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In the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term, I spent a few weeks observing Chicago’s immigration court to get a sense of how things were changing. One afternoon in March, the case of a 27-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker caught my attention.

Albert Jesús Rodríguez Parra stared into the camera at his virtual bond hearing. He wore the orange shirt given to inmates at a jail in Laredo, Texas, and headphones to listen to the proceedings through an interpreter.

More than a year earlier, Rodríguez had been convicted of shoplifting in the Chicago suburbs. But since then he had seemed to get his life on track. He found a job at Wrigley Field, sent money home to his mom in Venezuela and went to the gym and church with his girlfriend. Then, in November, federal authorities detained him at his apartment on Chicago’s South Side and accused him of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

“Are any of your tattoos gang related?” his attorney asked at the hearing, going through the evidence laid out against him in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report. “No,” said Rodríguez, whose tattoos include an angel holding a gun, a wolf and a rose. At one point, he lifted his shirt to show his parents’ names inked across his chest.

He was asked about a TikTok video that shows him dancing to an audio clip of someone shouting, “Te va agarrar el Tren de Aragua,” which means, “The Tren de Aragua is going to get you,” followed by a dance beat. That audio clip has been shared some 60,000 times on TikTok — it’s popular among Venezuelans ridiculing the stereotype that everyone from their country is a gangster. Rodríguez looked incredulous at the thought that this was the evidence against him.

That day, the judge didn’t address the gang allegations. But she denied Rodríguez bond, citing the misdemeanor shoplifting conviction. She reminded him that his final hearing was on March 20, just 10 days away. If she granted him asylum, he’d be a free man and could continue his life in the U.S.

I told my editors and colleagues about what I’d heard and made plans to attend the next hearing. I saw the potential for the kind of complicated narrative story that I like: Here was a young immigrant who, yes, had come into the country illegally, but he had turned himself in to border authorities to seek asylum. Yes, he had a criminal record, but it was for a nonviolent offense. And, yes, he had tattoos, but so do the nice, white American moms in my book club. I was certain there are members of Tren de Aragua in the U.S., but if this was the kind of evidence the government had, I found it hard to believe it was an “invasion” as Trump claimed. I asked Rodríguez’s attorney for an interview and began requesting police and court records.

Five days later, on March 15, the Trump administration expelled more than 230 Venezuelan men to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, a country many of them had never even set foot in. Trump called them all terrorists and gang members. It would be a few days before the men’s names would be made public. Perhaps naively, it didn’t occur to me that Rodríguez might be in that group. Then I logged into his final hearing and heard his attorney say he didn’t know where the government had taken him. The lawyer sounded tired and defeated. Later, he would tell me he had barely slept, afraid that Rodríguez might turn up dead. At the hearing, he begged a government lawyer for information: “For his family’s sake, would you happen to know what country he was sent to?” She told him she didn’t know, either.

I was astonished. I am familiar with the history of authoritarian leaders disappearing people they don’t like in Latin America, the part of the world that my family comes from. I wanted to think that doesn’t happen in this country. But what I had just witnessed felt uncomfortably similar.

As soon as the hearing ended, I got on a call with my colleagues Mica Rosenberg and Perla Trevizo, both of whom cover immigration and had recently written about how the U.S. government had sent other Venezuelan men to Guantanamo. We talked about what we should do with what I’d just heard. Mica contacted a source in the federal government who confirmed, almost immediately, that Rodríguez was among the men that our country had sent to El Salvador.

The news suddenly felt more real and intimate to me. One of the men sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador now had a name and a face and a story that I had heard from his own mouth. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

As a news organization, we decided to put significant resources into investigating who these men really are and what happened to them, bringing in many talented ProPublica journalists to help pull records, sift through social media accounts, analyze court data and find the men’s families. We teamed up with a group of Venezuelan journalists from the outlets Alianza Rebelde Investiga and Cazadores de Fake News who were also starting to track down information about the men.

We spoke to the relatives and attorneys of more than 100 of the men and obtained internal government records that undercut the Trump administration’s claims that all the men are “monsters,” “sick criminals” and the “worst of the worst.” We also published a story about how, by and large, the men were not hiding from federal immigration authorities. They were in the system; many had open asylum cases like Rodríguez and were waiting for their day in court before they were taken away and imprisoned in Central America.

On July 18 — after I’d written the first draft of this note to you — we began to hear some chatter about a potential prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Venezuela. Later that same day, the men had been released. We’d been in the middle of working on a case-by-case accounting of the Venezuelan men who’d been held in El Salvador. Though they’d been released, documenting who they are and how they got caught up in this dragnet was still important, essential even, as was the impact of their incarceration.

The result is a database we published last week including profiles of 238 of the men Trump deported to a Salvadoran prison.

From the moment I heard about the men’s return to Venezuela, I thought about Rodríguez. He’d been on my mind since embarking on this project. I messaged with his mother for days as we waited for the men to be processed by the government of Nicolás Maduro and released to their families.

