Henrry Jose Albornoz Quintero was scheduled to attend an immigration courtroom listening to in El Paso Thursday. He didn’t. The immigration decide presiding over his case was not completely happy.
“He simply disappeared? What occurred?”
The Trump administration lawyer both couldn’t say — or wouldn’t.
“All I can disclose in the meanwhile is that he’s now not in ICE custody,” the lawyer stated, in keeping with the notes of Albornoz Quintero’s lawyer, who attended the listening to.
The lawyer believes his shopper is languishing at Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), the Salvadoran mega-prison the place the USA despatched a whole lot of migrants final month. The Trump administration has despatched some individuals to the jail beneath the Alien Enemies Act, a hardly ever used wartime energy; Trump claims alleged Tren de Aragua gang members are the equal to an invading military.
Others had been despatched to CECOT after receiving customary deportation orders from immigration judges.
Albornoz Quintero’s lawyer John Dutton believes the federal government has eliminated him to CECOT as an “alien enemy” on the premise of his tattoos alone, a troubling trend that different attorneys and relations of detainees have flagged as effectively.
The Trump administration has not supplied any updates on Albornoz Quintero’s standing, Dutton advised HuffPost. However Albornoz Quintero’s title is amongst these on a authorities listing of Venezuelan detainees despatched to El Salvador that was published by CBS News.
“He doesn’t even know that his baby’s been born,” Dutton stated of Albornoz Quintero, whose spouse gave beginning a number of days in the past within the U.S. “His spouse is doing all this on her personal in another country, doesn’t communicate the language, doesn’t have any household right here. She’s struggling.”
On Thursday, the decide in Albornoz Quintero’s case careworn that he didn’t blame the federal government lawyer personally for the lack of knowledge about Albornoz Quintero’s whereabouts. However he referred to as the state of affairs “ridiculous,” in keeping with Dutton’s notes and stated, “That is actually irritating me.” The federal government lawyer stated he may “elevate” the courtroom’s request for extra info. And he stated he would search a “continuance” of the case, successfully kicking the can down the street. The listening to ended.
Ever because the Trump administration shipped a whole lot of migrants to CECOT, weird episodes like Albornoz Quintero’s listening to Thursday aren’t uncommon; the identical factor played out in a listening to for Albornoz Quintero earlier this month, and different attorneys who spoke to HuffPost described comparable scenes. And with the federal government refusing to even acknowledge what’s occurred to their shoppers, attorneys coping with CECOT instances have expressed frustration and despair at what they see as the shortage of authorized choices to get their shoppers out of El Salvador.
The U.S. State Division has for years said the Central American nation is tormented by human rights considerations, together with credible reviews of “illegal or arbitrary killings; enforced disappearance; torture or merciless, inhuman, or degrading remedy or punishment by safety forces,” and “harsh and life-threatening jail situations.”
The actual fact sample of the detainees despatched to El Salvador “suits each definition of an enforced disappearance beneath worldwide regulation,” stated Denise L. Gilman, who co-directs the immigration clinic on the College of Texas Faculty of Legislation. Gilman stated the outline of the listening to Thursday “was precisely what I’ve heard from others about what’s occurring.”
“It suits each definition of an enforced disappearance beneath worldwide regulation.”
– Denise L. Gilman, co-director of the immigration clinic on the College of Texas Faculty of Legislation
“Black web site” isn’t a authorized time period, however “I’d name this a black web site, completely,” she added of CECOT.
“It’s a spot the place persons are being held in torturous situations with none clear authorized authority for his or her detention, and in addition with none construction or continuing or authority charged with trying on the state of affairs,” Gilman stated.
Now, weeks after the Trump administration arguably defied a decide’s order and flew a number of planeloads of detainees to El Salvador — the place a video released by the nation’s president confirmed them being manhandled and having their heads shaved at CECOT — their future is unsure.
‘Not In ICE Custody’
“The system’s probably not designed for the manager department to simply flout the legal guidelines,” stated lawyer Joseph Giardina, whose shopper Frizgeralth de Jesus Cornejo Pulgar is believed to be in CECOT.
Cornejo Pulgar got here into the USA legally, making an appointment on the federal government’s since-discontinued CBP One app, Giardina advised HuffPost. He doesn’t have any prison historical past, and his obvious expulsion to CECOT is “clearly based mostly on tattoos,” Giardina stated.
At Cornejo Pulgar’s personal immigration courtroom listening to Thursday, “the federal government didn’t know something, they definitely weren’t ready to do something. They didn’t say something. They requested for a continuance,” Giardina stated. His shopper wasn’t there, and authorities attorneys equally would solely say “your shopper will not be in ICE custody,” he recalled.
“Nobody desires to defend an indefensible place,” Giardina stated. “And clearly, there’s pending litigation. So everybody’s terrified, nobody desires to lose their job on [the government’s] finish, so that they’re simply giving the corporate line: ‘Not in ICE custody, that’s all we’re keen to substantiate.’”
“It’s fucking absurd,” he added.
Attorneys like Giardina and Dutton, the latter of whom stated the Trump administration was finishing up “government-sponsored kidnapping,” don’t see many viable choices to get their shoppers out of one of many world’s most infamous prisons, despite the fact that they’ve by no means been convicted of a criminal offense, and despite the fact that the USA authorities says it paid thousands and thousands of {dollars} for the detention house.
The Supreme Courtroom ordered Thursday that the Trump administration work to facilitate the return to the U.S. of 1 man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration has admitted mustn’t have been despatched to El Salvador. However even in that case, the federal government seems to be dragging its ft, saying in a submitting Friday that “Overseas affairs can’t function on judicial timelines.” In courtroom Friday, Deputy Assistant Legal professional Common Drew Ensign said he didn’t have any info to offer the courtroom on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and that the administration was “not but ready” to share info on something it had completed to facilitate his launch.
