El Salvador is detaining and forcibly disappearing Salvadorans deported from the United States a year ago.
Since the start of 2025, the US has deported more than 9,000 Salvadorans to El Salvador. Some of them were deported in March 2025 alongside the Venezuelans who were tortured and, in some cases, sexually abused in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, CECOT) mega prison.
In November, Human Rights Watch released a report on abuses against detainees at CECOT who had been deported from the US by the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has alleged that several of the Salvadorans are members of the MS-13 gang. One of them was indeed known to be. However, neither US nor Salvadoran authorities have provided evidence or information that any of the others are gang members.
In fact, some of the people interviewed said their relatives had fled domestic or criminal violence, including recruitment-related threats and extortion by gangs in El Salvador. Some had apparently been living in the United States for several years.
Many relatives have sought information from US and Salvadoran officials as to the whereabouts of their loved ones after they were allegedly deported and detained.
They’ve reportedly hit brick walls in both cases.
The US is casting people into the “black hole of El Salvador’s prison system,” as HRW Americas director Juanita Goebertus writes. “Whatever the criminal history of these Salvadoran men, they have a right to due process, to be taken before a judge, and their relatives are entitled to know where they are being held and why.”
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