Finally, one morning last week, he went home. We spoke later that afternoon. He said he was relieved to be home with his family but felt traumatized. He told me he wants the world to know what happened to him in the Salvadoran prison — daily beatings, humiliation, psychological abuse. “There is no reason for what I went through,” he said. “I didn’t deserve that.”

The Salvadoran government has denied mistreating the Venezuelan prisoners.

We asked the Trump administration about its evidence against Rodríguez. This is the entirety of its statement: “Albert Jesús Rodriguez Parra is an illegal alien from Venezuela and Tren de Aragua gang member. He illegally crossed the border on April 22, 2023, under the Biden Administration.”

While Rodríguez was incarcerated in El Salvador and no one knew what would happen to him, the court kept delaying hearings for his asylum case. But after months of continuances, on Monday, Rodríguez logged into a virtual hearing from Venezuela. “Oh my gosh, I am so happy to see that,” said Judge Samia Naseem, clearly remembering what had happened in his case.

Rodríguez’s attorney said that his client had been tortured and abused in El Salvador. “I can’t even describe to this court what he went through,” he said. “He’s getting psychological help, and that's my priority.”

It was a brief hearing, perhaps five minutes. Rodríguez’s lawyer mentioned his involvement in an ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans. The government lawyer said little, except to question whether Rodríguez was even allowed to appear virtually due to “security issues” in Venezuela.

Finally, the judge said she would administratively close the case while the litigation plays out. “If he should hopefully be able to come back to the U.S., we’ll calendar the case,” she said.

Naseem turned to Rodríguez, who was muted and looked serious. “You don’t have to worry about reappearing until this gets sorted out,” she told him. He nodded and soon logged off.

We plan to keep reporting on what happened and have another story coming soon about Rodríguez and the other men’s experiences inside the prison. Please reach out if you have information to share.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Melissa Sanchez.

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On March 15, President Donald Trump’s administration sent more than 230 Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Without providing evidence, Trump has called the men “some of the most violent savages on the face of the Earth.”

Last week, the men were released as suddenly as they’d been taken away. Now, the truth of all their stories — one by one — will begin to be told.

Starting here.

We’ve compiled a first-of-its-kind, case-by-case accounting of 238 Venezuelan men who were held in El Salvador.

ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and a team of Venezuelan journalists from Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Rebel Alliance Investigates) and Cazadores de Fake News (Fake News Hunters) spent the past four months reporting on the men’s lives and their backgrounds. We obtained government data that included whether they had been convicted of crimes in the U.S. or had pending charges. We found most were listed solely as having immigration violations. We also conducted interviews with relatives of more than 100 of the men; reviewed thousands of pages of court records from the U.S. and South America; and analyzed federal immigration court data.

Some of our findings:

• We obtained internal data showing that the Trump administration knew that at least 197 of the men had not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. — and that only six had been convicted of violent offenses. We identified fewer than a dozen additional convictions, both for crimes committed in the U.S. and abroad, that were not reflected in the government data.

• Nearly half of the men, or 118, were whisked out of the country while in the middle of their immigration cases, which should have protected them from deportation. Some were only days away from a final hearing.

• At least 166 of the men have tattoos. Interviews with families, immigration documents and court records show the government relied heavily on tattoos to tie the men to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — even though law enforcement experts told us that tattoos are not an indicator of gang membership.

• The men who were imprisoned range in age from 18 to 46. The impact of their monthslong incarceration extended beyond them. Their wives struggled to pay the rent. Relatives went without medical treatment. Their children wondered if they would see them again.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not respond to questions about the men in the database but said Trump “is committed to keeping his promises to the American people and removing dangerous criminal and terrorist illegals who pose a threat to the American public.” She referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond.

Read the men’s stories in our database.

Reporting by: Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune; Melisa Sánchez, ProPublica; Mica Rosenberg, ProPublica; Gabriel Sandoval, ProPublica; Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica; Ronna Risquez, Alianza Rebelde; Adrián González, Cazadores de Fake News; Adriana Núñez Moros, independent journalist; Carlos Centeno, independent journalist; Maryam Jameel, ProPublica; Gerardo del Valle, ProPublica; Cengiz Yar, ProPublica; Gabriel Pasquini, independent journalist; Kate Morrisey, independent journalist; Coral Murphy Marcos, independent journalist; Lomi Kriel, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune; Nicole Foy, ProPublica; Rafael Carranza, Arizona Luminaria; Lisa Seville, ProPublica

Design and development by: Ruth Talbot, ProPublica

Additional design and development by: Zisiga Mukulu, ProPublica

Additional data reporting by: Agnel Philip, ProPublica

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

Despite the court order for Guevara’s release, CPJ is concerned by the government lawyer’s argument that livestreaming presented a danger to the public by compromising the integrity and safety of law enforcement activities.

Guevara, an Emmy-winning, Spanish-language journalist, born in El Salvador, who has lawfully resided in the U.S. for nearly 20 years, was placed in ICE custody on June 18, according to public records and Guevara’s lawyer. 

