‘Horror Story’: Flight Logs Reveal Dozens Disappeared on El Salvador Deportation Trips
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“This further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the U.S. government is disappearing people,” said one immigrant rights advocate.
“These were disappearances,” said one immigrant rights expert of the revelation that dozens of people who have never been acknowledged by the Trump administration were listed on flight manifests for three deportation flights from Texas to El Salvador in March.
404 Media reported Thursday that in May, a hacker targeted the airline that operated the flights, which have been challenged in court by groups including the ACLU and Democracy Forward.
The data retrieved by the hacker showed that in addition to people whose names had been previously included on a list of deported migrants deported to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), published by CBS News, more than 40 men and women were listed on flight manifests for planes that the Trump administration sent on March 15
The CBS News story reported on 238 people who had been sent to CECOT without due process, under a $6 million deal with far-right President Nayib Bukele, but the list compiled from the flight manifests puts the total number at at least 281.
The flights landed in El Salvador despite a federal judge blocking them, and now, Michelle Brané of the immigrant rights group Together and Free told 404 Media, “we have this list of people that the U.S. government has not formally acknowledged in any real way and we pretty much have no idea if they are in CECOT or someplace else, or whether they received due process.”
“I think this further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the U.S. government is disappearing people,” said Brané. “For almost all of these people, there’s no records whatsoever. No court records, nothing.”
It is unclear whether all the people on the flight manifests were actually on the planes, but if “they were indeed on the flights, it is unknown where they currently are,” 404 Media reported.
The outlet reported that the family of one of the men who is listed on the flight manifests but whose name has never been reported or acknowledged by the Trump administration, has been protesting his disappearance in his home country of Venezuela.
Keider Alexander Flores Navas’ mother, Ana Navas, said in a TikTok video in March that she suddenly stopped hearing from him the day the deportation flights took off—and then saw him in a photo of prisoners at CECOT.
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7486126944669404422?lang=en-GB&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fdeportation-flight
“He was not on any list. But this photo is from El Salvador,” Navas told the Venezuelan outlet Diario VEA.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called the news of the flight manifests “a horror story.”
404 Media‘s story “provides the first public confirmation of the identity of some of the people who were disappeared by the Trump administration on March 15,” said Reichlin-Melnick.
“Many of the people we sent to CECOT entered the U.S. legally at ports of entry after fully identifying themselves to the government,” he added. “But if they did enter illegally, nothing justifies disappearing people to life imprisonment without trial. It’s un-American.”
The news of the flight manifests comes days after a court filing revealed that Salvadoran officials said the U.S. has jurisdiction over the people being held in CECOT, in response to a United Nations Human Rights Office inquiry about the “involuntary disappearances” of four Venezuelans.
The Trump administration has denied having the power to return CECOT detainees to the United States, as has Bukele.
Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the ACLU’s case regarding the deportation flights, told 404 Media that it is “critical” for the public to know who was on the March 15 flights.
“These individuals were sent to a gulag-type prison without any due process, possibly for the remainder of their lives, yet the government has provided no meaningful information about them, much less the evidence against them,” said Gelernt. “Transparency at a time like this is essential.”
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Massive Attack announce alliance of musicians speaking out over Gaza
Brian Eno, Fontaines DC and Kneecap say group will support those subject to ‘aggressive, vexatious campaigns’ by pro-Israel advocates
Massive Attack, Brian Eno, Fontaines DC and Kneecap have announced the formation of a syndicate for artists speaking out about Israel’s military assault on Gaza, who they say have been subjected to “aggressive, vexatious campaigns” by pro-Israel advocates.
Posting on Instagram, the musicians said their aim was to protect other artists, particularly those at early stages of their careers, from being “threatened into silence or career cancellation” by organisations such as UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).
UKLFI reported the band Bob Vylan to the police for leading a chant of “death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” during their Glastonbury set and officers are investigating. It also reported the BBC for broadcasting the set. Bob Vylan have subsequently had several scheduled appearances cancelled after UKLFI sent letters.
Mo Chara of Kneecap was charged with a terrorism offence, accused of displaying a flag at a gig in support of the banned organisation Hezbollah after being reported to the police by UKLFI. Kneecap also had gigs cancelled after interventions by UKLFI.
While those actions were made public, UKLFI is also believed to have contacted other musicians, people and organisations connected with them without publicising the fact.
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[A different] Instagram post highlights a new documentary film about UKLFI projected by Led by Donkeys on Thursday night.
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Starmer doubles down on witch hunt by suspending the whip from Diane Abbott
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech at the government’s first Civil Society Summit in London, which aims to bring together leaders from charities, expert groups, communities, and government, July 17, 2025LABOUR’S left today pledged to push back against Sir Keir Starmer’s purge of rebel MPs from the parliamentary party.
But the Labour leader doubled down on his witch hunt, suspending the whip from the Mother of the House, Parliament’s longest serving woman MP and the first black woman MP in history Diane Abbott — for the second time.
Ms Abbott said today that she had no regrets about comments on racism, which led to her being suspended by the party when in opposition.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Reflections: “I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.”
Downing Street said it took the remarks “incredibly seriously,” and a Labour spokesperson later clarified that Ms Abbott had again been suspended from the party pending an investigation.
Ms Abbott was previously held in limbo for over a year during an “investigation” in which nobody contacted or interviewed her for months, only being allowed back in shortly before the general election.
Asked if she would condemn anti-semitic conduct, Abbott replied: “Well of course, and I do get a bit weary of people trying to pin the anti-semitic label on me because I’ve spent a lifetime fighting racism of all kinds and in particular fighting anti-semitism, partly because of the nature of my constituency [in Hackney North], which has a significant Jewish population.”
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dizzy: Article continues with a discussion of responses from the left to Starmer’s purge of rebel MPs.
There are claims that Abbott is making antisemitic remarks by e.g. Angela Rayner. That’s just stupid of course from Labour party Zionist genocide cheerleaders. How is it anti-semitic but not anti-traveller or anti-Irish for these Zionists? Isn’t that racism? It certainly looks like to me.
This is me dizzy saying this, Diane Abbott only said that black people experience racism differently to others. Isn’t that self-evidently true? The Labour party really suck up to genocidal Zionists, dont they? UK’s Labour party are racist, active participants in Israel’s racist genocide. Opposing Zionists committing genocide is opposing Zionists committing genocide, not anti-semitism.
