More than 200 migrants who were sent to the Mega Prison of El Salvador, under the accusations that they were members of a violent criminal gang are the responsibility of the United States, the Government of El Salvador told a United Nations work group.
The claims of El Salvador, described in a report presented on Monday in the Court, seem to contradict what President Donald Trump and administration officials have been saying for months: that they cannot return any of the migrants sent to Cecot because they are under the authority of El Salvador.
“In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility of these people lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities, by virtue of the international agreements signed and in accordance with the principles of sovereignty and international cooperation in criminal matters,” said El Salvador officials in their report to the UN to the UN.
El Salvador’s comments were made in a report presented in a judicial presentation by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for the Human Rights Working Group, which was investigating the “disappearances” of four Venezuelan men who believed they were sent to the country in March.
To date, the Trump administration has not published a list of those sent to El Salvador.
“The Salvadoran State emphatically establishes that its authorities have not arrested, detained or transferred to the people referred to in the communications of the working group,” said El Salvador officials in the report. “The actions of the state of El Salvador have been limited to the implementation of a bilateral cooperation mechanism with another State, through which it has facilitated the use of saving penitentiary infrastructure for the custody of the people arrested within the reach of the justice system and the application of the law of that other state.”
The Trump administration invoked the Alien enemies law, a war authority of the 18th century used to eliminate non -citizens with little or less due process, to deport two planes of the alleged migrant gang to El Salvador arguing that the Venezuelan gang Train of Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan Gang Train of Aragua recently deported by the United States government to be imprisoned in the prison of the Terrorism Confinement Center, in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, obtained on March 16, 2025.
Press Secretary of the Presidency Via Reuters
The migrants were sent to CECOT as part of a $ 6 million agreement that the Trump administration made with the Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for El Salvador to house the migrant detainees as part of the Trump immigration offensive.
The aclu lawyers representing the original case challenging the moving of AEA, presented in March, since the men were on their way to Cecot, they said they realized the document last week through one of the families of men.
Lawyers accuse the government of retaining information despite the previous requests that ACLU made for documents related to the administration agreement with El Salvador.
“The Government of El Salvador has confirmed what everyone already knew: the United States controls the fate of Venezuelans sent to Cecot without due process,” said Lee Gellnt, an AFC News lawyer in ABC News in response to the UN report. “Incredibly, the United States government did not provide this information to us or the court.”
ABC News has communicated with the National Security Department to comment.