On Tuesday, the journalist was ordered released on $7,500 bond. 

“We are heartened to see that Mario Guevara was ordered to be released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at his bond hearing, though we remain concerned about the arguments the prosecution made that Guevara’s work as a reporter presented a danger to the community,” said CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program CoordinatorKatherine Jacobsen. “The fact that Guevara was arrested while exercising his First Amendment rights as a journalist and was subsequently held for over two weeks by various law enforcement bodies sends an alarming message to the media and has effectively silenced Guevara’s coverage of his community. We urge law enforcement to thoroughly investigate why Guevara was arrested in the first place.”

The judge said that there was a gray area between constitutionally protected speech and obstructive behavior. He noted that it was not for an immigration court to rule on that matter, but that if Guevara were to face additional charges or be convicted the court could reconsider his release.  

Guevara, who has authorization to work in the United States was wearing a vest marked “Press” at the time of his arrest. He covers immigration on his “MGNews” Facebook page, which has 112,000 followers, and other digital platforms. 

Guevara was arrested on three misdemeanor charges related to his First Amendment rights, guaranteeing freedom of the press. Those charges were dropped on June 25 due to insufficient evidence.

During the hearing, prosecutors relied on a 2015 Facebook post in which Guevara posed with a firearm to argue that he was a danger to the public and should remain in detention. Guevara’s lawyer objected to the claimed post, as it was not presented as evidence. 

Guevara appeared virtually at the hearing from the Folkston ICE Processing Center in southeast Georgia.

CPJ wrote to Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Lisamarie N. Bristol to express concerns about the misdemeanor charges levied against Guevara approximately one month after the alleged incidents occurred, and after ICE had issued a detainer.

“At this time, this matter does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Solicitor-General’s Office,” the solicitor-general told CPJ in an emailed response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Over 100 days have passed since the Trump administration’s unprecedented removal of more than 230 immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison CECOT. They were removed without any due process in the United States. Democracy Now! spoke with the loved ones of Andry Hernández Romero, a 33-year-old gay makeup artist and asylum seeker who was told he would be sent home to Venezuela, according to his mother. But instead, he was sent to CECOT, where reports of torture and abuse are rampant. His mother Alexis Romero and his best friend Reina Cardenas have not seen or heard from him in three months. He has been identified in photos taken at CECOT by a photojournalist. Hernández Romero “was detained from the moment he showed up for his asylum appointment,” says Cardenas. “He never had due process.” Adds Margaret Cargioli, a lawyer for the family, “He sought asylum because he was persecuted due to his political opinion and because he’s LGBTQ. … It is quite astonishing that in the United States, people are being disappeared in this manner.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The Salvadoran Journalists Association (APES) has raised concerns of alleged watchlists and threats of arrest targeting journalists and human rights defenders.

The document calls on the Salvadoran government to “guarantee the physical integrity and freedom of all journalists and immediately cease any form of persecution, surveillance, or intimidation.”

Read the full statement in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On the evening of May 31, Hércules, who also worked as a taxi driver, was shot and killed by two unidentified assailants on a motorcycle while driving his taxi in the western department of Copán, according to news reports and the Honduran Journalists Association (CPH). The 50-year-old journalist, originally from Santa Ana, El Salvador, died at the scene.

Hércules, who reported on organized crime for the local television outlet ATN a Todo Noticias, had been enrolled in Honduras’ National Protection System for Journalists, which has provided protection measures like police escort, relocation, and risk assessments since 2023, according to local news outlet Proceso Digital. He had previously received threats and, in November 2023, was abducted by two armed men, beaten, and left in a remote area. 

Despite being placed under state protection after this, the government did not assign Hércules bodyguards. 

“The killing of Javier Hércules tragically illustrates the failure of Honduras’ journalist protection mechanism, as well as the severe risks faced by reporters covering organized crime,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Authorities must urgently determine whether he was targeted for his journalism, and act decisively to break an ongoing cycle of impunity.”

Hércules’ daughter, Karina, told La Prensa that the family was unaware of any recent threats.

Angelica Cárcamo, director of the Central American Network of Journalists, told CPJ that the organization believes he was targeted because of his reporting. 

CPJ sent a message to the Honduran Security Secretariat but did not receive a response.

Honduras remains one of the most dangerous countries in the region for journalists. CPJ has documented numerous cases of threats, harassment, criminalization, and killings of members of the press, many of which remain unsolved. A report submitted by CPJ and partners to the United Nations in April as part of the Honduras Universal Periodic Review recommended the strengthening of regulations in the country’s Protection Law.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“President Nayib Bukele’s foreign agents law is a blatant move to silence dissent and dismantle what remains of El Salvador’s independent press,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “By forcing journalists and civil society organizations to register as foreign agents and taxing foreign support, the government is adopting the repressive tactics of authoritarian regimes like Nicaragua and Russia. This law must be repealed.”

