Giant spending bill advances in Congress, Administration floats a suspension of habeas corpus, Notes on El Salvador renditions, Mass deportation notes, The military at the border, Notes on human rights and accountability at CBP, Border Patrol apprehensions increased slightly from March to April.
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updateshere.
Giant spending bill advances in Congress: The House of Representatives is edging closer to passing a bill that would inject more than $150 billion in new resources into the Trump administration’s border-hardening and “mass deportation” priorities. A new provision added this week would tax non-citizens’ remittance payments. The bill could pass the House by the end of next week, and may pass the Senate in July, as it will not need a single Democratic member’s vote.
Administration floats a suspension of habeas corpus: Top White House official Stephen Miller told reporters that the White House is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the fundamental right to challenge one’s detention in court, citing a view that the United States is facing an “invasion” of migrants even amid a sharp decline in arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border. Legal scholars dispute Miller’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, while concern grows about the stability of U.S. democracy.
Notes on El Salvador renditions: A judge in Pennsylvania became the first to rule that the Trump administration’s claim of a “predatory incursion” from Venezuela justified invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The judge did require that migrants get a clear chance to defend themselves before the Act is used to render them out of the United States. The White House fired intelligence officials after a National Intelligence Council estimate found no collusion between the Venezuelan government and the Tren de Aragua criminal group in any “predatory incursion.” Video of a former congressman’s visit to El Salvador’s CECOT prison gave Venezuelan family members a fleeting glimpse at some of their loved ones inside the facility.
Mass deportation notes: A two-year-old toddler was returned to her mother in Venezuela. Details emerged about the May 7th plan to send some migrants to Libya. Nine people have died in ICE detention since January 20th. Images of ICE arrests, with plainclothes, masked people picking people up off of U.S. streets, are generating a public-opinion backlash. DHS has requested that 20,000 National Guard troops participate in mass deportation, while the FBI is requiring agents to devote one-third of their time to immigration cases. U.S. immigration courts decided and denied more asylum cases in March 2025 than any other month during the previous 20 years.
The military at the border: A federal magistrate judge in New Mexico threw out 98 prosecutions of migrants arrested for trespassing on a military installation, now that a fringe of territory stretching along the border throughout New Mexico and West Texas is considered a “military base.” A top Senate Democrat gave a floor speech voicing strong opposition to the military role in immigration enforcement. It appears that the administration has spent $42,000 per passenger to transport people aboard military aircraft to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station.
Notes on human rights and accountability at CBP: A Senate committee advanced the nomination of Rodney Scott to be the next CBP commissioner along a party-line vote, amid controversy over his past stance on holding agents accountable for abuse. Two organizations used interviews with third-country migrants rendered to Costa Rica and Panama to reveal abuse suffered during their time in CBP and ICE custody in the United States. CBP quietly rescinded four Biden-era policies governing humane treatment of vulnerable people in custody.
Border Patrol apprehensions increased slightly from March to April: Border Patrol apprehended 279 migrants per day at the US-Mexico border in April, up from 232 per day in March. Migration from Mexico accounted for the entire increase. In April, 90 percent of migrants came from Mexico or northern Central America, and 84 percent were single adults. Mexico’s forces are encountering inside its territory more than twice as many migrants as CBP is encountering at the border.
After a several-month pause, Mexico's government has begun updating its “migrant encounter” data. Like U.S. authorities, they are measuring a drop in migration—though encountering more people than CBP is reporting.
After a several-month pause, Mexico’s government has begun updating its “migrant encounter” data.
Like U.S. authorities at the border, they are measuring a drop in migration inside Mexico—though encountering more people than CBP is reporting at the border.
Mexico’s reported encounters with migrants inside Mexico (brown) are once again greater than U.S. authorities’ reported encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border (green plus blue).
The difference between U.S. and Mexican authorities’ encounters is even greater when you look only at non-Mexican migrants. (Mexico, after all, doesn’t apprehend Mexican migrants.)
The border went from 232 migrant apprehensions per day in March to 279 per day in April. That's a 20 percent jump
CBP has published its April data about migration and border security. An interesting comparison:
In the first months of Trump’s first term, Border Patrol apprehensions bottomed out in April, and were never that low again. In the first months of Trump’s second term, Border Patrol apprehensions may have bottomed out in March.
I’ve uploaded the new numbers to cbpdata.adamisacson.com, where you can see that citizens of Mexico accounted for all of the March-April increase in Border Patrol apprehensions.
Actually, this post may be mis-titled. April has fewer days than March. The border went from 232 migrant apprehensions per day in March to 279 per day in April. That’s a 20 percent jump. Some of that is seasonal, though: spring is often the heaviest season of the year for migration.
The panel distilled four decades of hard‑won lessons—from Argentina’s military rule, Central America’s conflicts, and Mexico’s present‐day crisis—into guidance for a United States that has begun sliding onto the same dangerous slope of enforced disappearances.
Here are notes and embedded video from our very well-attended 4/30 virtual panel, Lessons from Latin America as the United States Confronts Enforced Disappearance, hosted with the National Security Archive, with 3 longtime leaders in the fight against enforced disappearance in Latin America.
Highlights and Conclusions from the April 30, 2025 WOLA–National Security Archive Webinar
This is enforced disappearance
Over the past two months, U.S. immigration and law‑enforcement agencies have been detaining migrants and asylum seekers without promptly disclosing their whereabouts, permitting contact with counsel, or even keeping them on U.S. soil where they are clearly within the reach of the rule of U.S. law. Veteran rights advocates warn that these detentions mirror a practice that Latin American societies know all too well: enforced disappearance.
