(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s homeland security chief on Wednesday visited the mega-prison in El Salvador where hundreds of Venezuelan migrants have been deported under contested legal grounds. Standing in front of a cell of inmates who were stripped to the waist, revealing their tattooed torsos, Kristi Noem recorded a message telling others that they risked the same consequences. “Do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted,” she said at the maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). “Know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”
Trump invoked rarely used US wartime legislation in mid-March to bypass traditional deportation procedures and quickly flew 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador. Washington accused them of all belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which it has designated a “terrorist” organization, but relatives and lawyers for several of the migrants say they have no connection to the group. The deportations took place despite a US federal judge, on the same day, ordering a temporary halt. The Trump administration subsequently appealed the halt, but a three-judge panel ruled on Wednesday that it can remain in effect.
On Monday, a law firm hired by Caracas filed a habeas corpus petition, demanding justification be provided for the migrants’ continued detention. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the motion seeks the release of countrymen he described as having been kidnapped. According to the White House, Washington paid the Bukele administration around $6 million for the detention of the deportees. Noem, on the first stop of a regional tour that will also include Colombia and Mexico, was also due to meet Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. She said earlier that she would discuss how the United States “can increase the number of deportation flights and removals of violent criminals from the US.”
In a statement from the US embassy in San Salvador, the United States said that Noem had signed an information sharing agreement with Salvadoran Minister of Justice and Security Gustavo Villatoro. “This agreement strengthens the commitment of both countries in the fight against transnational crime,” the embassy said.
Rights group Amnesty International said the mass expulsion “represents not only a flagrant disregard of the United States’ human rights obligations, but also a dangerous step toward authoritarian practices.” It said there was “a clear and troubling connection” between Bukele’s methods and the recent US actions, as “both rely on a lack of due process and the criminalization of individuals based on discriminatory criteria.” Bukele is hailed at home for his crackdown on violent crime — with tens of thousands of suspected gangsters sent to CECOT. Human rights groups have criticized the drive for a wide range of alleged abuses.
Villatoro accompanied Noem on the visit to CECOT, considered the largest prison in Latin America. Guarded by soldiers and police, the jail has high electrified walls and a capacity for 40,000 inmates, who are denied family visits. Human rights organizations have voiced concern that more innocent migrants risk being incarcerated. “There is growing evidence that many people who were sent to El Salvador are not part of Tren de Aragua, and that they are exposed to serious human rights violations,” said Juan Pappier, deputy Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The main danger is that the US continues sending innocent people” to Salvadoran prisons, he told AFP.
Salvadoran authorities have arrested more than 86,000 suspected gang members under Bukele’s crackdown. Several thousand were released after being found innocent. Collaborating with Trump “could be a risky move” for Bukele, despite the potential benefits, said Diego Chaves-Gonzalez, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in the United States. “It could also generate tensions if a future US administration considers that these practices violate human rights or affect bilateral cooperation,” he told AFP.
Salvadoran analyst and academic Carlos Carcach said the cooperation would reinforce the Central American country’s “negative image” due to Bukele’s methods. “What we are witnessing is the consolidation of an authoritarian regime in El Salvador with the support of the world’s greatest power,” he said.
© 2024 AFP
