The frenzied 24 hours when Venezuelan migrants in the US were shipped to an El Salvador prison

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

The frenzied 24 hours when Venezuelan migrants in the US were shipped to an El Salvador prison

By TIM SULLIVAN
Updated 1:13 PM EDT, April 5, 2025

-snip-

The president’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify deporting more than 130 Venezuelan men, some of them gang members and others who claim to have been in the United States legally and were seemingly expelled because of their ordinary tattoos, played out over a frenetic 24 hours.

By the time Trump had spoken, hundreds of detained immigrants had been quietly shuttled from across the U.S. to South Texas. Planes had been chartered to take them to their ultimate destination, El Salvador, under a deal with President Nayib Bukele, who proudly calls himself “world’s coolest dictator.”

The men were herded into a maximum security mega prison in El Salvador, where officials quickly made a show of the new inmates having their heads shaved, then standing shoulder to shoulder in cells so crowded that some prisoners do not have beds.

But soon, stories began to surface that the scene was not quite as it appeared. Some of them men had long insisted they had no gang ties, and their families had produced documents showing they had no criminal records.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-alien-enemies-act-venezuelans-deportations-prison-e6cd083dcf5e213f7b2bd3bf43d27aaa

[lees1975]

1. This is going to to turn into a huge disaster for the Trump administration.

This is so un-American, it's repulsive. It will bring him down.

[MissMillie]

2. When I was 17, my Spanish teacher took the class to a movie

***SPOILER ALERT***

It was called "Missing" and it starred Jack Lemon and Sissy Spacek.

An American man had been "disappeared" during the Chilean coup and his wife and father were looking for him.

It was the first time I had come to the realization that in other countries people could be picked up off the streets w/o charge, and even murdered w/o a trial.

Of course I was horrified by this, as I was growing up in a country where this would never happen.

Until now.