That was the subject of a nearly two-hour discussion, hosted by the Washington Office on Latin America and the National Security Archive, featuring three renowned Latin American rights advocates who have devoted much of their careers fighting to end enforced disappearances and hold perpetrators accountable. The panel distilled four decades of hard‑won lessons—from Argentina’s military rule, Central America’s conflicts, and Mexico’s present‐day crisis—into guidance for a United States that has begun sliding onto the same dangerous slope.
Presentations
1. Carolina Jiménez Sandoval – President, WOLA
“Enforced disappearance is painful. It is a tragedy for families, but also for societies. And it’s not just a human rights violation… When a government takes citizens or others in their territory outside the protection of the law, this is a warning for democracy.”
In introductory remarks, Jiménez framed enforced disappearance as both a human‑rights atrocity and a democratic red flag. She invoked three mothers—Chilean, Mexican, Venezuelan—who are still looking for disappeared loved ones decades, years, or mere weeks later, to show that the pain transcends time and geography.
Definition matters. International law codifies disappearance as state custody, or deliberate state inaction, plus denial of the crime. There is no ambiguity.
Human impact is paramount. Technical debates must not obscure families’ anguish and the societal damage each disappearance inflicts.
U.S. exceptionalism is over. A webinar once unthinkable is now necessary because U.S. agencies are adopting tactics once associated with Latin American dictatorships.
2. Kate Doyle – Senior Analyst, National Security Archive
“We can’t help but connect what is happening in our country right now, today, to a long history in the Americas of the use by states of enforced disappearance to punish people considered dissidents.”
As moderator, Doyle noted chilling similarities between the Trump administration’s recent actions and the darker parts of Latin America’s recent history. She recalled, however, that Latin America “also has a proud and powerful tradition of fighting back” and inventing “strategies to protest the disappearances, demand information, hold hearings, fight in courts, create new laws, search for the missing, expose injustice, and tell the rest of the world what was happening.”
The three invited panelists, Doyle recalled, are emblematic of that experience. “We need to hear from them. We need to learn from their histories. We need to pull lessons from what they have to tell us about how to fight back here.”
“When the state no longer respects the rule of law, we are all in danger. We can all be accused at any time of being a criminal, a terrorist, or any other name, since nothing needs to be verified. Back then and now, we all know that no one actually disappears. It’s just not an existential status. We are either dead or alive.”
Drawing on 40 years of exhuming clandestine graves and investigating atrocities region-wide, Doretti described how Argentina’s junta used disappearance to eliminate due process and sow terror. She traced EAAF’s birth: prosecutors needed science, families needed someone they could trust more than state institutions, and young anthropologists provided both.
State denial breeds confusion and a maddening sense of unreality. Early in the dictatorship, relatives were told the kidnappings they witnessed had never occurred or that the victims were somehow deserving. The goal was paralysis through lies and denials.
Families are partners, not witnesses. EAAF put relatives at the center of every investigation—sharing findings, co‑designing searches, putting evidence at the center and building trustful relationships.
An “ecosystem” approach works. Forensic experts, lawyers, journalists, archivists, and families formed “a human‑rights ecosystem” that can out‑investigate a hostile, dishonest state.
4. Juan E. Méndez – Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture; survivor, lawyer, scholar
“Disappearances are torture as well. Because the person who is deprived of contact with a family, the person who doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him or her, the person who doesn’t know when this detention will end, the person who is in incommunicado detention, perhaps even in solitary confinement somewhere where nobody knows where they are, that person is being inflicted pain and suffering of a mental nature, even if no physical torture may be happening.”
Méndez blended personal testimony—he was disappeared for days and imprisoned for 18 months—with legal analysis. He helped win the Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras judgment, the Inter‑American Court’s landmark ruling that enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity.
Temporary disappearances count. Moving detainees between secret sites, denying them lawyers, or hiding them from families—even for days—meets international definitions of disappearance. In Argentina, these practices began even before the 1976 military dictatorship began, during a state of siege.
Four minimum state duties: Governments must register every detention immediately; forbid secret sites; notify courts about each detention; and guarantee the detained person contact with counsel and relatives.
Law needs mobilization. International norms matter only when civil society “makes the state pay a price” for violations. A very good legal framework like the one that exists today is not enough on its own: “We need every man and woman who cares for the fate and whereabouts of every other human being to have their voices heard, have their voices resonate.”
5. Marcela Turati – Mexican investigative journalist, co-founder of Quinto Elemento Lab and Periodistas de a Pie
“The people [must] understand that victims have rights… even if they were criminals, they have rights [including] not to be disappeared.”
Reporting on 127,000 disappearances in Mexico—mostly committed at a time of formal democracy, mostly by non-state actors with the government’s collusion, acquiescence, or deliberate inaction—Turati emphasized the battle for truth in real time.
Name the crime. The press once spoke euphemistically of people falling victim to levantones (“pick‑ups”); insisting on using the word “disappearance” forces the state to own its obligations. “You can talk about enforced disappearances when the public servants don’t prevent these disappearances, don’t investigate when the people present a denunciation… So it’s not only when the army abducts or makes detentions.”
From confusion to complexity. Networks of journalists, data scientists, and victim groups map patterns—routes, mass graves, bureaucratic gaps—to demystify the phenomenon and put the puzzle pieces together, especially when the state can’t be counted on to do that.
Tech with a human face. Turati’s team’s WhatsApp chatbot, SocorroBot, walks families through the first 24 hours after someone vanishes and connects them to local support.
Key conclusions
Disappearance is a deliberate state strategy, not a bureaucratic accident. Whether permanent or “only” temporary, or whether committed by government or non-state actors, secrecy plus denial equals disappearance.
