Source: United States Senator for Washington State Patty Murray
60 Minutes: U.S. sent 238 migrants to Salvadoran mega-prison; documents indicate most have no apparent criminal records
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s remarks on the Senate Floor***
Washington, D.C. – Today U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, took to the Senate floor to deliver a speech on President Trump’s lawless immigration policy. Senator Murray highlighted the absence of any semblance of due process for—in many cases—legal residents with no criminal record being detained and deported—and even sent to a prison in El Salvador with no outside contact and no end date. She also discussed how Trump’s crackdown has caused confusion for international students, fear among farmworkers, and led to U.S. citizens being detained, having their homes raided, and even to some U.S. citizens who are children being deported with their parents.
Emphasizing the complete lack of transparency from the Trump administration on why the people sent to El Salvador are being detained and what is being done to bring them home, Senator Murray demanded more information from the Trump administration about its recent actions—from the full details of the secret agreement with El Salvador, to the names of all the individuals sent to El Salvador, their current status, what sort of evidence and process has been afforded them, and what sort of contact they can make with lawyers and family. She also pressed for a good faith effort to follow Supreme Court orders, to return everyone wrongly sent to El Salvador, and to establish lines of communication for individuals to speak with their lawyers and families.
“I heard from one of my Republican colleagues say last week ‘I don’t see any pattern here.’ Well, I ask him now—I ask everyone now—to pay attention to the full picture. Because of course you won’t see the pattern if you just look at one case and you ignore the many, many others,” said Senator Murray. “There is the case of Andry Hernandez Romero, he’s a barber who came here legally, he has no criminal record. There is the case of Arturo Suárez Trejo, he’s a musician, he came here legally, he has no criminal record. There is the case of Merwil Gutiérrez, who—you guessed it—came here legally, no criminal record. In fact, he was apparently grabbed by mistake. One officer reportedly said ‘No, he’s not the one,’ and another said, ‘Take him anyway.’ Trump sent them all to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador—with no trial. Disappeared. They have no contact with their lawyer. No contact with family. We do not know if they are alive, and they don’t know if anyone is even advocating for them. How hopeless that must feel. How dark. So, is that enough of a pattern for my Republican colleagues? Do you still need more?”
Senator Murray has championed comprehensive and humane immigration reform throughout her Senate career, repeatedly pushing for legislative solutions that would offer a fair pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America, including Dreamers, farmworkers, and those with Temporary Protected Status. During Trump’s first administration, Senator Murray helped lead the charge in pushing back against Trump’s appalling treatment of migrant children and families at the southern border— cosponsoring the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act, which would require unaccompanied children and vulnerable individuals to be provided with legal assistance during immigration court proceedings, the Stop Cruelty to Migrant Children Act to end family separations at the border, and legislation to prevent the separation of families at sensitive locations such as schools, religious institutions, and hospitals, among many other efforts.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below, and video is HERE:
“Thank you, M. President.
“Over the past month we have seen a wave of righteous outrage across the country in response to President Trump’s completely lawless move to disappear hundreds of people to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, without even the barest semblance of due process.
“And as I join my colleagues in calling for the Trump Administration to abide by the Supreme Court ruling, and facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a man they said, in court, was sent to El Salvador by mistake—I have to emphasize, his case is one of many where Trump has completely shredded our norms and laws. In addition to Garcia, Trump sent off some two hundred people—including innocent people who were in our country legally—to a foreign prison without any due process whatsoever.
“And they did it all on the basis of some arrangement negotiated in secret and paid for with millions of taxpayer dollars. What we do know, is that many of these people were sent there without any criminal conviction—the Administration actually admitted that! In their own court filing the Trump Administration acknowledged that many of these people have no criminal records in the U.S. And yet, all of these people have now been imprisoned in a foreign country with no end date in sight—unconstitutional doesn’t even begin to cover that.
“There are so many questions, basic questions, about this that we all should be demanding answers to. At the barest, smallest, slimmest minimum, and I mean as a starting point, the Administration must release more details about this secret agreement where it is paying El Salvador with our taxpayer dollars to imprison people without a trial. Details like: who all is being imprisoned, how long is El Salvador holding these people with Trump’s orders, how many people is El Salvador going to imprison under this agreement, what outside contact is possible for those people, and how do we learn their status and condition—are they alive, are they healthy? What are those details?
“Most of these details we do have are from reporting—and news reports say the deal was only for El Salvador to take convicted criminals—so why did Trump send people with no criminal record? And importantly: where in the world is this money coming from? Does anyone here remember voting to pass a single dollar in appropriations to fund a torture prison in El Salvador? Because I sure don’t! And last I checked Congress has the power of the purse.
