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el salvador
Judge Rules Trump Admin Must Give Due Process to Venezuelans Sent to El Salvador Torture Prison
"This ruling makes clear the government can't just send people off to a brutal foreign prison with zero due process and simply walk away," said an ACLU lawyer representing the men.
Dec 23, 2025
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally when it deported over 200 Venezuelan nationals to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process earlier this year.
On Monday, Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the Trump administration to submit plans by January 5 for 137 men to contest their designation under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows foreign nationals from "hostile" nations to be removed without hearings.
In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport two planeloads of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador without any explanation or court hearing. They were sent to a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which is known to subject inmates to torture and severe deprivation, with zero contact with the outside world.
The administration claimed the men were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the administration referred to as a "hybrid criminal state" invading the United States. In reality, only a few dozen of the 238 men sent to CECOT had any criminal charges against them. As part of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) efforts to fast-track their deportations, many were rounded up based solely on the fact that they had tattoos.
“Plaintiffs should not have been removed in the manner that they were, with virtually no notice and no opportunity to contest the bases of their removal, in clear contravention of their due-process rights,” Boasberg wrote.
Boasberg is the same judge who launched criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration in April for "willful disregard" of his order to stop the flights to El Salvador. A pair of Trump-appointed judges later halted those proceedings.
In a "60 Minutes" special that was recently spiked by CBS News' Trump-friendly editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, several inmates testified to the conditions they were subject to inside CECOT.
"The first thing they told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again," said college student Luis Muñoz Pinto, who came to the US from Venezuela in 2024 through the legal asylum process. He said the CECOT director told prisoners, "Welcome to hell. I'll make sure you never leave."
According to a report published by Human Rights Watch in November, inmates were beaten daily, subject to sexual violence by guards, deprived of basic food, medical treatment, and hygiene, and forced to participate in degrading torture rituals.
Pinto, who now lives in Colombia, has no criminal record. "I never even got a traffic ticket," he said.
While the Trump administration claimed it no longer had jurisdiction over the prisoners once they were in El Salvador, and therefore could not follow court orders to bring them back to the US, this was belied by filings from the government of the far-right Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the United Nations, which stated that "the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively" with the US.
The men detained at CECOT were then transferred, mainly to Venezuela, in July as part of a prisoner exchange for 10 US nationals.
Boasberg says the US government "maintained constructive custody" of the men while they were interned in CECOT and that it violated their rights to due process by not allowing them to contest the accusations that they were gang members.
He said the Trump administration must give them a "meaningful opportunity to contest their designation," by allowing them to return to the US for a court hearing. He said the government "could also theoretically offer plaintiffs a hearing without returning them to the United States so long as such a hearing satisfied the requirements of due process."
"This ruling makes clear the government can't just send people off to a brutal foreign prison with zero due process and simply walk away," said Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU, who served as lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
The Trump administration will almost certainly appeal the ruling. And while many of the former CECOT inmates may seek to return for their day in court, some say the experience has left them traumatized and fearful of returning to the United States.
Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player and youth coach, returned to Venezuela after being released in July. According to his attorney, he was falsely accused due to a tattoo that the government claimed was a gang symbol, but was actually based on the Real Madrid soccer logo.
"I've focused my time on taking care of my daughters, coaching young kids, all to avoid those thoughts. At night, I sometimes have nightmares, and I feel like I'm still in CECOT," Reyes Barrios told ABC News. "At this moment, I'm not ready to decide if I want to fight this case."
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CBS Journalist Says Bari Weiss Spiked Segment on El Salvador Prison for 'Political' Reasons
"When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship," wrote veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.
Dec 22, 2025
A CBS News correspondent on Sunday accused Bari Weiss, the outlet's editor-in-chief, of pulling a "60 Minutes" segment on El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison for "political" reasons, shortly before it was scheduled to air.
Late Sunday afternoon, "60 Minutes" said in an editor's note that the broadcast lineup for the night had been "updated," removing the planned "Inside CECOT" segment. The note said the report on the maximum-security prison—to which the Trump administration sent more than 200 Venezuelan migrants—would "air in a future broadcast," without providing any specifics.
In an internal email obtained by the New York Times, veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who reported the segment, said she learned on Saturday that "Bari Weiss spiked our story" and did not grant the journalist's request for a phone call to discuss the decision.
"Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices," Alfonsi wrote. "It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one."
CBS News is owned by Paramount Skydance, a company headed by David Ellison—the son of Trump ally and GOP megadonor Larry Ellison.
Alfonsi went on to note that "60 Minutes" had "been promoting this story on social media for days," and "when it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship."
