On 7 April, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could continue deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador’s “supermax” CECOT prison, referred to by observers as a “human rights black hole.” In March, more than 260 people were deported and placed in the facility under the US’s controversial agreement with El […]
El Salvador
Submission to the Committee on Migrant Workers: El Salvador
Since opening a dedicated immigration detention facility in 2008, little information has surfaced regarding the conditions that detainees face inside. During the Covid-19 pandemic meanwhile, concerns have been raised regarding the country’s quarantine facilities in which large numbers of returnees have been confined. […]
El Salvador Immigration Detention Data Profile (2020)
El Salvador Detention Data (2020) The latest detention-related data from El Salvador, including immigration and detention-related statistics, domestic laws and policies, international law, and institutional indicators. View the El Salvador Detention Data Profile Related Reading: El Salvador: Country Page Submission to the UN Committee on Migrant Workers (El Salvador) (September 2020) Working Paper: Immigration Detention […]
El Salvador: Covid-19 and Detention
Responding to the Global Detention Project’s Covid-19 Survey, the UN Human Rights regional office in Panama (ROCA) reported that El Salvador has not established a moratorium on new immigration detention orders and that the country is not contemplating the measure. ROCA also explained that no immigration detainees have been released and that there are no […]
El Salvador: Covid-19 and Detention
In early March, El Salvador introduced a strict quarantine lock-down, despite authorities announcing that there were no confirmed cases of Covid-19. The country’s measures—which have included the use of the armed forces and national police to enforce quarantine, and the detention of people in forced confinement for breaching the lock-down—have prompted concerns that President Bukele […]
Immigration Detention through the Lens of International Human Rights: Lessons from South America
Why hasn’t South America witnessed the same growth in immigration detention regimes that has occurred in the rest of the world? This Global Detention Project Working Paper discusses developments across the region through the lens of international human rights standards. […]
Immigration Detention in El Salvador
Nearly 40 percent of El Salvador’s population lives abroad and yet the country makes a concerted effort to remove undocumented foreigners. Although immigration detention is not properly regulated in Salvadoran law, the country has established a specialised detention facility, which holds more than a 1,000 people a year as they await deportation. […]
Donde Esta La Frontera?
IN THE EARLY MORNING OF DECEMBER 3, 2001, Kanu Okany Patel, a 35- year-old undocumented migrant from Gujarat, India, furtively made his way to the bathroom of a government-run detention center in Guatemala City, tied one end of a sturdy cord he’d secretly stripped from a window curtain around his neck, the other around a […]