Approved May 20 by Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party-controlled legislature, the law mandates that any person or organization receiving funds from abroad register with the Ministry of Interior as a foreign agent. Those designated must pay a 30% tax on all foreign income and submit to extensive oversight, including sworn declarations. Violations of the law carry fines ranging from US$1,000 to US$150,000.

While the government claims the law is meant to promote transparency and protect national sovereignty, press freedom and human rights advocates warn it is intended to intimidate critics and financially cripple the independent press.

Óscar Martínez, editor-in-chief of El Faro, told CPJ the law’s vague language grants authorities sweeping discretion. It applies not only to organizations, but also to individuals, so freelance journalists, academics, and trainers who receive honoraria or stipends from abroad could be labeled foreign agents.

“This law is designed to suffocate the press,” said Martínez. “We rely on international donors because local advertisers are too afraid of government retaliation. Now the government wants to criminalize that support.”

Angélica Cárcamo, director of the Central American Journalists Network, called the measure “a tool of persecution.” She told CPJ the law is “intended to shut down NGOs, silence critical journalism, and tighten the government’s control over public discourse.”

CPJ emailed the office of the Salvadoran president for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“President Nayib Bukele’s foreign agents law is a blatant move to silence dissent and dismantle what remains of El Salvador’s independent press,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “By forcing journalists and civil society organizations to register as foreign agents and taxing foreign support, the government is adopting the repressive tactics of authoritarian regimes like Nicaragua and Russia. This law must be repealed.”

Approved May 20 by Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party-controlled legislature, the law mandates that any person or organization receiving funds from abroad register with the Ministry of Interior as a foreign agent. Those designated must pay a 30% tax on all foreign income and submit to extensive oversight, including sworn declarations. Violations of the law carry fines ranging from US$1,000 to US$150,000.

While the government claims the law is meant to promote transparency and protect national sovereignty, press freedom and human rights advocates warn it is intended to intimidate critics and financially cripple the independent press.

Óscar Martínez, editor-in-chief of El Faro, told CPJ the law’s vague language grants authorities sweeping discretion. It applies not only to organizations, but also to individuals, so freelance journalists, academics, and trainers who receive honoraria or stipends from abroad could be labeled foreign agents.

“This law is designed to suffocate the press,” said Martínez. “We rely on international donors because local advertisers are too afraid of government retaliation. Now the government wants to criminalize that support.”

Angélica Cárcamo, director of the Central American Journalists Network, called the measure “a tool of persecution.” She told CPJ the law is “intended to shut down NGOs, silence critical journalism, and tighten the government’s control over public discourse.”

CPJ emailed the office of the Salvadoran president for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Leer en español.

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This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues. It’s also co-published with Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Rebel Alliance Investigates), a coalition of Venezuelan online media outlets, and Cazadores de Fake News (Fake News Hunters), a Venezuelan investigative online news organization.

The Trump administration knew that the vast majority of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in mid-March had not been convicted of crimes in the United States before it labeled them as terrorists and deported them, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data that has not been previously reported.

President Donald Trump and his aides have branded the Venezuelans as “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters” and “the worst of the worst.” When multiple news organizations disputed those assertions with reporting that showed many of the deportees did not have criminal records, the administration doubled down. It said that its assessment of the deportees was based on a thorough vetting process that included looking at crimes committed both inside and outside the United States. But the government’s own data, which was obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and a team of journalists from Venezuela, showed that officials knew that only 32 of the deportees had been convicted of U.S. crimes and that most were nonviolent offenses, such as retail theft or traffic violations.

The data indicates that the government knew that only six of the immigrants were convicted of violent crimes: four for assault, one for kidnapping and one for a weapons offense. And it shows that officials were aware that more than half, or 130, of the deportees were not labeled as having any criminal convictions or pending charges; they were labeled as only having violated immigration laws.

As for foreign offenses, our own review of court and police records from around the United States and in Latin American countries where the deportees had lived found evidence of arrests or convictions for 20 of the 238 men. Of those, 11 involved violent crimes such as armed robbery, assault or murder, including one man who the Chilean government had asked the U.S. to extradite to face kidnapping and drug charges there. Another four had been accused of illegal gun possession.

We conducted a case-by-case review of all the Venezuelan deportees. It’s possible there are crimes and other information in the deportees’ backgrounds that did not show up in our reporting or the internal government data, which includes only minimal details for nine of the men. There’s no single publicly available database for all crimes committed in the U.S., much less abroad. But everything we did find in public records contradicted the Trump administration’s assertions as well.

ProPublica and the Tribune, along with Venezuelan media outlets Cazadores de Fake News (Fake News Hunters) and Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Rebel Alliance Investigates), also obtained lists of alleged gang members that are kept by Venezuelan law enforcement officials and the international law enforcement agency Interpol. Those lists include some 1,400 names. None of the names of the 238 Venezuelan deportees matched those on the lists.

The hasty removal of the Venezuelans and their incarceration in a third country has made this one of the most consequential deportations in recent history. The court battles over whether Trump has the authority to expel immigrants without judicial review have the potential to upend how this country handles all immigrants living in the U.S., whether legally or illegally. Officials have suggested publicly that, to achieve the president’s goals of deporting millions of immigrants, the administration was considering suspending habeas corpus, the longstanding constitutional right allowing people to challenge their detention.

