March 16 (Reuters) – El Salvador has subjected some nationals deported from the U.S. to enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention without revealing their whereabouts or bringing them before a judge, a report by Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
• According to the New York-based human rights group, the 11 Salvadorans affected were among the more than 9,000 Salvadorans deported since early January 2025 under U.S. President Donald Trump.
• “The United States should stop casting people into the black hole of El Salvador’s prison system,” said HRW Americas Director Juanita Goebertus.
• Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemy Act, a little-used wartime law, to deport immigrants considered a national security risk with no due process.
• Neither the U.S. nor El Salvador has presented evidence the detained Salvadorans are gang members, beyond U.S. claims that some belong to the MS-13 gang, Human Rights Watch added.
• El Salvador’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on the HRW report.
• Lawyers and family members denied the men had any gang links and said they were often left unaware of detainees’ locations.
• Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 relatives and lawyers of 11 Salvadorans deported between mid-March and mid-October 2025 and immediately detained, finding none had been brought before a judge or allowed contact with family.
• Some of the 11 people affected were sent to El Salvador in March 2025 with 252 Venezuelans and held at a maximum-security confinement center known as CECOT, the report said.
CONTEXT FOR DEPORTATIONS
• Only 10.5% of the more than 9,000 people deported from the U.S. to El Salvador since January 2025 were convicted in the U.S. of a violent or potentially violent crime, according to HRW.
• Trump’s deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador drew strong criticism from human rights groups and spawned a legal battle.
• El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency in March 2022, which remains in place today, resulting in a campaign of mass arrests and the suspension of due process rights.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
