Press Release

Washington, D.C. – As Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visits the White House today, the #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign calls for the immediate release and safe return of the over 270 people the U.S. government has disappeared to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison. 

On March 15, President Trump invoked a 1798 wartime authority to forcefully disappear people to El Salvador, paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to detain them in the CECOT, a prison notorious for inhumane and dangerous conditions. Among those disappeared are cherished community members, fathers, sons, and neighbors, including people who came to the United States seeking refuge from persecution. The Trump administration branded them “terrorists,” ripped them from their communities, and sent them to the CECOT without providing evidence and without the due process to which they are entitled under our laws. They are now trapped in the CECOT with no way to contact their lawyers or families. 

President Bukele’s “State of Exception” has disappeared 85,000 Salvadorans into the country’s abusive prison system with little to no due process. Investigators have documented over 6,000 human rights violations, including arbitrary and indefinite detentions, torture, due process violations, enforced disappearances, and over 350 deaths within state custody. People imprisoned in the CECOT reportedly spend 23.5 hours a day in overcrowded cages and are forced into prison labor, denied necessities for survival (including food and medications), and subject to severe physical violence.

Since the Trump administration’s disappearances began, communities across the United States have rallied for the safe return of those sent to the CECOT, including people like Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, Andry Hernandez Romero, and others. Their families have been joined by advocates, journalists, neighbors, union members, and members of Congress. 

We call on our leaders to demand that all those disappeared to El Salvador are immediately returned safely home to their families, and to join us in decrying the grave human rights violations to which all detainees are being subjected in El Salvador. 

“The U.S. government should be working with our regional neighbors to defend human rights and the rule of law,” said Felipe Navarro, Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS). “Instead, the Trump administration is collaborating with Bukele to violate our laws and evade accountability, condemning people to indefinite abuse and imprisonment in another country, then falsely claiming it is powerless to redress the grave harm it has caused. We urge the administration to immediately end this blatantly illegal practice and return to the United States every single person disappeared to the CECOT.”

“The Advocates for Human Rights decries the Trump Administration’s expulsion of people to El Salvador. By sending people directly into a prison in El Salvador notorious for abuses, the Trump Administration is acting in blatant disregard of the absolute prohibition against sending people to a country where they are likely to face torture,” said Madeline Lohman, Advocacy and Outreach Director, The Advocates for Human Rights. “This action flouts U.S. obligations under federal law, the Convention Against Torture, and customary international law, as well as long-agreed protections against forced disappearance and extraordinary rendition. These are not obligations to discard when expedient—these are bedrocks foundational to the rule of law and essential to guaranteeing human rights for us all.”

Alice Levine, a member of Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice said, “Our group, and progressive Jews and their allies everywhere, are horrified by the treatment of immigrants, asylum seekers, and international students including those who are being shipped away to notoriously abusive prisons in El Salvador without recourse to due process.  We know that the safety of Jews is completely interwoven with the safety and fair treatment of all oppressed groups.  We demand in the strongest terms that our government follow the rule of law, and the primary value of justice, in immediately bringing back those who have been wrongfully detained or deported.”

Imani Cruz, Global Policy Coordinator for Migration Justice with The American Service Committee (AFSC) said, “As a faith-based organization with work in El Salvador, we are appalled by this progression of ‘chain deportation’. This repeated disregard for the human rights of the people taken by the government is not reflective of our values as a people. Every person, no matter where they were born or what they have done, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect at all times.”

Jean Stokan, Justice Team Coordinator for Immigration, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas said, “We are outraged and ashamed of the Trump administration’s refusal to work with the Bukele government to return Abrego Garcia to his family, in defiance of judicial orders.  It also makes the U.S. complicit in the gross human rights violations taking place in El Salvador.  The Administration’s false and misleading claims that all undocumented immigrants are criminals to justify massive ICE sweeps are so abhorrent, that we cannot remain silent.  We join our voices to Pope Francis, who in his alarm about the mass deportations underway, wrote to the U.S bishops in February exhorting the faithful and ‘all men and of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.’ We also must lend solidarity to the tens of thousands of Salvadorans who have been imprisoned without due process under the Bukele regime’s war on gangs and the labor, environmental, and human rights defenders he has politically targeted and imprisoned.”

“President Trump used President Bukele’s visit to continue to tout their disgraceful deal which has sent immigrants and asylum seekers to a notoriously abusive Salvadoran prison,” said Eleanor Acer, Senior Director for Humanitarian Protection at Human Rights First. “Trampling on due process and the rule of law is no badge of honor, it is shameful political theater that will inflict lasting damage on this country’s Constitution, reputation and people. There is no question that President Trump could easily persuade President Bukele to bring back the immigrants and asylum seekers his administration delivered to El Salvador unlawfully.  We call on Presidents Trump and Bukele to immediately return to the United States each person disappeared to the CECOT and halt this rights-violating scheme.”

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The #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign for asylum rights is composed of more than 125 organizations committed to transforming the way the United States receives and protects people forced to flee their homes to ensure they are treated humanely and fairly. To learn more about what we stand for, visit us online: https://wwdignity.org/solutions; to request an interview with an experts from the #WelcomeWithDignity Campaign, visit us here: welcomewithdignity.org