Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)

‘Horror Story’: Flight Logs Reveal Dozens Disappeared on El Salvador Deportation Trips

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

People hold signs and read the names of detainees at CECOT, El Salvador’s maximum-security prison, as they gather outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations in New York on June 5, 2025. (Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

“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).

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Continue Reading‘Horror Story’: Flight Logs Reveal Dozens Disappeared on El Salvador Deportation Trips

ACLU Turns to Supreme Court Amid Fears of Imminent Alien Enemies Act Deportations

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Detainees are transferred from buses operated by the GEO Group to a plane chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at King County International Airport on April 15, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo: David Ryder/Getty Images)

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer told a federal judge that there are no plans for such flights on Friday or Saturday while still asserting the administration’s “right to remove people” as early as this weekend.

The ACLU on Friday sought emergency action from the U.S. Supreme Court to protect Venezuelan men in immigration custody at risk of swiftly being deported under President Donald Trump’s proclamation invoking an 18th-century wartime law.

The high court should “preserve the status quo for individuals challenging their removal under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas,” according to the legal group. “Members of the proposed class are in imminent and ongoing jeopardy of being removed from the United States without notice or an opportunity to be heard, in direct contravention of this court’s order,” which came after Trump used the 1798 law to send Venezuelans to a mega-prison in El Salvador last month.

The administration sent two planeloads of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), despite Washington, D.C.-based District Court Judge James Boasberg blocking deportations under the AEA. The Supreme Court lifted that block earlier this month, but also said people targeted for deportation should first receive notices—though no timeline was mandated—and be able to challenge their removal in court.

Exciting times (derogatory)

— Joshua J. Friedman (@joshuajfriedman.com) 2025-04-18T21:53:41.219Z

The ACLU’s Friday filing followed Venezuelan migrants at Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas receiving removal notices. The petition—which goes to Justice Samuel Alito—states that “many individuals have already been loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport,” and cites reporting that the administration was preparing for an imminent military deportation flight.

“Because of this ongoing and imminent risk of removal to a prison in El Salvador, applicants are simultaneously seeking relief through a renewed application for a temporary restraining order in the district court in the District of Columbia and an application for a stay of removal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit,” the filing noted.

Boasberg, the district court judge, called an emergency hearing on Friday evening. Politico‘s Josh Gerstein reported that U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Drew Ensign told him that there would be no AEA deportation flights on Friday night, and people he spoke with were not aware of any scheduled for Saturday.

According to Camilo Montoya-Galvez at CBS News, Boasberg also took issue with the notice that immigration officials gave to the targeted migrants, a photo of which the reporter shared on social media.

Montoya-Galvez later reported that after a recess, the DOJ lawyer clarified to Boasberg that while he has been informed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that there are no plans for AEA deportations on Saturday, they “reserve the right to remove people tomorrow.”

Earlier this week, Boasberg concluded that the Trump administration’s decisions related to migrants sent to CECOT in March “demonstrate a willful disregard for [his] order, sufficient for the court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the government in criminal contempt.”

On Friday evening, a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. issued an administrative stay, halting the district court judge’s plan for contempt proceedings.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingACLU Turns to Supreme Court Amid Fears of Imminent Alien Enemies Act Deportations

Trump White House Mocks Abrego Garcia—and Provides ‘More Evidence of Contempt’ of Court

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) meets with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia (L) at an undisclosed location on April 17, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador. 
(Photo: Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Office via Getty Images)

“Whoever thought this was cute at the time may be less giddy when this becomes evidence of intent to disobey a court order,” said one legal expert of a social media post from the White House.

The White House’s public response on Friday to an image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who the Trump administration sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month, was to mock the migrant and the U.S. senator who successfully urged Salvadoran President Nayim Bukele to allow a visit with him—and critics said officials may come to regret that decision.

“I suspect this is going to show up in a variety of court pleadings,” said former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, who is now a law professor. “Whoever thought this was cute at the time may be less giddy when this becomes evidence of intent to disobey a court order.”

White Vance was among those who responded to a social media post from the White House’s official account on the platform X, in which it displayed the New York Times cover story featuring an image of Abrego Garcia and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) at their meeting on Thursday.

The story headline read, “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador”—but the White House crossed out the word “wrongly,” replaced “Maryland Man” with “MS-13 Illegal Alien,” and scrawled, “who’s never coming back” on the article about the father and sheet metal worker.

The digital graffiti was shared with the White House’s 1.6 million followers even though, as software engineer and writer Lakshya Jain said, “the White House admitted in court that they deported the wrong guy.”

Journalist David Leavitt added that the White House had given a federal court “more evidence of contempt,” two days after Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. warned that there was “probable cause… to find the government in criminal contempt”—punishable by fines or prison time.

Boasberg ordered the administration last month to turn around two planes that were carrying migrants to El Salvador to be imprisoned at Bukele’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) under a $6 million deal. The White House disobeyed the order.

The administration has also flouted the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling last week that found the White House must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States. Officials have admitted he was sent to El Salvador due to an “administrative error.” Although officials including Vice President JD Vance have called him a “convicted” gang member and Bukele repeatedly called him a “terrorist” in the White House earlier this week, Abrego Garcia has not been convicted of any crimes. He was also protected by a 2019 court order which found he had a credible fear of persecution if he were deported to El Salvador.

Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake said that by saying Abrego Garcia is “never coming back,” the White House was “basically taunting” the Supreme Court.

Attorney Aaron Regunberg added that White House officials were “explicitly declaring they will violate a unanimous Supreme Court order,” and reminded Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) of his earlier remarks that such defiance from President Donald Trump would trigger “extraordinary action.”

“So… where the fuck are you?” asked Regunberg Schumer.

At a press conference following his return to the U.S., flanked by Abrego Garcia’s wife, Van Hollen—who was widely praised this week for taking concrete action to advocate for his constituent—on Friday accused the Trump administration of “lying about this case from the beginning.”

“They’ve been trying to change the subject from the beginning,” said Van Hollen. “As I’ve said, and the courts have said—from the Supreme Court to the 4th Circuit, to the District Court—what this is about is adhering to the Constitution, to the right of due process. And that’s why we say: ‘Bring Kilmar home,’ so he can be afforded his rights under the Constitution. That’s what this is about.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

Continue ReadingTrump White House Mocks Abrego Garcia—and Provides ‘More Evidence of Contempt’ of Court