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3d ago

HRW Alleges El Salvador Is Disappearing U.S. Deportees in Incommunicado Detention

Interviews with families point to post-deportation detentions during El Salvador’s prolonged emergency that curtails due process.

FILE - A mega-prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) stands in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)
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FILE - A group of undocumented migrants are deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the McAllen–Hidalgo–Reynosa International Bridge in McAllen, Texas, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)
FILE - Prisoners sit in their cell at the mega prison known as Detention Center Against Terrorism (CECOT) in Tecololuca, El Salvador, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, file)

Overview

  • Human Rights Watch reports that 11 Salvadorans deported in 2025 were immediately detained without contact with relatives or lawyers and have not been presented to a judge.
  • Some deportees were taken to the CECOT mega-prison and others to Santa Ana, with several locations disclosed only through Inter-American Commission on Human Rights filings.
  • Of more than 9,000 Salvadorans removed from the U.S. since January 2025, only 10.5% had U.S. convictions for violent or potentially violent crimes, according to HRW’s analysis of ICE data.
  • The U.S. has asserted that some detainees are MS-13 members and publicly named César Humberto López Larios, but authorities have offered no corroborating evidence for others.
  • Families say ICE’s locator showed no records and Salvadoran officials refused information or a legal basis for the detentions, a pattern HRW links to the four-year emergency regime and prior abuse allegations at CECOT.