“You know what else we don’t know? We still don’t know the names of everyone they did this to. Think about that. We don’t even have their names! That information should be released immediately. Today. Because there are families who still have no confirmation where their loved ones are, and the only list we have right now was not even released by the Administration! It was reported by the press.
“Some families only learned their son was gone, their husband was gone, their father was gone, through photos of them being marched into a torture prison. This is the first, last, and only update we have on just about all of those people. We don’t know if they are alive. We don’t know if they are being treated decently. We don’t even know if they have been moved. Even their lawyers can’t reach them.
“Here’s what we do know: there are many names on the El Salvador list of people who were here legally, who had no criminal record. That seems to be getting lost in the debate for some of my Republican colleagues. This is not about any one case, or any one person, it is about a lawless system for the President to deny due process. And when you cut out due process, you put innocent people in harm’s way.
“I heard from one of my Republican colleagues say last week ‘I don’t see any pattern here.’ Well, I ask him now—I ask everyone now—to pay attention to the full picture. Because of course you won’t see the pattern if you just look at one case and you ignore the many, many others.
“There is the case of Andry Hernandez Romero, he’s a barber who came here legally, he has no criminal record.
“There is the case of Arturo Suárez Trejo, he’s a musician, he came here legally, he has no criminal record.
“There is the case of Merwil Gutiérrez, who—you guessed it—came here legally, no criminal record. In fact, he was apparently grabbed by mistake. One officer reportedly said ‘No, he’s not the one,’ and another said, ‘Take him anyway.’
“Trump sent them all to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador—with no trial. Disappeared. They have no contact with their lawyer. No contact with family. We do not know if they are alive, and they don’t know if anyone is even advocating for them. How hopeless that must feel. How dark.
“So, is that enough of a pattern for my Republican colleagues? Do you still need more?
“Because there’s also Jerce Reyes Barrios, he’s a soccer player, he came here legally. Again—no criminal record.
“There’s Gustavo Aguilera, a food delivery driver. Legally here. No criminal record.
“Or Anyelo Sarabia. Here legally. No criminal record.
“I mean, how many more before my colleagues can actually admit this is a pattern? How many people have to be disappeared with no due process before it becomes a problem? Because for me—one is too many. And the pattern isn’t even over yet. Trump was reportedly ready to disappear even more people to El Salvador—before the Supreme Court put its foot down. In this latest round, the Trump Administration was preparing to disappear a man who came here legally, had no record, except traffic violations!
“Another was a young man accused of being a gang member because of a photo with a toy water gun. That is the level of so-called ‘evidence’ that gets you locked away in a foreign torture prison under President Trump. And I will keep saying it Mr. President, most of the people they disappeared have no criminal records, and many were even here legally. They came here for a better life, and Trump disappeared them based on nothing more than tattoos that say ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ or that they celebrate soccer teams, or a daughter’s birth, or autism awareness.
“And Mr. President, I realize, I keep hammering home that—many of these people are not criminals—and many of these people came here legally. But I do want to remind my colleagues, this question is not whether someone who was vanished to El Salvador without a trace is good or bad, the question is whether everyone in this country—including American citizens—have the rights they were promised in our Constitution.
“At the end of the day, this is not about who these people are, it is about who we are—whether we are a country of due process, or not. A country of laws, or not.
“Trump has said where he stands. He literally said ‘We don’t have time’ to give them due process. If the Trump Administration think’s someone is a criminal, if they are really bad and dangerous, prove it in court. Prove it! Just simply prove it! It shouldn’t be hard. That is how this works. Everyone in this country understands that.
“You can’t just say ‘criminals don’t get due process’—when due process is how you determine who is a criminal in the first place! I mean, in the case of one person they sent to El Salvador, not only did the government’s file against him show no criminal record, it also got his name wrong several times, and used two different identification numbers! Those are pretty major errors to make when you are locking someone away. The kind of errors that due process helps to avoid.
“That’s not some theory—we are seeing that happen in another case right now. There is a couple that Trump is saying are part of a gang, but instead of just disappearing them with no trial to speak of, the Administration was forced to prove it, to prove it in court. And you know what happened? The government failed. The judge found the government’s claims, ‘completely and wholly unsubstantiated’ and ordered the couple to be released.
“That just goes to show, if we ignore our laws, if we tear down the guardrails that saved that couple, it’s not criminals who pay the price, it is innocent people. Because due process protects them too! Due process allows us to confirm whether people are lawfully present. Due process lets us confirm whether Trump is about to send them to a foreign prison. Due process lets us confirm whether people are guilty—instead of going off how they look, or what tattoo they have.
“And at the end of the day, due process means they get an actual determination of guilt or innocence, instead of getting disappeared with a question mark. But no one here was told they are facing ‘X’ years in a foreign prison.
