Venezuelans sent to El Salvador's CECOT prison by the Trump administration in March.El Salvador presidential press office/AP
A group of more than 60 Democratic legislators sent a letter to the Trump administration Wednesday that expresses “grave concerns” about ongoing removals to so-called third countries to which immigrants have no connection.
The legislators are requesting that the Trump administration provide “basic information” about the scope of the third-country removal program, which the administration has aggressively pursued. In many cases, people have been sent to nations to which they have no connection and have remained in detention abroad. The Trump administration has fought legal efforts that seek to block—or give people more time—to challenge their removals to unstable countries like South Sudan.
“Individuals are being ‘whisk[ed]…off the street and onto buses or planes out of the country,’ and into detention facilities in unfamiliar countries.”
The letter from Democrats asks the administration to explain how frequently it is first attempting to send people to their country of origin, a list of all the countries with which the State Department has agreements to send immigrants, and the number of people sent to third countries without “diplomatic assurances that they will not torture or persecute deported individuals.”
The letter is addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The effort is being led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), along with Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Troy Carter (D-La.), and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.).
“We are concerned that the Trump Administration is offshoring the immigration detention system in an apparent attempt to evade the due process requirements of the US Constitution,” the members of Congress warned in the letter. “Increasingly, individuals are being ‘whisk[ed]…off the street and onto buses or planes out of the country,’ and into detention facilities in unfamiliar countries, with virtually no notice and no opportunity to have their cases adjudicated or to assert a fear of persecution or torture.”
The most prominent third-country removals conducted by the Trump administration so far involved sending more than 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT. As Mother Jones reported, Venezuelans sent there told us that they faced horrific conditions there; they were released in July as part of a prisoner swap deal. The administration has also used other Latin American countries, along with African nations like Eswatini and South Sudan, for third-country removals.
Under the law, third-country removals are supposed to be used only when it is “impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible” to send someone to their country of origin. But there have already been multiple cases in which the Trump administration appears to have made little or no effort to deport people to their home country before sending them to African nations instead.
“In reality, these operations appear to be, at least in part, an attempt to evade the statutory, regulatory, and constitutional due process requirements of the US immigration adjudication process—which President Trump has complained can take years to complete,” the members of Congress wrote. “Fast-tracked expulsions and deportations to third countries allow DHS to deport planeloads of people practically overnight, to whatever country has agreed to receive or detain noncitizens en masse.”
