A high-value secret agreement between the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, to imprison migrants has been revealed.
The Democracy Forward Foundation, a nonprofit organization that investigates public policies to expose corruption in the United States Executive Branch, obtained and disclosed the content of the controversial agreement that authorizes the deportation of migrants from the United States to El Salvador.
According to the agreement, the Trump administration channeled, through the State Department, the sum of $4,760,000 to Bukele to admit the transfer of “approximately” 300 individuals classified—without presenting evidence—as alleged members of a criminal organization.
Those deported under unfounded accusations of belonging to the Aragua Train were destined for the maximum-security prison for terrorists: the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot). The agreement stipulates that the minimum stay in the facility would be one year.
The multimillion-dollar transaction was allegedly executed through JP Morgan Chase Bank and the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador. The agreement, obtained through a lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward and the human rights organization Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, expressly prohibits the Bukele administration from using the funds received for initiatives, programs, or entities that support or defend migrant caravans, asylum seekers, refugees, or legal counsel. It is also prohibited from using the money for reproductive health care, particularly in cases of abortion.
A clause in the document specifies:
“The agreement referenced in this letter does not constitute an international agreement, and the rights or obligations arising from it are not governed by international law. Any matter or dispute related to the agreement, including the legal obligations of the parties, shall be resolved exclusively through consultations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador and the Department of State.”
Additionally, it states that the U.S. Department of State will not accept “any liability for third-party claims” in situations where “cases of damages” arise as a result of the execution of the aforementioned agreement.
Democracy Forward and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights have denounced this pact, which they describe as an opaque application of the former Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to expedite the expulsion of undocumented migrants. This mechanism, described in a statement by Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, was an agreement to “facilitate the disappearance of persons from US territory,” the terms of which the Trump-Vance administration attempted to keep secret.
The disclosure of the details of the agreement has rekindled the debate over express deportations and violations of migrants’ rights. Democracy Forward warned that the document lacks any clause obligating El Salvador to prevent torture, indefinite imprisonment, or other abuses within the Cecot prison, a prison notorious for its history of human rights violations.
The State Department’s disbursement to El Salvador was finalized on March 22, the same day the legality of these deportations was already being challenged in federal courts.
It’s worth remembering that in February, when Bukele partially alluded to this prison agreement with the United States, he stated that El Salvador’s offer was to give Washington “the opportunity” to “outsource part of its prison system.”
The president never mentioned that he would receive deported migrants, but rather assured that he would house “only convicted criminals (including convicted US citizens)” at the Cecot (Cecot), “in exchange for a fee” that he described as “relatively low” for the Trump administration, but “significant” for his own.
[ SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS ]
