Salvadorans worry when US deportations face the repression of Salvador’s gang

When President Donald Trump moves to expel migrants who are not intact, to stay in the United States, a group of Catholic Salvadora Mothers warns that deporters can suffer the same fate as their sons and daughters: sent to prison for months or years after returning to the country.

Warning come as January 26 report CBS News says Trump is negotiating with President Salvadrans Naiba Bukele to send men and women deported from the United States to Salvador – even if they are not there. This may mean an increase in deported countries, such as Venezuela, which refuses to accept its deported citizens and an increase in the already crowded prison population Salvador.

During a protest at San Salvador, January 12, Albertin, Givel Escobar, was part of a group of mothers who waved photos and legal documents, telling stories about the fate of the deported.

“My son was deported on August 11, 2023, and when he returned from the United States, he was arbitrarily captured (when he landed in Salvador), although he had no previous records.” Jowel told a national Catholic reporter. “There were no reasons for his admiration.”

Since then, the family has not heard from him, and Salvadraran authorities will not tell where he is detained or why, ”she said.

In March 2022, the government made repression called “The state of exception“Having said it is to restrain the gang violence that has experienced Salvador since the end of the Civil War of the country in 1992. Most of the salvadorans say that randomly detention of those suspected of or related to the gang members made the country safer, but A the consequence was the imprisonment of innocent people, as well as the suspension of personal freedoms, including the right to legally defend themselves.

Since Salvador has advertised its safety, the United States seeks to send deported to a “safe third country”, which allows them to seek asylum there, according to CBS News.

But some like Leslie Shuld, director and co -founder of the Center of Exchange and Solidarity in Salvador, known as CisLet’s say Salvador is not the perfect place to drop those looking for asylum.

“The United States seeks to deport migrants and refugees to Salvador, without work, without resources overflowing with Massachusetts, where they lock and torture the poor.

The stock fund, an international non -profit organization that works with solidarity projects in Salvador, has issued statement At the beginning of 2025, “it is likely that there may be a direct line of deportation from the United States to cruel (Salvadora) criminal centers.”

Since the onset of repression, the Salvadaran government has stated that more than more than 83 600 peopleincluding some US citizens and other foreigners. Mistakes They led to the detention of innocent people, but few of them, said Felix Ulloa, Vice -President of the country.

However, few who cannot be illegal may be human rights groups say that these mistakes have cost innocent people their lives and that everyone has the right to legal defense. But in the absence of a government hearing, many, like Jowel, went outside to warn others.

“They were taken alive, and we want them to return alive,” – chanted a crowd of almost all women, almost all mothers who participated in March on January 12, opposing the state of exception and other politics.

Jowel, like others, said she was surprised to hear her son’s detention because he hardly lived in the country and had no criminal record. In their rural city of Guancora, in the north of El Salvador, several available jobs are not enough to pay for accommodation, so he migrated, Jowel said. But she said she never imagined that moving one day would lead him to a prison camera.

After planting, he managed to make one phone call to the sister to tell her what was happening.

“They told him that they were delaying him while they were investigating,” Giovele said. “And so far I don’t know anything else.”

Berta Alicia Agillaar de Duran told the airport, it was not found anywhere.

Agillaar said she later discovered that he had been taken to prison by Salvadora, who accused him of an illegal gang association, although he had not lived in the country for a long time and never belonged to the gang.

Her son has mental problems, and he needs medicine, not prison, she said NCR when she participated in the demonstration. Others conquered similar fairy tales by pulling journalists to get the history of their loved ones into the world.

In June 2024 a group of lawyers with Socorro jurídico humanitrio (Humanitarian Legal Assistance) in Salvador narrated Salvadorans during a presentation in Washington of the three cases they saw in their offices with deported men, which were referred to from Salvador Airport to the country’s prisons. Since then they have been said to have observed growth in those situations and narrated Los -Angeles Times in January, which deporters now have a high risk of imprisonment when they touches the Salvadora.

Despite the fact that her son was not deported, Maria Assel Ramos of Guardzhlah, Salvador, said he was one of those who had been incorrectly detained by the government. She said that poor countries with little economic resources can help them. Deporters who come with your back clothes are also simple goals, she said.

Her son worked in agriculture, she said, and made a mistake, executing the orders of officials who told him that they were going to interview with him in June 2022, and he would return home after they were finished. Although he was never accused of a crime, he was detained for almost three years, she said.

Ramos, Catholic, said that the Salvadora Church was not useful in the difficult situation of those who were misunderstood, including deported. Her parish priest told her that they were forbidden to participate. But the other priest suggested writing a letter to her to break the good character of her son.

“So I think it’s something,” she said.

But, by and large, they remained alone to face the legal challenges and landscapes of others, who, together with the accusation of their children, accuse their mothers of belonging to the gang who made the life of hell for the Salvadorans.

One of those who suffered from this hell was Luis Sanchez, who unsuccessfully tried to disrupt the poster on December 30, 2024, from a group of women who protested against the wrongful arrests near the San Salvador Cathedral. Women wanted salvadorans living abroad and attending Christmas holidays to hear about their situation.

“They are all members of the gang,” Sanchez said, showing what happened to the gang. They cut two fingers from his left hand and put a knife on his face, what would regularly happen to the exception, he said.

The group stated that they agreed with him that criminals should be behind bars, but asked him to consider the question of who did not commit crimes, especially those who were punished for migration.

The stock fund stated that as the Salvadora government sees it: “The predictable criminal accusation was that if someone was deported, they are by their essence a criminal.”

And when Bukele is approaching Trump, the threat of mass imprisonment of these deportees seems more reality, Arig said.

Secretary of State this week Marco Rubio Ready to make a stop in Salvador during his The first diplomatic overseas tripWhich is expected to focus on restraining immigration and economic issues.