English Desk, Mar 17 (EFE) – Venezuela said Monday that it will not rest until it can rescue its citizens from El Salvador, adding that it will denounce the United States for crimes against humanity after Washington sent over 200 deportees to the Central american country’s mega-prisons.
“What is being committed against Venezuelans kidnapped in El Salvador and against Venezuelan migrants in the United States of America is a crime against humanity,” said the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, in a press conference on the state-run television channel.
Rodríguez denounced that the deportation had not guaranteed human rights or due process, adding that his country would work for the return of “every one of the Venezuelans” who are in the United States and wish to return.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello asserted that the deportations were not only “an attack against Venezuela” but also “a dangerous precedent” for the region.
Cabello issued an “urgent and immediate call” to the international community, especially the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), to “denounce this aberrant action before the world.
Legal limbo in El Salvador
Meanwhile, human rights and legal experts in El Salvador who spoke to EFE warned that the presidents of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the US, Donald Trump, acted outside national and international legal frameworks with the detention of the migrants who, according to the US government, allegedly belong to the criminal gang Tren de Aragua.
Human rights and legal experts in El Salvador also condemned the deportations, saying there are no treaties between both countries that provide a legal basis for the housing of Venezuelans arriving from the US in the Central American country, as they also recalled allegations of serious human rights violations in the Salvadoran prison system.
“What is clear is that the leaders of both countries are acting outside of national and international frameworks,” Noah Bullock, director of the humanitarian organization Cristosal in El Salvador, told EFE.
“We have two heads of state who have agreed to deport and disappear hundreds of people in El Salvador’s prisons without the slightest guarantee. We don’t know who they are and we don’t know under what jurisdiction their rights will be guaranteed. These people have been sent into a judicial black hole,” he added.
The Cristosal director pointed out that it would be up to the Congresses of both countries “to ratify any kind of agreement of this nature,” and stressed that this detention “is being done in defiance of an order from a court in the US.
Ingrid Escobar, lawyer and director of the organization Socorro Jurídico Humanitario (SJH), told EFE that it is worrying that both countries have ignored the court order.
For Escobar, it was a “violation” of Salvadoran “sovereignty” since it was not approved by the Legislative Assembly.
Uncertain legal grounds
The Trump istration deported the roughly 250 Venezuelans on Sunday under the Alien Enemies Act, a controversial 1798 law last invoked during World War II that gives the president the power to detain or deport citizens of an enemy country without due process during wartime.
Under Trump’s executive order, all Venezuelans over the age of 14 who are suspected of gang affiliation and lack U.S. citizenship or permanent residency are subject to immediate deportation.
Federal Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the application of the order following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward and ordered that all flights carrying affected individuals be returned to the US.
However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the detainees had already arrived in El Salvador. Bukele assured that they would be held in the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), the country’s maximum security mega-prison. EFE
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