Hours before the immigrants were loaded onto airplanes in Texas for deportation, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, declaring that the Tren de Aragua prison gang had invaded the United States, aided by the Venezuelan government. It branded the gang a foreign terrorist organization and said that declaration gave the president the authority to expel its members and send them indefinitely to a foreign prison, where they have remained for more than two months with no ability to communicate with their families or lawyers.

Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union’s legal fight against the deportations, said the removals amounted to a “blatant violation of the most fundamental due process principles.” He said that under the law, an immigrant who has committed a crime can be prosecuted and removed, but “it does not mean they can be subjected to a potentially lifetime sentence in a foreign gulag.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in response to our findings that “ProPublica should be embarrassed that they are doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens who are a threat,” adding that “the American people strongly support” the president’s immigration agenda.

When asked about the differences between the administration’s public statements about the deportees and the way they are labeled in government data, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin largely repeated previous public statements. She insisted, without providing evidence, that the deportees were dangerous, saying, “These individuals categorized as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gang members and more — they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.”

As for the administration’s allegations that Tren de Aragua has attempted an invasion, an analysis by U.S. intelligence officials concluded that the gang was not acting at the direction of the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro and that reports suggesting otherwise were “not credible.” Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, fired the report’s authors after it became public. Her office, according to news reports, said Gabbard was trying to “end the weaponization and politicization” of the intelligence community.

Our investigation focused on the 238 Venezuelan men who were deported on March 15 to CECOT, the prison in El Salvador, and whose names were on a list first published by CBS News. The government has also sent several dozen other immigrants there, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who the government admitted was sent there in error. Courts have ruled that the administration should facilitate his return to the U.S.

We interviewed about 100 of the deportees’ relatives and their attorneys. Many of them had heard from their loved ones on the morning of March 15, when the men believed they were being sent back to Venezuela. They were happy because they would be back home with their families, who were eager to prepare their favorite meals and plan parties. Some of the relatives shared video messages with us and on social media that were recorded inside U.S. detention facilities. In those videos, the detainees said they were afraid that they might be sent to Guantanamo, a U.S. facility on Cuban soil where Washington has held and tortured detainees, including a number that it suspected of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Trump administration had sent planes carrying Venezuelan immigrants there earlier this year.

They had no idea they were being sent to El Salvador.

Among them was 31-year-old Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, who left Venezuela and his job as a youth soccer coach last July. His sister, Leidys Trejo Solórzano, said he had a hard time supporting himself and his mother and that Venezuela’s crumbling economy made it hard for him to find a better paying job. Colmenares was detained at an appointment to approach the U.S.-Mexico border in October because of his many tattoos, his sister said. Those tattoos include the names of relatives, a clock, an owl and a crown she said was inspired by the Real Madrid soccer club’s logo.

Colmenares was not flagged as having a criminal history in the DHS data we obtained. Nor did we find any U.S. or foreign convictions or charges in our review. Trejo said her brother stayed out of trouble and has no criminal record in Venezuela either. She described his expulsion as a U.S.-government-sponsored kidnapping.

“It’s been so difficult. Even talking about what happened is hard for me,” said Trejo, who has scoured the internet for videos and photos of her brother in the Salvadoran prison. “Many nights I can’t sleep because I’m so anxious.”

The internal government data shows that officials had labeled all but a handful of the men as members of Tren de Aragua but offered little information about how they came to that conclusion. Court filings and documents we obtained show the government has relied in part on social media posts, affiliations with known gang members and tattoos, including crowns, clocks, guns, grenades and Michael Jordan’s “Jumpman” logo. We found that at least 158 of the Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador have tattoos. But law enforcement sources in the U.S., Colombia, Chile and Venezuela with expertise in the Tren de Aragua told us that tattoos are not an indicator of gang membership.

McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, said the agency is confident in its assessments of gang affiliation but would not provide additional information to support them.

John Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said, “for political reasons, I think the administration wants to characterize this as a grand effort that’s promoting public safety of the United States.” But “even some of the government’s own data demonstrates there is a gap between the rhetoric and the reality,” he said, referring to the internal data we obtained.

The government data shows 67 men who were deported had been flagged as having pending charges, though it provides no details about their alleged crimes. We found police, court and other records for 38 of those deportees. We found several people whose criminal history differed from what was tagged in the government data. In some cases that the government listed as pending criminal charges, the men had been convicted and in one case the charge had been dropped before the man was deported.

Our reporting found that, like the criminal convictions, the majority of the pending charges involved nonviolent crimes, including retail theft, drug possession and traffic offenses.

Six of the men had pending charges for attempted murder, assault, armed robbery, gun possession or domestic battery. Immigrant advocates have said removing people to a prison in El Salvador before the cases against them were resolved means that Trump, asserting his executive authority, short-circuited the criminal justice system.

