A coalition of democracy groups sued the State Department Thursday, challenging the Trump administration’s agreement with the government of El Salvador to house more than 200 migrants deported to a notorious prison.
The groups, represented by the left-leaning legal organization Democracy Forward, said the government took “unprecedented action” to transport migrants living in the United States “beyond the reach of U.S. law.”
El Salvador is reportedly being paid some $15 million by the Trump administration to house migrants in the country. The lawsuit marks the first legal challenge to the deal between Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
“That action shocks the conscience,” Democracy Forward lawyer Jessica Anne Morton said in the complaint. “It also violates the law.”
The suit cites the extreme conditions within the CECOT mega prison, known by its acronym in Spanish, where prisoners sleep in crowded cells with bunks three levels high, and are not allowed to go outside or have visitors of any kind.
“Executive branch leaders have stated that the government plans to continue availing itself of the Agreement, sending more people, including potentially U.S. citizens, to indefinite detention in what is an effective black site,” Morton wrote.
The challengers alleged that the State Department’s actions bypass federal immigration law and international treaties while violating constitutional rights to due process, legal counsel and protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
They say the Administrative Procedure Act requires agency actions, like the agreement, to be “both reasonable and reasonably explained.”
“The Agreement is neither,” the complaint reads.
During a trip to El Salvador to visit the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) was told financial considerations were at play as they kept the man locked away.
Van Hollen had pressed Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa about why Abrego Garcia was being imprisoned when he had no criminal history in either country.
“His answer was that the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador to keep him at CECOT,” Van Hollen said during an April trip to the Central American country.
Numerous migrants have challenged Trump’s plans to deport them to El Salvador, including under the Alien Enemies Act, but the suit is the first to challenge the agreement between the two countries.
Five groups brought the lawsuit: Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Immigration Equality and California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and CEO, called the practice “unAmerican” in a statement.
“Our lawsuit makes clear: No president—past or present—can buy their way out of the Constitution to disappear people behind a paywall of impunity,” she said.
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