CECOT: Trump Sent Them To Hell. Now He's Erasing Them Altogether. [View all]

Source: HuffPost

Trump Sent Them To Hell. Now He's Erasing Them Altogether.

Dozens of U.S. CECOT detainees’ immigration cases have been dismissed – denying Trump’s victims their day in court.

By Matt Shuham and Jessica Schulberg
Jun 16, 2025, 05:45 AM EDT

The only information Ysqueibel Yonaiquer Peñaloza Chirinos’ family has received about him in the past three months came from former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz probably didn’t mean to help. But last month, as part of a propaganda video for the far-right One America News Network, he took a tour of the infamous Salvadoran prison to which President Donald Trump has sent hundreds of U.S. immigrants for indefinite detention, without charge, trial or sentencing: El Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT. By the time Gaetz arrived, the men Trump had rendered to the prison had already been there for two months.

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A month later, she hasn’t seen any more of her son.

In his absence, the U.S. government has worked to remove Peñaloza, who is Venezuelan, from domestic immigration court entirely. Six days after Gaetz’s prison tour, an immigration judge granted the Department of Homeland Security’s request to dismiss Peñaloza’s case. As far as the United States immigration court system is concerned, he does not exist.

At least 24 people sent to CECOT have had their immigration cases dismissed in their absence, ...

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Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cecot-detainees-us-immigration-court-asylum-dismissals_n_684c6a4be4b070091d777adc