Take the case of Wilker Miguel Gutiérrez Sierra, 23, who was arrested in February 2024 in Chicago on charges of attempted murder, robbery and aggravated battery after he and three other Venezuelan men allegedly assaulted a stranger on a train and stole his phone and $400. He pleaded not guilty. Gutiérrez was on electronic monitoring as he awaited trial when he was arrested by ICE agents who’d pulled up to him on the street in five black trucks, court records show. Three days later he was shipped to El Salvador.

But the majority of men labeled as having pending cases were facing less serious charges, according to the records we found. Maikol Gabriel López Lizano, 23, was arrested in Chicago in August 2023 on misdemeanor charges for riding his bike on the sidewalk while drinking a can of Budweiser. His partner, Cherry Flores, described his deportation as a gross injustice. “They shouldn’t have sent him there,” she said. “Why did they have to take him over a beer?”

Jeff Ernsthausen of ProPublica contributed data analysis. Adriana Núñez and Carlos Centeno contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

We speak with a Salvadoran journalist who fled El Salvador along with others from the acclaimed news outlet El Faro after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele threatened to arrest them for exposing how Bukele had made secret deals with Salvadoran gangs. Bukele has run the country under a so-called state of exception since 2022, detaining nearly 80,000 people accused of being in gangs, largely without access to due process. “We don’t know when we will be able to come back,” says Nelson Rauda Zablah, digital editor for El Faro, who notes it is now routine for Bukele’s critics to flee for fear of retaliation. He discusses El Faro's reporting, and we feature excerpts from their interview series with two former leaders of the 18th Street Revolucionarios on Bukele's yearslong relationship to gangs. All of this comes as Bukele is working closely with the Trump administration to jail immigrants sent from the United States at CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We speak to Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, and José Olivares, an award-winning investigative journalist specializing in Latin American politics, about El Salvador’s immigrant detention collaboration with the United States. Over 300 people have been disappeared to El Salvador’s dangerous maximum-security prisons, including at least one man who was targeted for removal by mistake. U.S. President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele now say they have no power to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return. “What we saw yesterday was political theater and a set of administration officials lying to the American public,” says Gupta about Trump and Bukele’s meeting Monday in the Oval Office, which was open to the press. “Donald Trump and his administration can absolutely bring home Mr. Abrego Garcia. That is well within their power and authority.” Olivares recounts the origins of U.S.-Salvadoran collaboration and the Salvadoran government’s own close ties to the MS-13 criminal organization.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Since President Donald Trump took office, the U.S. has expelled hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers to El Salvador without due process to be detained at the supermax mega-prison complex known as CECOT, with many of them accused of belonging to gangs largely on the basis of having tattoos. The Trump administration recently admitted in a court filing that a Salvadoran father with protected status was among those sent to El Salvador. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland with his family and had been granted protected status in 2019, blocking the federal government from removing him. Despite admitting to an “administrative error,” the Trump administration says it will not seek to return Abrego Garcia to his family. “Every single day now, news stories are coming out showing that they made a lot of mistakes,” says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “Their goal is to ramp up deportations and arrests as quickly as they can, and if that leads to a bunch of innocent people getting swept up alongside, the message that the White House is sending is they don’t care.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Local journalists and human rights organizations have raised concerns that Bukele, who described himself as the “world’s coolest dictator,” has repeatedly renewed the state of emergency in a bid to systemically silence dissent and dismantle press freedom through the harassment, intimidation, surveillance of journalists. The Salvadoran Journalists Association (APES) documented 311 attacks, including harassment, doxxing, threats, and criminalization, against journalists in 2023; in the first nine months of 2024, it recorded 165 more attacks, according to APES documentation reviewed by CPJ.

Bukele has defended his record: “Ask the people. It will be incredibly rare to find a negative opinion in the population,” he told Time magazine. 

CPJ joined regional press freedom group Inter American Press Association (IAPA) on a fact-finding mission to the country in September to learn about the deteriorating state of independent journalism. This is what it found:  

Journalists are subjected to lawsuits and audits

Although criminal prosecution of El Salvadoran journalists is rare compared to neighboring countries Nicaragua and Guatemala, journalists told CPJ that the fear of lawsuits has had a chilling effect on their work.

One lawsuit in particular shocked the local press: in 2023, businessman Jakov Fauster sued El Diario de Hoy and one of its journalists over republished information from the Mexican magazine Proceso. After initially securing a right of reply, Fauster pursued further legal action, demanding a public apology and $10 million in damages. A court ordered the newspaper to publish a second apology and remove the article, but dismissed Fauster’s $10 million claim.

El Faro, known for its investigative reporting, has also faced repeated threats of criminal investigations. Bukele accused the newspaper of money laundering and claimed that authorities were investigating it in 2020, though no formal charges have been filed, according to El Faro news director Óscar Martínez.

The Ministry of Finance has also subjected El Faro, La Prensa Gráfica, and other outlets, to costly audits in what editors and press freedom advocates describe as a bid to undermine their economic sustainability and raise doubts over their administration. Due to fears of being shut down, El Faro moved its administrative operations to Costa Rica, though its newsroom remains in El Salvador.

