MIAMI (AP) — Salvadoran nationals deported from the United States have been arbitrarily detained in El Salvador and then disappeared into the country’s prison system, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Monday.
The report said the detainees it documented were among more than 9,000 Salvadorans deported from the U.S. since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second administration in January 2025. It said some of those deported were sent to the Center for Terrorism Confinement — known as CECOT — including cases in which Salvadorans were deported alongside Venezuelans, according to the human-rights group.
Human Rights Watch said it did not determine an exact number of people who are subject to arbitrary detention. The group interviewed 20 relatives and lawyers of 11 Salvadorans who were deported from the U.S. between March and October 2025 and immediately detained in El Salvador, the report said. It added that the detainees cannot communicate with their families or talk to lawyers.
Juanita Goebertus, the Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said, “They have a right to due process, to be taken before a judge, and their relatives are entitled to know where they are being held and why.” She added, “Deportation cannot mean enforced disappearance.”
The report said El Salvadoran authorities have provided no information suggesting any of the detainees have been brought before a judge. It said relatives and lawyers of some of the detainees do not know where they are being held or why. In five cases, it said relatives knew the deportees’ whereabouts through litigation at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
El Salvador’s Presidential Office did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
Rights groups and Human Rights Watch said the detentions have become part of a broader crackdown carried out under a “state of emergency” declared by President Nayib Bukele in March 2022 to suppress gangs. Human Rights Watch said the measure has been extended for nearly four years and suspends key constitutional rights. It said around 91,300 people have been detained. Bukele has said 8,000 innocent people have been released, according to the report.
The report said most detainees have been detained based on scant evidence and vague accusations and that they have very little access to due process. It said detainees are often judged in mass trials and that lawyers regularly lose track of clients. It also recounted that prisons have been accused of human rights abuses for years, including beatings by prison guards, sexual abuse, and deteriorating prison conditions.
Human Rights Watch also described the impact on families. It said many relatives live with uncertainty about whether they will ever see their loved ones again, and it included accounts from mothers who asked not to be identified out of fear of arrest and reprisals.
One mother living in Maryland, who asked not to be identified for fear of being arrested in the United States, said she still knows nothing about her son and wants information that he is alive. She said, “I still know nothing about my son, nothing,” and “I want information. I want someone to tell me that my son is OK, that he’s alive.” The article reported that she said she last talked to her 29-year-old son when he called her about three days before he was deported, and that she learned he was in El Salvador six months after the deportation when she saw a photo Bukele posted online showing detainees at CECOT. She said her son crossed the Mexican border when he was 17 and lived in the U.S. for more than a decade.
Another mother living in Texas, who also asked not to be identified, said she learned her 22-year-old son had been deported to El Salvador when she saw him in a photograph posted online of Salvadorans at CECOT. She said, “I’ve never spoken to him,” adding, “It’s total silence. We know nothing about him, we don’t know what’s going to happen.” The report said she has called authorities in both countries countless times since his deportation about a year ago, but none has provided information.
The report said the Trump administration has described several deported Salvadorans as members of the MS-13 gang. Human Rights Watch said only 10.5% of the 9,000 Salvadorans deported had a conviction for a violent or potentially violent crime in the U.S. On March 15, 2025, the report said 23 Salvadorans were deported to El Salvador, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was later returned to the U.S. following a judge’s order.
Associated Press reporter Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.