Most Migrants Deported to Imprisonment in El Salvador Under the Alien Enemies Act Had no Criminal Record and Many had Entered the US Legally
An important new study by my Cato Institute colleague David Bier shows that most of the Venezuelan migrants deported to imprisonment in El Salvador had no criminal records, and many (perhaps a majority) entered the US legally. This makes the Trump Administration’s actions even more reprehensible. Here is an excerpt:
Shortly after the US government illegally and unconstitutionally transported about 240 Venezuelans to be imprisoned in El Salvador’s horrific “terrorism” prison on March 15, CBS News published their names. A subsequent CBS News investigation found that 75 percent of the men on that list had no criminal record in the United States or abroad. Less attention has been paid to the fact that dozens of these men never violated immigration laws either…..
The US government not only denied these men due process; it has also generally failed to provide their families, their attorneys, or the public any information about what it alleges these men did to deserve incarceration in El Salvador…..
Moreover, in most cases, the men never knew the “evidence” against them or that they were being removed to El Salvador. Finally, the US and Salvadoran governments won’t allow the men to talk to anyone, so there is no way to interview them directly.
Given the total lack of transparency by the federal government, we have compiled what the families of the men themselves are reporting about their entries and what likely triggered their incarceration in El Salvador….
Sadly, no information regarding one in three of the men could be found online. Maybe no one in their families knows they are missing, or maybe they are too afraid to speak up. For 48 percent of the 174 about whom we have some information, we have no information about their method of crossing into the United States. For many, the only information is Facebook or Instagram posts from their mothers pleading for information about their children…..
The government calls them all “illegal aliens.” But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point. A Reuters survey of 50 men also placed the proportion of those who entered legally at about half. This isn’t surprising because about half of all the Venezuelans who have immigrated over the past two years came legally as well—either as refugees, parolees, or visa holders. The proportion isn’t what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are. Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador….
The men were workers—construction laborers, pipe installers,
Article from Reason.com
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