At least one journalists was arrested and others’ families have been targeted

While in the country, CPJ and IAPA met with El Salvador’s Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights and Freedom of Speech, Andrés Guzmán Caballero. When the two groups raised concerns about the treatment of the press under the state of emergency, Guzmán said the government respected press freedom in the country, claiming that no journalists have been killed or imprisoned since the implementation of the orders.

However, journalist Víctor Barahona’s case tells a different story. Barahona was detained for more than 11 months in 2022 under the state of emergency on accusations that he collaborated with gangs; APES said he was tortured during his time in custody, which CPJ has not independently verified. Upon his May 19, 2023, release, authorities provided no formal documentation nor notified his family. When asked about the case, Guzmán said, “There is an investigation that suggests he is part of a criminal structure. The justice system will not overlook these acts, even if he claims to be a journalist.”

Journalists’ families have also been targeted in connection with their work. Environmental journalist Carolina Amaya’s father, Benjamín Amaya, was arrested on February 28, 2023, under the state of emergency, and charged with illicit association and limiting personal freedom. Ilicit association is the charge typically used for people that are part of gangs, the penalty goes to up 5 years and limiting personal freedom has a prison term for up to 8 years. Although her father was released in December under substitute measures, similar to parole, Amaya reported that her Mala Yerba media outlet faced threats before and after his arrest. She believed the harassment was in retaliation for an investigation her outlet published about contamination in El Salvador’s eastern Lake Coatepeque, in which the president’s mother-in-law was allegedly implicated.

Journalists are surveilled 

A joint 2022 report from Citizen Lab and Amnesty International found that Pegasus spyware infected the phones of 35 journalists and civil society members in El Salvador between July 2020 and November 2021. El Faro, whose journalists were among the most frequently targeted, filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court against NSO Group, the Israeli company that makes Pegasus. The court has not yet decided if it is has jurisdiction in the case. 

Journalists expressed fear of being constantly monitored, believing their phones were being surveilled, and their physical whereabouts tracked. Some journalists at the Revista Factum magazine believe they have been turned down for apartment leases “just because they work for the magazine,” Revista Factum editor César Castro Fagoaga told CPJ and IAPA. 

The government is restricting access to information.

Journalists and human rights organizations spoke about two key turning points in terms of the country’s restrictions on information. The first was the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the Bukele government, citing national security, classified all data related to the crisis, including figures on the infection rate and information on government spending to halt the virus. The second was the 2022 state of emergency, which suspended constitutional rights and eliminated legal oversight of public fund use, state contracts, and the right to access public information. These rights have never been restored, and journalists say that the lack of transparency makes their work much more difficult.

“Not even lower-level officials are willing to speak with the media, so we have to rely on information from ordinary citizens,” said Oscar Orellana, executive director of Asociación de Radiodifusión Participativa de El Salvador (ARPAS), the country’s largest network of community radios.

Journalists and their work are stigmatized at the highest levels

El Salvadoran journalists and media outlets face relentless attacks on social media, including doxxing and public threats from Bukele, who said on X that El Faro was a “pamphlet” that published fake news, as well as from public officials.

“When the president labels us as the enemy, it reinforces that narrative for everyone—police, public officials, even local authorities,” El Faro news director Óscar Martínez told CPJ and IAPA. Bukele frequently accuses independent media of using false sources and misleading the public, and other officials have accused journalists of being members of gangs, without providing evidence.

Female journalists are particularly vulnerable, facing severe harassment, including threats of death and sexual violence from Bukele’s supporters. Of the 165 attacks recorded by APES as of August 31, 2024, 53 were against female journalists. 

“Women journalists no longer want to be spokespersons for their outlets and have stopped promoting their work on platforms like X out of fear of being attacked,” said Claudia Ramírez, news director at La Prensa Gráfica.

Self-censorship is growing among the press

Journalists described a growing culture of silence taking hold in El Salvador. Many are choosing to withhold their bylines or even leave the profession entirely, fearing reprisal against them or their families. “It’s a culture of silence. Many people, whether journalists or not, are afraid to speak out,” said Orellana. According to APES, at least four journalists have fled the country due to repeated harassment.

Journalists who report on crime fear that they’ll be targeted by the government, even after the partial repeal of a law in 2023 imposing prison time for disseminating messages linked to criminal groups. They told CPJ that they self-censor by not mentioning gangs in their coverage due to ongoing legal restrictions, which include the state of emergency’s temporary suspension of constitutional rights and civil liberties.

“Bukele’s approach is one of tight social control,” said César Castro Fagoaga of the investigative news site Revista Factum. “The caution now felt by the public has spread to the press, leading to a restrained environment for journalism.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Dánae Vílchez.

“This lawsuit shows the determination of victims’ families to seek truth, memory, and justice and offers some hope for even the most egregious cases of impunity for the killing of journalists,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America Program Coordinator. “The attacks many journalists face today reflect the impunity of the past, and accountability is essential to creating the conditions for democratic deliberation and the rule of law.” 

