A Salvadoran soldier stands guard, as the CECOT logo is seen, during a media tour at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, in Tecoluca, El Salvador April 4, 2025. (REUTERS/Jose Cabezas)
- Human Rights Watch says El Salvador has disappeared some immigrants the U.S. sent to the country.
- The human rights group says the country has not disclosed the whereabouts of some inmates.
- Only 10.5% of the 9,000 people deported from the U.S. to El Salvador have been convicted of a violent or potentially violent crime, the group says.
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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.
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