"I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight," she added.
Below is a trailer of the shelved segment, which included interviews with people sent to CECOT. Alfonsi said participants "risked their lives to speak with us."
BREAKING: CBS just pulled this episode of 60 Minutes claiming it is “postponed” Here is the trailer that was pulled for the now “postponed” segment.
Make sure everyone sees it.
It’s remarkable how much harm Pro-Trump Bari Weiss has managed to inflict on CBS News in such a… pic.twitter.com/gccW338rFF
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) December 22, 2025
In a statement issued late Sunday, Weiss—whose brief tenure at the helm of CBS News has been embroiled in controversy—suggested she pulled the plug on the "Inside CECOT" segment because it lacked "sufficient context" and was "missing critical voices." Unnamed people familiar with internal discussions at CBS News told the Times that Weiss pushed for the inclusion of a "fresh interview" with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, an architect of President Donald Trump's lawless mass deportation campaign.
But Alfonsi wrote in her email that "we requested responses to questions and/or interviews with [the Department of Homeland Security], the White House, and the State Department," but the requests went unanswered.
"Government silence is a statement, not a VETO," Alfonsi wrote. "If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a 'kill switch' for any reporting they find inconvenient."
The decision to spike the CECOT segment has further inflamed internal tensions at CBS News over Weiss' leadership. CNN reported that "some employees are threatening to quit" over the move.
"It is unclear when Weiss first viewed the [CECOT] story," CNN noted. "But she has recently become personally involved in '60 Minutes' stories about politics, the CBS sources told CNN."
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'A Forceful Stand for Our Constitution': Judge Orders Release of Kilmar Ábrego García
Judge Paula Xinis found that the Trump administration redetained the Salvadoran father of three "without lawful authority."
Dec 11, 2025
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Ábrego García—who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration earlier this year—from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
"Since Ábrego García's return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been redetained, again without lawful authority,” US District Judge Paula Xinis wrote in her ruling. “For this reason, the court will grant Ábrego García's petition for immediate release from ICE custody.”
In early April, Xinis—an appointee of former President Barack Obama—ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Ábrego García's return to the United States after he was deported in March to the abuse-plagued Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) maximum security prison in El Salvador. This, after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted in a court filing that Ábrego García was wrongfully deported due to what it called an "administrative error."
The US Supreme Court also weighed in on the case in favor of Xinis' ruling. However, the Trump administration refused to comply with the judge's order, arguing that it had no legal obligation to return Ábrego García to the US and could not force El Salvador's government to free him.
The DOJ dubiously contended that Ábrego García—a 30-year-old Salvadoran father of three who entered the US without authorization when he was a teenager—was a member of the gang MS-13, an allegation based on a statement from an anonymous police informant. The Trump administration deported him despite a judge's 2019 ruling that he could not be removed to El Salvador because he could be tortured there.
An attorney representing Ábrego García said at the time that his client suffered beatings and "psychological torture" while imprisoned at CECOT.
Ábrego García was transferred to a lower security Salvadoran prison before being sent back to the US on June 6 to face DOJ charges for allegedly transporting undocumented immigrants, to which he pleaded not guilty. He was immediately taken into custody and sent to an immigration detention facility in Tennessee.
On July 23, federal Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Tennessee ruled that Ábrego García must be released from custody pending his trial. That same day, Xinis issued a simultaneous ruling in Ábrego García's wrongful deportation case blocking ICE from immediately seizing him once released in Tennessee and ordering the government to provide at least 72 hours' notice before attempting to deport him to any third country.
As Ábrego García was released on August 22, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) informed him that he could be deported to Uganda—one of several nations to which the administration has sought to send him. A bid by Ábrego García to reopen a previous bid for asylum in the US was denied in early October by an immigration judge.
Ábrego García is currently being held in an immigration detention center in Pennsylvania. Responding to Xinis' latest ruling, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Thursday that "this is naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge."
"This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts," she added.
Advocates for Ábrego García welcomed Thursday's ruling.
"For months, the Trump administration has sought to deny Kilmar Ábrego García his rights to due process and fair treatment by our justice system," US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)—who met with Ábrego García in El Salvador in April—said on social media.
"Today’s ruling by Judge Xinis—requiring the government to immediately release him—is a forceful stand for our Constitution and all of our rights," he added.
Lydia Walther-Rodríguez, chief of organizing and leadership at CASA, hailed what she called "a moment of joy and relief."
“Kilmar finally gets to return home to his family, where he belongs," she said. "No one should be separated from their loved ones while fighting for justice.”
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