The U.S.-based Center for Justice and Accountability filed the complaint on behalf of Gert Kuiper, Jan’s brother, in collaboration with human rights groups Fundación Comunicándonos and ASDEHU of El Salvador, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where Reyes Mena lives.

The four Dutch journalists were with leftist rebels when they were killed in 1982. A report issued by the United Nations Truth Commission in 1993 concluded that colonel Reyes Mena participated in planning the ambush of the journalists.

After 42 years, three accused, including a former minister of defense and two military officers, will face trial in El Salvador, according to news reports.

The court will now process the complaint and issue a summons, which will be delivered to Reyes Mena.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Salvadoran poet and writer Javier Zamora discusses the roots of his memoir Solito, which details his odyssey as an unaccompanied 9-year-old child through Guatemala and Mexico to reunite with family in Arizona. “After surviving that nine-week journey, surviving the United States as an undocumented person was perhaps the main reason why I became a writer,” Zamora says. He describes how he works to cope with trauma from his experiences, and how he was inspired to become a writer when he was exposed to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as a high school student in California.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Authorities first arrested Barahona, who hosts a political affairs show on the local station Canal 29 in the northeastern city of Apopa, in June 2022 and held him for 11 months under the country’s state of emergency for allegedly associating with criminal gangs, according to news reports and the Salvadoran Journalist Association. He was released on parole in May 2023, and is barred from leaving the country.

On Wednesday, July 26, a criminal court unexpectedly summoned Barahona for a hearing about potential changes to his parole, and authorities detained him overnight, the journalist told CPJ in a phone interview. Following his release on Thursday, Barahona’s lawyer told members of the press that the outcome of a court hearing was “positive,” but said he could not disclose further details.

“Salvadoran authorities should never have arrested journalist Victor Barahona in the first place, and his recent detention along with vague potential changes in his parole will only serve to further intimidate him over his work,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Authorities must drop any investigation into Barahona, ensure that he can do his work in peace, and cease using the country’s state of emergency as an excuse to stifle the press.”

Barahona told CPJ that he has worked as a journalist for over 30 years, and hosts interviews about politics and social affairs.

The journalist association’s statement said the organization was providing legal support to Barahona and maintained his innocence. It said Barahona had not received access to the court filing detailing the specific allegations against him.

Barahona was not included in CPJ’s 2022 census of journalists imprisoned for their work because CPJ was not aware of his case at the time.

CPJ emailed the Salvadoran prosecutor’s office for comment but did not receive any reply.

El Salvador has been in a state of emergency since the end of March 2022 following an escalation in homicides attributed to gangs. According to news reports, the government has detained more than 65,000 people since then. In March, local human rights groups said that at least 5,082 people had their rights violated during the crackdown, mainly due to arbitrary detentions.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

As President Biden ends Title 42, the Trump-era policy blocking asylum seekers, and plans stronger enforcement measures on the border, we speak with Salvadoran poet and writer Javier Zamora, whose best-selling memoir, Solito, details his odyssey as a 9-year-old child traveling unaccompanied through Guatemala, Mexico and eventually through the Sonoran Desert, before he makes it to Arizona and reunites with his parents with the aid of other migrants. “We’re all just human beings trying to have a chance at a better life,” says Zamora about his work humanizing the people caught in the migrant crisis.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post Is Mining Money Behind the Arrest of Salvadoran Water Defenders? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Cavanagh.

Walter Cruz-Zavala should have been celebrating. Instead, he spent his 32nd birthday holed up on his father’s property in southern El Salvador, watching in horror as his nightmare scenario came to life on the local news.

Just over a year had passed since Cruz-Zavala accepted his deportation from the United States. It had been a tough decision. The undocumented Cruz-Zavala was twice victorious in his immigration case, but U.S. authorities, taking advantage of their extraordinary power and discretion, had kept him locked up for nearly four years. The reason, U.S. officials argued, was that Cruz-Zavala was a dangerous man. The purported evidence was tattooed across his chest in two large letters: “M” and “S.”

The assertion belied a more complicated reality. As a 2021 Intercept investigation revealed, Cruz-Zavala’s tattoo was given to him shortly after his 18th birthday by a confessed murderer, a man whom U.S. law enforcement had paid thousands to infiltrate Cruz-Zavala’s crew of friends. The informant was prodigious in his work shaping and encouraging young men and boys in an emerging MS-13 clique in San Francisco in the mid-2000s. Eventually, his efforts would land a nascent federal agency known as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement one of its biggest gang cases of all time.

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“Your own courts decided, ‘No, this person should be protected’ — but even then, you rejected those findings, and now we’re here.”

“They’re going to start taking everybody to prison. This is crazy, man.”

Illustration: Gracia Peña for The Intercept

“Not even lawyers have access to the prisons now. The only people who can get in are government-approved TikTokers or media outlets aligned with the administration.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Devereaux.