Information—and its absence—is a battlefield. Dictatorships lied outright; today’s U.S. agencies exploit data opacity, shifting detainees among ICE and local jurisdictions’ detention facilities or foreign prisons. Documenting transfers, in this example, helps move from confusion to accountability. Sharing credible information means better communication and storytelling, beginning with spreading knowledge “about people’s rights as human beings.” Turati added: “Always look for the audiovisual support. I think that we have to find a way to go public, just to be massive with the public. And I can see the effects of the videos, photos, camera images, satellite images, I don’t know, trying to bring what we know the ‘influencers’ use.” This also requires clarity about who the intended audiences are.
Families are catalysts. Argentine mothers in the Plaza de Mayo, Mexican search collectives with shovels and drones, Central American parents seeking to trace children who disappeared along the migration route—relatives sustain the search when institutions fail. “The most important thing in Mexico is, for me as a journalist, to stay close to the victims,” Turati said.
Independent expertise matters. The Argentine forensic model showed why civil‑society science must fill gaps left by compromised state forensics. “Both Mimi and Juan have pointed to this sort of creating expertise in a field where there was none,” Doyle observed. “And that’s something that I think we need to think about here in the United States as well.”
International law is usable. The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture. While it shuns the International Convention to Protect All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, existing instruments still prohibit the Trump administration’s practices, offering advocacy hooks. “The public understands instinctively what we mean when we say there’s no due process,” Méndez noted.
Recommendations
Drawing directly from the speakers’ proposals and proven tactics, steps like these can guide U.S. advocates, policymakers, and communities:
Rapid, independent documentation: We need to closely document what is happening, both through direct information gathering and building public databases.
Put families at the center: Relatives need immediate notification and frequent accompaniment from experts, mirroring EAAF’s family-first methodology.
Legal safeguards and reform: Even as a U.S. ratification of the International Convention to Protect All Persons from Enforced Disappearance appears far off, it is urgent to prohibit incommunicado custody, denial of access to counsel, invocation of the Alien Enemies Act during peacetime, and failure to provide at least 30 days to bring habeas corpus challenges before being rendered to another country. Extrajudicial imprisonment, whether at home or in other nations, must never happen.
Civil society mobilization: U.S. civil society and philanthropy must strengthen coalitions of journalists, tech volunteers, faith groups, and academics to keep cases in the public eye, echoing the Latin American “human-rights ecosystem.” Put a strong emphasis on storytelling, using innumerable tools including podcasts, exhibitions, teach-ins, or webinars like this one, especially to spotlight disappeared migrants and citizens.
International pressure and solidarity: Work with international bodies like the Inter-American Commission and U.N. Working Group on Enforced Disappearance for emblematic U.S. cases. Tighten bonds with Latin American experts and search collectives for skill-sharing on investigation, trauma care, and public protest tactics.
Accountability pathways: Document chain-of-command responsibility within DHS and private contractors to preserve evidence for future accountability measures. Never yield on the supremacy of judicial decisions: “I would say that the most alarming aspect of the situation,” Méndez warned, “is the fact that high ranking officers, officials are hinting that they don’t need to pay attention to court orders.”
Conclusion
The event’s nearly 500 participants asked dozens of incisive questions: more than time would allow. Many of them could be the subject of future events, and our organizations plan to hold more soon.
Argentina’s dictatorship, Central America’s civil wars, or Mexico’s organized crime violence all once seemed distant tragedies to many in the United States. Yet, as the webinar’s speakers made clear, the mechanisms of disappearance are portable, and their first victims are often the marginalized—migrants, students, activists—long before the practice threatens society at large.
The good news is that Latin America also exports resilience: mothers who march, scientists who unearth truth, lawyers who codify new crimes, journalists who refuse to let the missing be forgotten. Those lessons’ arrival in the United States is timely and urgently needed. By acting now—documenting every vanished person, closing every legal loophole, and mobilizing the broadest possible coalition—we can ensure that enforced disappearance never becomes normalized on U.S. soil.
10 events about Latin America this week, that I know about, that can be attended in person in Washington or online anywhere.
(Events that I know of, anyway. All times are U.S. Eastern.)
Monday, May 12
2:00-2:45 at cnas.org: Countering China’s Digital Silk Road: Brazil (RSVP required).
Wednesday, May 14
9:00-10:00 at ACLED Zoom: How the Sinaloa Cartel rift is redrawing Mexico’s criminal map (RSVP required).
9:30-11:00 at the Open Gov Hub: Illegal Gold Mining and Dirty Money: Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Environmental Crime in the Americas (RSVP required).
10:00 in Room 2362-A Rayburn House Office Building and online: Hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
3:00 at Zoom: Civil society meeting with candidates to the IACHR / Reunión de la sociedad civil con personas candidatas a la CIDH (RSVP required).
10:00 in Room 2362-A Rayburn House Office Building and online: Hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security on U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
11:00 at CCA Canada Zoom: Canada / Mexico: overcoming mistrust to a critical agenda? (RSVP required).
12:30-2:00 at IPS Zoom: How Brazil Beat Back Authoritarianism (RSVP required).
Alien Enemies Act invocation dealt setbacks; More migrants charged with trespassing in “Defense Areas; Updates on third-country migrant renditions; New cases highlight the humanitarian impact of Trump administration crackdown; Congressional updates
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
(Due to staff travel, this Update does not cover developments after the early morning of Thursday, May 8.)
THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:
Alien Enemies Act invocation dealt setbacks: Three federal judges’ rulings have challenged the basis of the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to target those it suspects of ties to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua criminal organization. The judges call into question whether the gang’s presence constitutes a “predatory incursion” from the Venezuelan government, justifying the use of the 1798 wartime law. A newly declassified consensus document from the U.S. government’s intelligence community comes to the same conclusion: that Venezuela is not sponsoring Tren de Aragua activities in the United States.
