whether they defied his March court order to turn around aircraft that were removing the men from US territory.

Continue reading...

Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds

Posted on by

Human rights groups accuse Trump officials of complicity and draw comparison with scandal at Abu Ghraib prison

More than 252 Venezuelans expelled to El Salvador under Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy suffered systematic and prolonged torture and abuse, including sexual assault, during their detention, according to a report published on Wednesday.

The report, compiled jointly by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Cristosal – a group investigating violations in Central America – says conditions at El Salvador’s sprawling “terrorist continent center” (Cecot) breached the UN’s standard minimal rules for the treatment of prisoners. It cites “inhumane prison conditions, including prolonged incommunicado detention, inadequate food” and other shortcomings.

Continue reading...

Journalist Mario Guevara deported to El Salvador after 100 days in Ice custody

Posted on by

Removal comes after Emmy-winning Salvadorian reporter was arrested while covering ‘No Kings Day’ protest

Journalist Mario Guevara’s imprisonment by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) ended with deportation to El Salvador on Friday, his family announced on social media.

Guevara has been a media mainstay in the Atlanta area for about 20 years, after fleeing El Salvador to escape leftwing militias in 2004. Though he has a work permit and two of his children are American citizens, he has operated under the “administrative closure” of deportation orders for much of that time.

Continue reading...

Judge denies Kilmar Ábrego García’s bid for asylum in the US

Posted on by

Ábrego, who was deported to El Salvador in March before being returned to the US, has 30 days to appeal ruling

An immigration judge in Baltimore has denied Kilmar Ábrego García’s bid for asylum on Thursday, but he has 30 days to appeal.

Ábrego’s case has drawn national attention since the 30-year-old was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March. The Salvadorian national has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he originally immigrated to the US without proper documentation as a teenager.

Continue reading...

Politicians in at least 51 countries used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric during elections, NGO finds

Posted on by

Rights group also finds rise in openly gay, bisexual and transgender people running for office in 36 countries

Politicians in at least 51 countries used homophobic or transphobic rhetoric during elections last year, from depicting LGBTQ+ identity as a foreign threat to condemning “gender ideology”, according to a new study of 60 countries and the EU.

However, there were also gains for LGBTQ+ representation in some countries. Openly gay, bisexual and transgender people ran for office in at least 36 countries, including for the first time in Botswana, Namibia and Romania – albeit unsuccessfully – according to the report by Outright International. The number of LGBTQ+ elected officials doubled to at least 233 in Brazil.

Continue reading...

First human case of flesh-eating screwworm parasite confirmed in US

Posted on by

HHS told Reuters patient had returned from El Salvador but beef industry said person had traveled from Guatemala

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Sunday reported the first human case in the US of travel-associated New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, from an outbreak-affected country.

The case, investigated by the Maryland department of health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was confirmed by the CDC as New World screwworm on 4 August – and involved a patient who returned from travel to El Salvador, an HHS spokesperson, Andrew G Nixon, said in an email to Reuters.

Continue reading...

Trump defense official led thinktank that spread lies about Tren de Aragua

Posted on by

Under Joseph Humire, the thinktank tracked alleged crimes by the Venezuelan gang in the US. A non-profit found multiple false entries

A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.

Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.

Continue reading...

Opposition leaders say ‘democracy in El Salvador has died’ after scrapping of presidential term limits

Posted on by

Legislation allows rightwing president Nayib Bukele to seek unlimited terms, sparking fears of dictatorship

Activists and opposition leaders have that warned El Salvador is following Venezuela’s path towards dictatorship after the Central American country’s congress scrapped presidential term limits, paving the way for Nayib Bukele to seek indefinite re-election.

“Democracy in El Salvador has died,” opposition congresswoman Marcela Villatoro declared late on Thursday as the legislature – in which Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party controls 90% of seats – approved the highly controversial constitutional reform, by 57 votes to three.

Continue reading...

Men freed from El Salvador mega-prison endured ‘state-sanctioned torture’, lawyers say

Posted on by

Venezuelans back home under Maduro-Trump deal tell of isolation, beatings and dirty water – ‘a living nightmare’

Venezuelans that the Trump administration expelled to El Salvador’s most notorious megaprison endured “state-sanctioned torture”, lawyers for some of the men have said, as more stories emerge about the horrors they faced during capacity.