Individually, the excessive courtroom has temporarily allowed Trump to renew Alien Enemies Act expulsions, although the courtroom said individuals focused beneath the president’s declaration have a slim proper to make a habeas corpus declare in a conservative Texas courtroom — a difficult argument in a difficult venue.
Habeas petitions, which require authorities to justify an individual’s detention, usually rely upon a given defendant being bodily current in a given judicial district. What about all these already in CECOT? No courtroom has addressed the problem head-on.
“I don’t know precisely what must occur. The issue is, [the Supreme Court didn’t] handle what occurred to the people who already bought deported … What concerning the toothpaste that’s already out of the tube?” Giardina requested.
“Habeas petitions go to the federal district courts the place any person is housed, or the place they’re bodily positioned,” Giardina stated. “Convincing a district courtroom [judge] in Texas that he nonetheless has jurisdiction over a habeas declare for a physique that’s now not in his jurisdiction — in all probability going to be a tall order. The argument could be that he was in your jurisdiction when his rights had been violated, however once more, by no means occurred earlier than.”
The lawyer stated “increased degree motion” was wanted, probably together with video hearings in El Salvador. However the subsequent steps are removed from clear.
“Even when we’re profitable in a habeas petition, which would be the subsequent step, what’s the assure that they will come again?” Dutton stated.
“You’d assume that if the federal government is paying El Salvador to maintain these individuals, they nonetheless have some management over their potential to return them. However I don’t know.”
‘Brute Authority’
The issues with CECOT don’t cease with individuals accused by the Trump administration of being “alien enemies.” Along with that group, over 100 individuals have been despatched to CECOT in the middle of the usual deportation course of. Which means an immigration decide in the USA deemed them “detachable,” or deportable. Whereas some deportees had been Salvadoran, others weren’t — and had been despatched to the nation nonetheless.
A type of individuals is believed to be Victor Andres Ortega Burbano, a 24-year-old Venezuelan citizen with muscular dystrophy affecting his proper arm. Ortega Burbano and his spouse arrived in the USA in 2022, and he was finally granted “momentary protected standing” final 12 months. A number of months later, an immigration decide ordered him eliminated to Venezuela, according to a court declaration filed by Michelle Brané of Collectively & Free, a nonprofit that helps households in search of asylum in the USA. The group has arrange a WhatsApp hotline for the family of Venezuelans believed to have been despatched to El Salvador.
After receiving his elimination order, Ortega Burbano was launched from immigration detention. Months later, on March 11, he was surrounded by ICE brokers and arrested whereas checking his mailbox. After being taken to an ICE detention facility in Texas for a pair weeks, he advised his spouse over the cellphone on March 28 that he had been knowledgeable by ICE brokers that he was to be deported to Venezuela, in keeping with the declaration. As an alternative, he went to Guantánamo Bay. Then, “on March 31, 2025, his household realized that he was on the March 30 flight to El Salvador via a social media put up,” the declaration stated.
Brané stated CECOT was “mainly often called a black gap.” She apprehensive concerning the lack of medical take care of individuals with preexisting situations like Ortega Burbano.
“Even when they’d a elimination order, sending you to a jail the place you’re going to die in El Salvador is insane,” stated Brané, who was beforehand the immigration detention ombudsman on the Division of Homeland Safety throughout the Biden administration, and previous to that, the manager director of the division’s Household Reunification Activity Power.
Collectively & Free has tracked slightly below 100 of the individuals who had been despatched to El Salvador, round half of whom had elimination orders, Brané stated.
“I don’t assume anyone, except they had been advised on the final minute, was advised they had been going to El Salvador,” she stated.
That’s an essential level, as a result of a federal district courtroom in Boston is presently dealing with a case regarding the deportation of individuals to so-called “third nations.” On March 29, a federal decide paused all third-country removals nationwide except detainees had acquired written discover and a possibility to pursue a authorized case based mostly on their concern of going to a given nation.
The subsequent day, March 30, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a memo that the DHS “third nation elimination” coverage includes receiving “diplomatic assurances that aliens faraway from the USA won’t be persecuted or tortured.” If such assurances aren’t acquired — or if the State Division doesn’t discover them to be “credible” — solely then should DHS inform somebody of the nation to which they’re being eliminated, in keeping with the coverage. What’s extra, beneath the coverage, immigration officers don’t ask if somebody has a concern of being despatched to a given nation. Fairly, they need to deliver up that concern on their very own accord with a view to be screened for protections beneath the Conference In opposition to Torture.
On March 31, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced “a profitable counter-terrorism operation with our allies in El Salvador” concentrating on 17 individuals who he referred to as “violent criminals from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 organizations, together with murderers and rapists.” And Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele revealed a video exhibiting a number of detainees being taken off of a airplane in El Salvador and to CECOT the night time prior, arms twisted behind their backs.
The timeline Brané and others have laid out suggests the administration might have violated the decide in Boston’s restraining order with the newest El Salvador flight. On Monday, an appeals courtroom declined the Trump administration’s request to remain the district courtroom’s restraining order, writing that the administration had “made a shifting goal of their elimination coverage.”
The Trump administration didn’t reply an in depth listing of questions for this story.
“Nothing about what the administration is doing is in compliance with U.S. statute, with worldwide obligations, or another authorized norm,” stated Gilman, of the immigration clinic on the College of Texas Faculty of Legislation.
“It’s a brand new paradigm of brute authority.”