More migrants charged with trespassing in “Defense Areas”: More than 200 migrants have now been arrested and charged with trespassing on a military installation since the Trump administration declared a 60-foot fringe of territory along the border in New Mexico to be a “National Defense Area.” The move has created confusion in federal courts and concerns about avoiding longstanding bans on military participation in law enforcement. The administration has declared a second defense area in west Texas, east of El Paso.
Updates on third-country migrant renditions: It appears that the administration was close to deporting a group of migrants to Libya until a federal judge intervened. The May 7th episode highlights ongoing diplomatic efforts to convince several troubled countries to accept more migrants removed from the United States. A Washington, DC judge sought answers about who has custody of the roughly 288 Venezuelan and Salvadoran people sent to El Salvador’s mega-prison, while new details emerged about those renditions.
New cases highlight the humanitarian impact of Trump administration crackdown: Seven migrants have died in ICE detention centers since the Trump administration began. A Guatemalan woman who gave birth in a Tucson hospital narrowly avoided being removed with her newborn or forced to leave the baby in the United States. Media coverage looked at other separated families while President Trump and Stephen Miller voiced opposition to guaranteeing due process for noncitizens.
Congressional updates: Republican majorities in both houses of Congress continue to work on a massive bill that includes big spending on deportation and hardening of the border. The timetable for likely passage is slipping amid unrelated disagreements. Data points and questionable assertions emerged as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testified before House appropriators.
Accumulating accounts of cruel and possibly unlawful removals and detentions; “Reconciliation” mega-spending bill sails through House committees; Renditions to El Salvador blocked, for now, amid new revelations; First migrants arrested for trespassing in “defense area”; Scrutinizing the administration’s first-100-day deportation claims; CBP nominee hearing refocuses attention on 2010 migrant killing; Judicial updates
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
Accumulating accounts of cruel and possibly unlawful removals and detentions: Several troubling cases emerged in the past week of ICE separating parents from children, people fearing rendition to El Salvador, and a death in custody. The administration has begun prosecuting undocumented migrants who fail to register, while issuing an executive order about so-called “sanctuary cities” and advancing plans to send third-country migrants to Libya and Rwanda.
“Reconciliation” mega-spending bill sails through House committees: Committees in the House of Representatives began work in earnest on a massive spending bill. More than $150 billion in new spending would go to border walls, detention, deportations, building up border security forces, and technology. Bills would also charge fees to migrants applying for statuses, including protection from harm. Congress hopes to approve the legislation by July 4th, although it is unclear whether both houses’ Republican majorities can iron out disagreements that quickly.
Renditions to El Salvador blocked, for now, amid new revelations: The New York Times and CNN found that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele was reluctant to accept renditions of Venezuelan migrants who had not been convicted. The Trump administration made some approaches to the Bukele government about releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but Donald Trump told an interviewer that he will not ask Bukele directly for the wrongly deported man’s return despite judicial requirements that he facilitate that outcome. A Justice Department guidance instructs officials to dispense with the Fourth Amendment and enter homes without warrants when enforcing the Alien Enemies Act against migrants.
First migrants arrested for trespassing in “defense area”: Now that the first 60 feet of New Mexico’s border is considered Defense Department property, the federal government is prosecuting 28 people for trespassing on a military installation. Penalties could reach a $100,000 fine or one year in prison.
Scrutinizing the administration’s first-100-day deportation claims: The Trump administration claims to have deported 142,000 people during its first 100 days, but experts find the number confusing. Perhaps 50,000 people have been deported aboard about 400 ICE aircraft, and Mexico’s President said that nearly 39,000 more have been returned to her country. Those numbers fall far short of 142,000.
CBP nominee hearing refocuses attention on 2010 migrant killing: The Senate Finance Committee considered the nomination of Rodney Scott, a former Border Patrol chief, to lead Border Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection. The hearing raised past concerns about Scott, including controversial statements and his alleged role in what amounted to a cover-up of the 2010 killing, in San Diego, of Mexican citizen Anastasio Hernández.
Judicial updates: In Washington, D.C., a federal judge sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s claims that a migrant “invasion” warrants a shutdown of access to asylum at the border. Another judge ordered funding restored for attorneys representing unaccompanied children, while another prohibited Border Patrol from carrying out warrantless immigration stops in Central California.
10:00 in Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building and online: Markup of the House Judiciary Committee of Committee Print – Providing for reconciliation pursuant to H. Con. Res. 14, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
Tuesday the 29th and Wednesday the 30th are going to be two very intense days for border and migration human rights work here in Washington. Within those 48 hours, we expect six public events to happen.
Tuesday the 29th and Wednesday the 30th are going to be two very intense days for border and migration-related human rights work here in Washington. Within those 48 hours, we expect six public events to happen:
Tuesday 29 at 10:00 am – The House Homeland Security Committee will meet in Room 310 of the Cannon House Office Building to mark up (consider, amend, and approve) the $90 billion-or-more DHS section of congressional Republicans’ “Reconciliation” package, a funding bill that could make Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s most fevered “mass deportation” dreams come true. Watch the Committee’s announcement for the text of their part of the bill, which must be shared 48 hours in advance (that’s Sunday).
Tuesday 29th at 2:00 – Parties will meet in Courtroom 8 of the Washington DC federal district courthouse (333 Constitution Ave NW) for a “hearing on the cross-motions for summary judgment” in the RAICES v. Noem litigation, which is challenging the Trump administration’s January 20 executive order shutting the border to undocumented entry, and stopping border asylum claims, by claiming that an “invasion” is underway.
