Trump Was Lying—He Deported a Lot of Legal Immigrants to El Salvador

More than 50 of the 240 Venezuelan men that President Trump deported to the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador came to the United States legally, poking yet another hole in the Trump administration’s narrative that these are all dangerous Tren de Aragua gang members. 

“Cato published my review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison,” wrote David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.”

Two dozen of the men were parolees who came in at normal ports of entry, 21 came through CPB One appointments, four were granted refugee status by the U.S. government, and one had a tourist visa, according to Cato’s review. The Trump administration still had them all deported on the grounds that they were gang members who had illegally infiltrated our precious country. He even went so far as to invoke the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798.  

“Well this is a time of war. Because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level.… Other nations emptied their jails into the United States, it’s an invasion,” Trump said at the time of the deportations. “These are criminals, many many criminals … murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords. People from mental institutions. That’s an invasion.”

We now know this is completely false. 

“DHS continues to slander & lie about [the migrants], calling them all ‘illegal aliens.’ When confronted with the lies, DHS lies more. For instance, it says Ricardo ‘entered illegally at a port of entry via the CBP One.’ It literally just describes a legal entry as ‘illegal,’” Bier wrote. “We found DHS labeling LEGAL immigrants gang members for tattoos: roses, clocks, playing cards covering up a scar from a childhood accident, a Puerto Rican song lyric, the Real Madrid logo, a callout to Call Of Duty videogame, many crowns w/ loved ones’ names like these on Andry [José Hernández Romero].” 

As Bier noted, the Trump administration could care less about the innocence of these men or about the authority of the Supreme Court to stop his deportation crackdown. Anyone getting in his way is simply a leftist, activist judge who is “sabotaging democracy.” The administration continues to spin tall tales of criminality while fathers, sons, brothers, and innocent men rot in a Salvadoran gulag.