Editor’s note: This article about the Trump administration’s practice of disappearing immigrants to overseas prisons originally appeared in Truthout and is republished here under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. You can see the original article here.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers announced they are investigating the Trump administration’s practice of disappearing immigrants to countries where they are not citizens, have no connections, and are at risk of being tortured.
“We are concerned that the Trump Administration is offshoring the immigration detention system in an apparent attempt to evade the due process requirements of the U.S. Constitution,” the legislators wrote in a letter signed by more than 60 lawmakers to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and State Department.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), along with Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), Troy Carter (D-Louisiana), and Delia C. Ramirez (D-Illinois) are leading the effort, according to a press release from Warren’s office.
The lawmakers asked the three agencies to respond, by October 8, with information about a number of issues, including the State Department’s third-party country agreements and criteria for selecting these countries; the cost to U.S. taxpayers; and a breakdown of how many people sent to third-party countries were children, lawful permanent residents, or U.S. citizens.
They also demanded a full list of third-party countries that have agreed to accept people disappeared by the United States. The Trump administration reportedly has agreements with a number of countries, including El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Ghana, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, and Mexico, and has pursued agreements with many more, including Ukraine, which is in the midst of a years-long war with Russia.
“Since January, the administration has sent thousands of people, including children, long-time U.S. residents, and individuals with no criminal records, to countries they are not from and that were not designated for their removal, which U.S. immigration law only allows in rare circumstances,” they wrote.
Some were given less than 24 hours notice, according to the lawmakers, adding that some believed they were being flown to another American city.
“Fast-tracked expulsions and deportations to third countries allow DHS to deport planeloads of people practically overnight, to whatever country has agreed to receive or detain noncitizens en masse,” they wrote.
“These rapid removals not only ignore an individual’s country of origin, but also whether that person might face persecution, torture, or death in the intended destination,” they continued, noting that “reports of torture at El Salvador’s CECOT have begun to emerge.”
In March, the Trump administration disappeared about 250 Venezuelans who were living in the United States to CECOT, a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador where incarcerated people are routinely tortured. In July, the men were finally sent home to Venezuela in a so-called prisoner swap with the United States.
Among those disappeared to CECOT was gay makeup artist Andry Hernández Romero, who had sought asylum in the United States.
“It was an encounter with torture and death,” Romero told journalists of his time in CECOT. “Many of our fellows have wounds from the nightsticks; they have fractured ribs, fractured fingers and toes, marks from the handcuffs.”