Tuesday 29th, probably; time and place not confirmed – Politico and others are reporting that the House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee will meet to mark up its part of the big “Reconciliation” funding bill, which may throw up to $150 billion at, among other priorities, “the Trump administration’s expanded military mission at the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Wednesday 30th at 10:00 – The Senate Finance Committee will meet in Room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to consider the nomination of Rodney Scott, a former Border Patrol chief and a hardliner who is no stranger to controversy, to be the next commissioner of the Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Wednesday 30th at 2:00 – This one is virtual: WOLA and the National Security Archive, deeply concerned by what can only be described as “enforced disappearances” of migrants by the Trump administration, are hosting a discussion with some Latin American human rights defenders who are widely known for their brave opposition to enforced disappearance in the region. The event description is here and the RSVP link is here.
Wednesday 30th, probably; time and place not confirmed – Politico is reporting that the House Judiciary Committee will meet to mark up its part of the big “Reconciliation” funding bill, “which is set to include $110 billion in spending on immigration enforcement.”
Meanwhile, Tuesday is also the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second administration, so expect a lot of “taking stock” discussion in media and social media that cannot ignore the impact on the human rights of migrants and border communities.
Controversies continue over renditions to El Salvador: Courts, including the Supreme Court, continue to block the Trump administration’s invocations of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expel Venezuelan migrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The amount of advance notification individuals must receive has been an area of sharp contention. A Maryland federal court continues to pursue “intense discovery” in the case of erroneously expelled Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A senator who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador provided new details about his confinement.
Notes on “mass deportation”: Congress is about to consider a historically massive spending package to fund border hardening and the Trump administration’s planned mass deportation campaign. A U.S. citizen whom Border Patrol arrested in Arizona ended up in immigration detention for 10 days. Unaccompanied children as young as four years old are now defending themselves in immigration court asylum cases as the Trump administration has canceled legal aid funding. Family detention centers are now confining not just people detained at the border, but families who have been in the United States for years.
The U.S. military role: The Trump administration appears not to be invoking, for now, the Insurrection Act of 1807 to expand the active-duty military’s role at the border. The Defense Department announced new authorities for soldiers operating along New Mexico’s border, a fringe of territory now considered a “military installation.” In a most unusual expansion of domestic military roles, soldiers in this zone will now be able to detain and search migrants and conduct crowd control measures.
Notes from the migration route: As migration levels remain very low amid the impossibility of obtaining U.S. asylum, shelters on Mexico’s side of the border are empty and reeling from U.S. aid cuts; they may fill again once the Trump administration’s mass deportations get truly underway. Migration through the Darién Gap remains very low as well. Costa Rica and Panama have offered short-term migratory status to asylum seekers from other continents whom the Trump administration expelled to those countries in February. A new report from Human Rights Watch found fault with the U.S., Panamanian, and UN responses.
Here is what we know about the people disappeared from the United States and were apparently rendered to incommunicado prison in El Salvador.
This is enforced disappearance.
The Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had 288 Venezuelan and Salvadoran migrants in its custody. A vast majority, we now know, were not accused of committing crimes, and only a handful faced allegations of committing violent crimes (see CBS News, Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Cristosal).
Then, they disappeared from ICE’s locator system and have apparently ended up in El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) prison. But nothing is certain because neither the U.S. nor the Salvadoran governments has confirmed their names. What we know about these individuals’ identities is entirely from leaks to secondary sources. Even their loved ones have no official information, with the partial exception of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—and that is because a judge ordered it.
Disappearing from custody without any official acknowledgment of one’s identity, then being sent to a prison with no end date and no judicial process at all? That, right there, is the definition of enforced disappearance: a major, serious human rights violation that is tragically familiar in Latin America but rare—until now—in the United States.
Here is what we know about the people disappeared from the United States and apparently rendered to incommunicado prison in El Salvador:
Country
Known Names
Unknown Names
Total
Venezuela
245
7
252
El Salvador
13
23
36
Total
258
30
288
Venezuela, 252 people. 137 rendered under the Alien Enemies Act, the rest with final removal orders:
7 people rendered to El Salvador as part of a group of 10 on April 13. Names are unknown. We only know it was 7 people because El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, tweeted on April 20 that 252 Venezuelans are in Salvadoran custody, and 245 Venezuelans were already in El Salvador.
El Salvador, 31 people, all with final removal orders:
23 people rendered to El Salvador on March 15. From much reporting, we know the identities of 3: Kilmar Abrego Garcia and credibly alleged MS-13 members César Humberto López Larios alias “Greñas” and César Eliseo Sorto Amaya. The other 20 remain unnamed.
3 people rendered to El Salvador as part of a group of 10 on April 13. Names are unknown. We only know it was 3 people because El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, tweeted on April 20 that 252 Venezuelans are in Salvadoran custody. As 245 Venezuelans were already in El Salvador, that would mean that 7 of the 10 were Venezuelan, leaving 3 Salvadorans.
4 events about Latin America this week, that I know about, that can be attended in person in Washington or online anywhere.
Tuesday, April 22
10:00-4:00 at the Inter-American Dialogue: Eighth Annual Latin America Energy Conference – Shifting Currents: Energy and Geopolitical Realignment in the Americas (RSVP required).
2:00 at Zoom: Trump’s Sheriffs: 287(g) and New Frontlines of Immigration Enforcement with author Jessica Pishko (RSVP required).
Thursday, April 24
9:15-11:30 at the Inter-American Dialogue and online: Perspectives on Remittance Flows in 2025 (RSVP required).
11:30 at migrationpolicy.org: Immigration Actions in First 100 Days of Trump Second Term (RSVP required).
A link to my April 16 column at MSNBC's website about Nayib Bukele's high-approval-rating authoritarianism in El Salvador
Things were busy—and then I was traveling over the long weekend—so I completely forgot to post a link to my April 16 column at MSNBC’s website about Nayib Bukele’s high-approval-rating authoritarianism in El Salvador.