When José Manuel Ramos Bastidas – one of 252 Venezuelan men that the US sent to El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison – finally made it back home to El Tocuyo on Tuesday, the first thing he did was stretch his arms around his family.

Continue reading...

Venezuela to investigate alleged torture of its citizens in El Salvador jail

Posted on by

Attorney general says detainees from Cecot prison returned under deal with US suffered a range of abuses

Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek Saab, said on Monday that his office would investigate El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, and two other officials for the alleged abuse of Venezuelans detained in the country.

More than 250 Venezuelans held in El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison returned to Venezuela on Friday under the terms of a prisoner exchange agreed with the US.

Continue reading...

Caracas releases 10 Americans as Venezuelans freed from El Salvador jail

Posted on by

Scores of Venezuelans deported by US to El Salvador repatriated as Marco Rubio hails return of Americans

Venezuela released 10 jailed Americans on Friday in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The resolution represents a diplomatic achievement for the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, helps Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad and lands El Salvador a swap that it had proposed months ago.

Continue reading...

El Salvador’s president denies that Kilmar Ábrego García was abused in notorious prison

Posted on by

Nayib Bukele disputed claims of Ábrego García’s lawyers that he was tortured and deprived of sleep while in custody

The president of El Salvador has denied claims that Kilmar Ábrego García was subjected to beatings and deprivation while he was held in the country before being returned to the US to face human-smuggling charges.

Nayib Bukele said in a social media post that Ábrego García, the Salvadorian national who was wrongly extradited from the US to El Salvador in March before being returned in June, “wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight”.

Continue reading...

Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges

Posted on by

New court documents allege physical and psychological torture at Cecot in one of first looks at conditions in prison

Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country’s most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.

While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland.

Continue reading...

Man wrongfully deported to El Salvador must be returned to US, court rules

Posted on by

White House must return Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported less than 30 minutes after his removal was barred

An appeals court has ordered the Trump administration to return a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador to the US and to explain how it is complying in a ruling apparently designed to break a pattern of apparent government defiance of judicial orders.

The US court of appeals for the second circuit in New York also required the government to provide a declaration of the current whereabouts and custodial status of Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, who was deported on 7 May less than half an hour after the court had expressly barred his removal.

Continue reading...

At least 50 migrants sent to El Salvador prison entered US legally, report finds

Posted on by

Cato analysis goes against Trump administration’s claim that only undocumented people were deported to Cecot

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the United States legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute.

The report, published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

Continue reading...

Trump cabinet member’s links to El Salvador crypto firm under scrutiny

Posted on by

Commerce chief Howard Lutnick’s firm backed controversial crypto giant Tether as Bukele ties deepened

Trump administration’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and his family have had extensive business interests linked to El Salvador, whose authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has grown close to the White House and who has courted controversy by imprisoning people deported from the US in an immigration crackdown.

El Salvador also plays host to a booming cryptocurrency and new media industry, which has numerous ties to Donald Trump allies who are seeking to make money from various ventures which have sometimes drawn the attention of authorities or ethics watchdogs.

Continue reading...

Trump administration invokes state secrets privilege in Kilmar Ábrego García case

Posted on by

Lawyers say they’re ‘still in dark’ about government’s efforts to free the man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador

The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege ” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its erroneous deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador.

US district judge Paula Xinis disclosed the government’s position in a two-page order on Wednesday. She set a Monday deadline for attorneys to file briefs on the issue and how it could affect Ábrego García’s case. Xinis also scheduled a 16 May hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, to address the matter.

Continue reading...

Identity of second man illegally deported to El Salvador prison revealed

Posted on by

Daniel Lozano-Camargo, 20, was deported in March in violation of a legal settlement over his asylum application

The identity of a second man illegally deported from the US by the Trump administration in defiance of a court order and now in detention in El Salvador has been revealed.

Daniel Lozano-Camargo, a 20-year-old Venezuelan, was deported to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot terrorism confinement facility in March under the White House’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, Politico reported.

Continue reading...