Catholic activists who assist immigrants and refugees in El Salvador have lamented the deportation of 238 Venezuelan immigrants by President Donald Trump’s administration to El Salvador, where they were placed by President Nayib Bukele’s administration in a mega-prison on 16 March. They say they feel impotent in the face of the arbitrariness of Bukele’s regime, which ignored information requests and failed to clarify any doubts raised by the detainees’ families.
Since his presidential campaign, Trump had pledged to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel undocumented immigrants allegedly affiliated with criminal or “terrorist” organisations.