Imagine where U.S. democracy would be if President Donald Trump had an 80% approval rating, control of more than three-quarters of Congress, and the ability to blow past term limits with the Supreme Court’s blessing. Imagine if the 78-year-old Trump were 35 years younger; that is, not headed toward retirement, but poised to stick around for decades.
That’s El Salvador today. A country the size of New Jersey, with Indiana’s population and an economy smaller than that of any U.S. state, is now under the total political control of President Nayib Bukele.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Case and Nayib Bukele’s Washington visit; The Alien Enemies Act; The Roosevelt Reservation and other military developments; March migration data show further declines; Mass deportation and the coming “reconciliation” funding bill
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Case and Nayib Bukele’s Washington visit: A high-stakes legal battle continues between the federal courts and the Trump administration over the case of a Salvadoran man who was wrongly deported and sent to a notorious mega-prison in his home country. During an Oval Office visit, the country’s authoritarian-trending president struck a defiant tone alongside President Trump, calling into question the administration’s compliance with a Supreme Court requirement that it “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) met Abrego Garcia briefly during a visit to El Salvador.
The Alien Enemies Act: Evidence continues to show that most of the 238 Venezuelan men sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison on March 15 faced no allegations of criminal activity or gang ties. A judge who had sought to stop their removal is now considering whether to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court.
The Roosevelt Reservation and other military developments: The White House has declared that a 20-yard fringe of territory along the border in California, Arizona, and New Mexico is now the equivalent of a “military installation.” This raises important questions about the role of the U.S. military on U.S. soil. As is widely expected, these questions will deepen if the administration invokes the Insurrection Act of 1807.
March migration data show further declines: With 7,181 Border Patrol apprehensions, March 2025 was one of the quietest months at the U.S.-Mexico border since the 1960s. The main reason is the Trump administration’s shutdown of asylum access at the border. The ratio of uniformed personnel at the border to March migrant apprehensions is now about 4.6 to 1.
Mass deportation and the coming “reconciliation” funding bill: Congress is edging closer to considering a massive budget bill that would multiply the U.S. government’s ability to deport undocumented migrants on an enormous scale. The Trump administration’s unstated goal appears to be 1 million deportations during its first year, which seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the administration is rapidly undoing documented statuses granted by the Biden administration.
El Salvador renditions reach the Supreme Court; Evidence points to little criminality among those rushed to El Salvador’s mega-prison; A $45 billion bill for migrant detention foreseen as budget bill moves slowly through Congress; New measures to undo legal pathways and punish the undocumented; A woman dies by suicide in Border Patrol custody as internal oversight is decimated; Notes on the impact in Mexico
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
El Salvador renditions reach the Supreme Court: The Supreme Court made two rulings related to the Trump administration’s practice of sending migrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The first requires that people subjected to rapid expulsion under the Alien Enemies Act have a reasonable chance to defend themselves. The second upholds, though softens, a lower-court judge’s requirement that the administration seek the release and return of a wrongfully expelled Salvadoran man. The President of El Salvador is to visit Washington on April 14.
A $45 billion bill for migrant detention foreseen as budget bill moves slowly through Congress: A request for proposals issued to contractors foresees ramping up migrant detention spending sixfold, to $45 billion over two years. That would be paid for by a giant one-time appropriation slowly working through the Republican-majority Congress, which cleared an important initial hurdle this week.
New measures to undo legal pathways and punish the undocumented: This week saw CBP One app recipients receive an order to self-deport, a proposal to fine migrants up to $998 per day if they stay after receiving removal orders, movement toward a registry of undocumented migrants, and a continued legal fight over Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans.
A woman dies by suicide in Border Patrol custody as internal oversight is decimated: A female citizen of China died by suicide in a California Border Patrol station. This and other recent incidents raise questions about oversight at a time when the Trump administration has effectively closed down the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal investigative agencies.
Notes on the impact in Mexico: Media reports covered the situation of migrants stranded in Mexico by the Trump administration’s revocation of asylum access at the border, including Venezuelans requesting repatriation flights and Haitians who are especially vulnerable to harm.
12:00-1:00 at American University Washington College of Law: Women’s Rights in the Face of Democratic Erosion: Resisting Authoritarianism and Defending Human Rights (RSVP required).
12:00 at COMEXI Zoom: ¿Esquivó México La Bala De Los Aranceles? (RSVP required).
2:00 at Room 310 Cannon House Office Building and online: Hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability and Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement on Case by Case: Returning Parole to Its Proper Purpose.
Maybe President Bukele will build a new wing at his mega-prison to hold all the Trump administration critics who get sent there as “no-takebacks mistakes,” as happened with supposedly non-deportable Salvadoran citizen Kilmar Ábrego García.
Maybe President Bukele will build a new wing at his mega-prison to hold all the Trump administration critics who get sent there as “no-takebacks mistakes,” as happened with supposedly non-deportable Salvadoran citizen Kilmar Ábrego García.
“Although the Alien Enemies Act does not apply to American citizens, without due process, a citizen could be mistakenly deported to El Salvador, held indefinitely, and reliant on the same administration that deported them to realize the error and decide to retrieve them,” wrote Adam Serwer at the Atlantic. Greg Sargent echoed that at the New Republic, quoting Ábrego García’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg: “if the government can remove people in ‘error’ without recourse, then that logic could ‘apply with equal force to U.S. citizens.’”
If that plays out, by late 2025, two shaven-headed U.S. citizens in El Salvador’s Center for Confinement of Terrorism prison could have a conversation like this:
“What are you in for?”
