The outside of the Terrorist Confinement Heart as Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem arrives, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 26, 2025.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
WASHINGTON — The federal government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the Trump administration maintains management of the Venezuelan males who have been deported from the U.S. to a infamous Salvadoran jail, contradicting public statements by officers in each international locations.
The revelation was contained in court docket filings Monday by legal professionals for greater than 100 migrants who’re looking for to problem their deportations to El Salvador’s mega-prison referred to as the Terrorism Confinement Heart, or CECOT.
The case is amongst a number of difficult President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“On this context, the jurisdiction and obligation for these individuals lie completely with the competent international authorities,” Salvadoran officers wrote in response to queries from the unit of the U.N. Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights. The U.N. group has been trying into the destiny of the lads who have been despatched to El Salvador from america in mid-March, even after a U.S. choose had ordered the planes that have been carrying them to be rotated.
The Trump administration has argued that it’s powerless to return the lads, noting that they’re past the attain of U.S. courts and not have entry to due course of rights or different U.S. constitutional ensures.
However legal professionals for the migrants stated the U.N. report exhibits in any other case.
“El Salvador has confirmed what we and everybody else understood: it’s america that controls what occurs to the Venezuelans languishing at CECOT. Remarkably the U.S. authorities did not present this info to us or the court docket,” American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernt stated in an e mail.
Skye Perryman, CEO and president of Democracy Ahead, stated the paperwork present “that the administration has not been sincere with the court docket or the American individuals.” The ACLU and Democracy Ahead are each representing the migrants.
A Justice Division spokesperson declined to remark. White Home and Homeland Safety Division officers didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The administration in March agreed to pay $6 million for El Salvador to accommodate 300 migrants. The deal sparked speedy controversy when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime legislation, the Alien Enemies Act, to shortly take away males it has accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
In a associated case, the administration mistakenly despatched Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the identical jail, regardless of a choose’s order prohibiting the Maryland man from being despatched to El Salvador.
The administration initially resisted court docket orders to convey him again to the U.S., saying he was not in American custody. Ultimately, Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S., the place he now faces prison prices of human smuggling whereas authorized battles proceed.
Final month, a coalition of immigrant rights teams sued to invalidate the jail take care of El Salvador, arguing that the association to maneuver migrant detainees exterior the attain of U.S. courts violates the Structure.
