San Salvador (AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security chief arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday for talks on migrant deportations and a visit to a mega-prison housing Venezuelans expelled by his administration. Relatives and Caracas say the 238 deported Venezuelans are innocent migrants, but Washington accuses them of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, which it has designated a “terrorist” organization.
The deportations “sent a message to the world that America is no longer a safe haven for violent criminals,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on social media before her visit. She welcomed the opportunity to see for herself “the detention center where the worst-of-the-worst criminals are housed,” on the first stop of a regional tour that will also include Colombia and Mexico. Noem said she would meet Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to discuss how the United States “can increase the number of deportation flights and removals of violent criminals from the US.”
Trump invoked rarely used US wartime legislation to fly the Venezuelans to El Salvador on March 16, without the migrants being afforded any kind of court hearing. The deportations took place despite a US federal judge granting a temporary suspension of the expulsion order, and the men were taken in chains, their heads freshly shorn, to El Salvador’s maximum security “Terrorism Confinement Center” (CECOT). On Monday, a law firm hired by Caracas filed a habeas corpus petition, demanding justification be provided for the migrants’ continued detention.
Bukele is hailed at home for his crackdown on violent crime — with tens of thousands of suspected gangsters sent to the maximum security CECOT facility. Human rights groups have criticized the drive for a wide range of alleged abuses. Salvadoran Minister of Justice and Security Gustavo Villatoro will accompany 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.
© 2024 AFP