“I complained about the tariffs on social media. You?”
“Tesla protest. But ICE said I was a Venezuelan gang member.”
How twisted do you have to be to need a court to tell you to do this basic thing? Ábrego García was here legally, convicted of nothing, and sent to El Salvador's terror jail. ICE recognized the error. They should've asked Nayib Bukele to return him weeks ago.
From the preliminary injunction granted today by Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to bring back Kilmar Ábrego García from El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) prison, where the Trump administration put him on March 15.
How twisted do you have to be to need a court to tell you to do this basic thing? Ábrego García was here legally, convicted of nothing, and sent to El Salvador’s terror jail. ICE recognized the error. They should’ve asked Nayib Bukele to return him weeks ago.
The Alien Enemies Act invocation and El Salvador renditions have days in court, Notes about deportation flights, Budget resolution to move in Senate, Notes on the U.S. military’s border and migration role, Low border numbers in March, Noem’s travel to Latin America
With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.
The Alien Enemies Act invocation and El Salvador renditions have days in court: The Trump administration sent 17 more detained people—10 Salvadorans and 7 Venezuelans—from Guantánamo to El Salvador’s Center for Containment of Terrorism (CECOT) prison. Federal courts are probing violations of a restraining order against the use of the Alien Enemies Act, as we continue to learn about people removed to the Salvadoran prison despite a lack of criminal background. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recognized that at least one man, Kilmar Ábrego García, was removed in error, but the administration is not asking El Salvador to release him.
Notes about deportation flights: A Boston federal judge barred the Trump administration from deporting migrants to third countries without allowing them to argue that they might be harmed. Deportation flights to Venezuela have resumed. Reports highlight unsafe conditions and abuse aboard ICE’s deportation flights with little accountability or transparency.
Budget resolution to move in Senate: The Senate is preparing to vote on a budget resolution that sets the stage for a larger spending bill advancing President Trump’s “mass deportation” and border-hardening agenda. The forthcoming “reconciliation” bill could allocate $90–175 billion over 10 years for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Passed by a simple majority, it would bypass the filibuster and exclude Democrats.
Notes on the U.S. military’s border and migration role: The U.S. military presence at the border has grown to over 6,700 active-duty troops, expected to grow to 10,000. Roles and equipment are expanding, and the price tag since January 20 is now $376 million since January 20. The Guantánamo base now holds about 85 migrants at a very high cost. Senators visiting the base criticized it as a wasteful, likely illegal attempt to bypass due process.
Low border numbers in March: Border Patrol recorded 7,180 migrant apprehensions in March, the lowest monthly total in decades, amid a near-total shutdown of asylum access. Shelters are empty, aid groups are scaling back, and migrant injuries from wall falls have declined. In Panama, migration through the Darién Gap plummeted to less than 200 in March.
Noem’s travel to Latin America: Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem visited El Salvador, Colombia, and Mexico. Her appearance at El Salvador’s CECOT, shooting a video using jailed people as a backdrop, drew criticism. In Colombia, Noem signed a biometric data-sharing agreement. In Mexico, she claimed some progress toward a similar deal.
Podcast: A belligerent U.S. delegation got isolated at a UN drug policy meeting in March, where there were important breakthroughs for reform.
A belligerent U.S. delegation got isolated at a UN drug policy meeting in March, where there were important breakthroughs for reform. I got a great rundown from three people who were there in the latest WOLA Podcast. Here’s the text of the landing page at WOLA’s website.
For the second year in a row, what had been an uneventful, consensus-driven United Nations meeting on drug policy saw unexpected drama and signs of real change.
At the 68th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna in March 2025, governments approved the formation of an independent expert commission to recommend changes to the architecture of global drug policy, which has changed little since the early 1960s.
Colombia again played a catalytic role, as it did in 2024. But this time, the United States—under the new Trump administration—tried to block nearly everything, isolating itself diplomatically in the process.
In this episode of the WOLA Podcast, Adam Isacson speaks with three experts who were in Vienna:
Ann Fordham, Executive Director of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a network of 195 organizations working to reform global drug policy.
Isabel Pereira, Senior Coordinator for drug policy at DeJusticia, a Bogotá-based think tank and advocacy group.
John Walsh, WOLA’s Director for Drug Policy, who has tracked the UN’s drug control system since the 1980s.
The conversation traces the slow evolution of the UN drug control system—from decades of punitive consensus to today’s shifting coalitions, unprecedented votes, and long-overdue reviews.
Much of the episode centers on a breakthrough: a new resolution establishing an “independent external review” of the UN’s own drug control institutions. For years, countries like Colombia have called for an honest assessment of the system’s failings. Now, thanks to a resolution spearheaded by Colombia and passed over U.S. opposition, that review is happening. The details still matter: how independent the expert panel will truly be, who funds it, and whether the review can influence the hard architecture of the drug control treaties.
“Vienna was very much a space where delegates would just pat each other on the back on how well we’re doing the war on drugs,” Pereira said. “The spirit of Vienna created a sort of lockdown situation on debate, true debate,” added Walsh. “Civil society enlivened the Vienna atmosphere” in recent years, he noted, “with new debates, new arguments.” Now, this international space has become more dynamic.
The guests also discuss coca leaf: its decades-old listing as a Schedule I narcotic, Bolivia’s and Colombia’s ongoing push for a scientific review, and the possibility of a pivotal vote in 2026. They stress how traditional knowledge—especially from Indigenous communities—must be recognized as legitimate scientific input during that review.
Underlying it all is a major diplomatic shift. Colombia is using the UN system to demand drug policy grounded in health, human rights, and development—not militarized prohibition. But with Petro’s term ending in 2026, it’s unclear who will pick up the baton.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is signaling a return to zero-tolerance drug war policies—and burning bridges with potential allies in the process. “They behaved so terribly. I mean, they broke with all diplomatic niceties,” said Fordham. “The U.S. just went for it in their opening statement… It was frankly an embarrassing, but also pretty shocking statement.”
