The Dirty Deal with El Salvador (Brian Finucane – Just Security)

On March 15th, the Trump administration sent three planes carrying 238 Venezuelan migrants (as well as 23 Salvadorans) to El Salvador to be indefinitely detained in the notorious prison known as CECOT. Of the Venezuelans, 137 were renditioned to El Salvador under the supposed deportation authority of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which President Trump had invoked hours earlier, and for the first time since World War II. The threat identified in the proclamation triggering the Act was supposedly “an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States” by the Venezuelan criminal group, Tren de Aragua.

The Dirty Deal with El Salvador