‘Definitely Unprecedented’: NBC News Reporter on Trump Sending Migrants to El Salvador Prisons ‘Without Due Process’
Julia Ainsley, NBC News’s homeland security correspondent, joined MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera on Monday to discuss the Trump administration deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to supermax prisons in El Salvador, a move she called “definitely unprecedented.”
“Julia, there’s this whole third country piece of the story, right? Because these Venezuelan migrants, who again are reportedly part of this gang, weren’t deported back to Venezuela. They were taken to El Salvador. That’s where we’ve been showing the video from. That was released by officials there in El Salvador saying they’re here, we welcome them, and they’re being held there for the U.S. The U.S. is paying the El Salvadorian officials to hold them. Is this something that has precedent?” Cabrera asked.
“It does have precedent, but of course, not under the Alien Enemies Act. It’s actually something that Trump tried in his first administration, and he’s been doing it with some regularity in this administration, mainly taking people from other countries back to the countries of Panama and Honduras,” Ainsley replied, adding:
We also know he has a similar agreement with Guatemala, but we have yet to see nationals who are not from Guatemala be deported to that country yet, although that could happen any day. As far as El Salvador, this all goes back to an agreement between the president of El Salvador and Marco Rubio, when he visited the country very early on in this administration, and the president said that he welcomed anyone from the United States, whether they be immigrants or Americans convicted of crimes here, to come and stay in these super max prisons.
Those images you see, that’s that huge prison that the president of El Salvador has built. We understand multiple men can share those beds, they’re concrete slabs, without so much as a mattress or a sheet. Very extreme conditions there.
And to think that people are now being sent there without due process, Ana, that part is definitely unprecedented. And it really changes the calculation of what this administration is willing to do to show how far it will go on deportations. One other thing I want to point out is that in the past, for many administrations, it’s been hard to deport any Venezuelans back to Venezuela.
It was something that really hampered the Biden administration because there were so many Venezuelans coming into the country and there was nowhere to send them back to. But recently, Trump has had an agreement with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to send some Venezuelans back. And in fact, he has done so. So it begs the question, why were these men sent to El Salvador and not to Venezuela?
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.
