El Salvador Told UN that USA Deportees in CECOT are Under USA Control

A filing before federal District Court Judge James Boasberg showed El Salvador attested to the United Nations in writing that USA deportees to Salvadoran prisons are the legal responsibility of and in the jurisdiction of the USA.

The United Nations Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights Working Group took up investigation of the disappearances of four Venezuelan men in the USA. Their relatives who asked for help finding them suspected they were among planeloads sent to CECOT in March 2025 without due process.

In multiple court cases, the USA has insisted it no longer has any control or influence over what happens to the men it handed over to El Salvador so it cannot bring them back and provide due process. So far only one, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has been retrieved after intervention by the USA Supreme Court. He has been indicted on felony charges. The government says if he is released on bail pending trial, it will snatch him again and deport him, but the government refuses to say where.

El Salvador’s response to the UN’s query said:

In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities, by virtue of international agreements signed and in accordance with the principles of sovereignty and international cooperation in criminal matters.

and

The Salvadoran State emphatically states that its authorities have not arrested, detained, or transferred the persons referred to in the communications of the Working Group. The actions of the State of El Salvador have been limited to the implementation of a bilateral cooperation mechanism with another State, through which it has facilitated the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure for the custody of persons detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement of that other State.

Last week, family of one of the four men at the heart of the UN investigation informed lawyers in the original case that came before Boasberg in March attempting to block the deportations until due process was provided. The deportations continued in defiance of Boasberg’s order.

The report to the UN is about three months old. While the federal government has repeatedly insisted it has no jurisdiction over the men any more, there has been evidence otherwise.

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