Despite the uncertainty, all three guests agree: civil society is no longer on the sidelines. NGOs and experts are shaping debates, challenging rigid thinking in Vienna, and holding governments to account.
Border Patrol migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border were low in March 2025 -- but not "the lowest in history" as CBP oddly claims.
“The month of March recorded the lowest southwest border crossings in history,” reads a release put out by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) yesterday, adding, “In March, the Border Patrol data shows that around 7,180 southwest border crossings were recorded.”
7,180 Border Patrol apprehensions is very few. It is the fewest since Border Patrol (part of CBP) started reporting monthly data. But Border Patrol only started doing that in 2000.
If you look back further, to Border Patrol’s founding in 1925, you have to get monthly numbers by taking annual totals and dividing them by 12. Those averages show that March 2025 was not, in fact, the “lowest in history.”
There were fewer migrants in the 1950s-1960s and before World War II. And those low numbers were sustained over 12 months.
By vindictively revoking his visa, the Trump administration just did Osca Arias a favor, raising his profile again at age 84.
30 years ago, I was in Costa Rica working at the foundation that Oscar Arias founded with his Nobel Peace Prize money. It was my first paid job in this field (if $800 per month, minus my $400 in student loan payments, counts as “paid.”)
By vindictively revoking his visa, the Trump administration just did “don Óscar” a favor, raising his profile again at age 84. He held a news conference about it yesterday, covered by the New York Times and other outlets.
“I don’t know why they have revoked my visa,” Mr. Arias said at the news conference. “I don’t know if the revoking of my visa is some sort of punishment, because I say what I think.”
Mr. Arias has been critical of the Trump administration on social media. In February, he wrote on Facebook that Mr. Trump behaved like “a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do.”
“If someone wants to punish me in the hopes of silencing me, that isn’t going to work,” Mr. Arias said on Tuesday. He said that he did not have plans to travel to the United States, and did not provide information about what kind of visa he had and when it was set to expire.
A new moon, next to the Pleiades (a cluster of young stars in the constellation Taurus, just below the moon here), along with Jupiter (the bright object at top) and, just above the tree to the right of the airplane, the red giant star Aldebaran, also in Taurus, 65 light years away.
I took this with my phone while taking out the garbage here in DC.
Legal expert Elie Mystal of The Nation, with Anand Giridharadas at The Ink, discuss generational change in today's urgently needed political activism:
I enjoyed and recommend this conversation with legal expert Elie Mystal of The Nation, with Anand Giridharadas at The Ink.
But as a Gen X-er, I especially liked this part, about generational change in today’s urgently needed political activism:
One of the things that I have said in those rooms to generally older geriatric people is to get the hell out of the way of the young folks. Like, there is a sense amongst older people, I have found, that they don’t want to be a part of it if they’re not out front of it, if they’re not the leader of the whatever thing. And that they have earned that right by their age and experience.
And some of it comes from a good place. Like, they have something to give and something to teach and been there, done that. And I respect all of that.
But by the same token, your time’s up. You had your chance.
I’m Gen X. We had our shot. We blew it. Sorry.
But it’s time for the next guys to step up.
And as a Gen Xer—and don’t even get me started on boomers—as a Gen Xer, my job is to help.
Like, I’m a dad. I bring orange slices to the game. I’m not trying to get out there and go—I’m not trying to hit cleanup. I’m bringing orange slices. I’m taking the kids out for pizza afterwards.
Because I now, I have a mortgage now. I live in a house. I’ve got things. I can take people out for pizza.
But I need the person who doesn’t have a house, who doesn’t have a mortgage, who’s out there on the streets. That’s the person that’s going to be the leader, that’s going to be out there with the time and effort and whatever to do it.
His head shaved, unable to contact anyone, with no end date to his captivity, Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela whose tattoos commemorate his town’s Epiphany festival, is starting his 17th day deep inside El Salvador’s “Confinement of Terrorism” prison. And the Trump administration put him there.
His head shaved, unable to contact anyone, with no end date to his captivity, Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela whose tattoos commemorate his town’s Epiphany festival, is starting his 17th day deep inside El Salvador’s “Confinement of Terrorism” prison.
And the Trump administration put him there.
Jonathan Blitzer, at the New Yorker, just published a 5,000-word overview of what we know so far.
As part of the White House’s effort to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, ICE officers received a document called the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide,” which provided a point system based on different categories of incriminating behavior or associations. If an immigrant in custody scored six points or higher, according to the rubric, he “may be validated” as a gang member. Tattoos, which fall under the “Symbolism” category, constitute four points; social-media posts “displaying” gang symbols are two points. Using “open source material,” agents at the investigative arm of ICE compiled photos of tattoos considered suspicious: crowns, stars, the Michael Jordan Jumpman logo.
It is shaping up to be an “Abu Ghraib” or “family separation” level of stain on the United States, and there’s no resolution yet. On Thursday afternoon, the judge overseeing litigation about this use of the “Alien Enemies Act” will hold a hearing requiring the Trump administration “to show cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders.”
There's a lot of border, migration, and other Latin America human rights-related litigation going on. I'm keeping a running list of links to the Courtlistener pages hosting court documents from those cases.
There’s a lot of border, migration, and other Latin America human rights-related litigation going on in U.S. federal courts. I’m keeping a running list of links to the Courtlistener pages hosting court documents from those cases.
Here’s what’s on that page right now, but I’ll keep updating it. Add links in the comments if I’m missing any big ones.
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