“There is no end date in El Salvador! Because there was no sentence! Because there was no trial! There was just Trump, ignoring our laws, ignoring our courts, and sending people to gulags to rot, to die, to never be heard from again. How can anyone ignore that outrageous breach of our laws—of our values!
“And M. President—as a co-equal branch of this government, I want to impress upon my colleagues: It is not just due process that is getting trampled here, it is basic checks and balances. Trump is imprisoning these people under the Alien Enemies Act. He is using a war power. We are not at war! Everyone here should know that. After all, Congress, we, have to vote to declare war. I remember every war vote we have taken in my time here in Congress—and I can tell you—there has never been a vote on this so-called war Trump declared all on his own.
“As if that weren’t enough, earlier this month the National Intelligence Council, the National Intelligence Council, determined that Venezuela is not directing an ‘invasion’ by gangs. That directly undercuts what Trump claimed when he announced his illegal end run around Congress. Here’s a simple question for everyone, there is no invasion, there is no war, so why is Trump invoking a wartime authority?
“But add on top of that—that Trump has reached some secret, multi-million-dollar deal to pay El Salvador to imprison these people without a trial. I’m Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee—I can tell you, we did not include a single cent—not one penny!—for running torture prisons in El Salvador in our last funding bill.
“Congress has the power of the purse, but Trump is picking our pockets to fund his own personal gulag. And by the way, while we talk about checks and balances, let’s not forget how the Trump Administration is arresting judges, his allies and advisors are attacking judges publicly and calling to impeach those who disagree with him, and of course, Trump is blatantly ignoring the courts. And worse than that, the White House is in open defiance of the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court wrote the Administration must facilitate Mr. Garcia’s release. The White House wrote that he is never coming back.
“The Supreme Court wrote people being targeted under the Alien Enemies Act must have a reasonable opportunity to file for habeas corpus. The Trump Administration said, ‘no—we will give them 12 hours.’
“Foreign policy is not an end run around the courts or the constitution. The President cannot just be given unilateral authority to cut completely unethical deals with foreign nations. What happens when a President negotiates in secret to have his political rivals detained abroad? Is that allowed? Can he argue the courts can’t require him to call such a deal off? Or maybe he just denies it and says any agreements are state secrets? Does that work?
“If President Trump said he would pay El Salvador $6 million to assassinate his rivals—I think we would all agree that is blatantly unconstitutional. And if the court said he had to facilitate a reversal of that deal, and he said ‘well.. it’s a sovereign nation… I can’t stop them from assassinating anyone,’—I think we all would have a huge problem with that. So, do we want to say that is wrong now—or are we going to have to wait until he tries it?
“What are we waiting for? We cannot just all stand by silent as the President pries open a pandora’s box that is all together unprecedented—and that poses a direct threat to our Republic. And let’s cut through this BS where Trump and El Salvador are both trying to pretend there is no way to facilitate the return of people sent there wrongly.
“Cause here’s the thing: El Salvador has already sent back people that Trump tried to disappear. El Salvador immediately sent back a Nicaraguan individual. And they sent back women—yeah, Trump tried to disappear women to their all-male torture prison in El Salvador. If anyone wants to try and pretend this was some careful vetting process, pleaseexplain that to me. So it’s not like El Salvador can’t send people back—they have already done that.
“The Administration should be making clear—one: that these people were wrongly sent, and two: that, as with others wrongly sent, they need to be returned. Though, I want to keep in mind of course, that ‘wrongly sent’ is still an enormous understatement. The reality is these people were completely denied due process. The reality is President Trump is not just disappearing these people to El Salvador, he is disappearing our most basic constitutional rights, and he is doing it in plain sight.
“Not just in El Salvador either! Right here, in America, his immigration crackdown is upturning lives, and overturning some of our most basic values, like freedom of speech. We have people who are here legally—who are being detained and threatened with deportation. Not for any crime, not for any violence, but for speech, for protest, for things as simple and fundamental as writing an op-ed the Administration disagreed with.
“In America, the land of the free and the land of free speech, is dissent the bar for deportation now? Is that what this country has come to? What next? How far does Trump’s new standard apply? Can you get deported for saying we shouldn’t invade Canada? Can you get detained for an op-ed saying Greenland is not going to be a state? Are you going to have legal status revoked for admitting Biden won the 2020 election?
“Because that may seem outrageous—but it also seems perfectly in line with Trump’s new policy which amounts to—disagree with the President and your rights are gone. That is fundamentally un-American.
“And beyond people who are being targeted for protest, there are thousands of students in this country, that Trump is trying to push out over minor issues; fishing citations, jay walking, speeding tickets, even charges that were dismissed. So far, some 1,800 foreign students are having their visa revoked with little to no explanation, to say nothing of due process.
“That includes students in Washington state, my homes state, at the UW, at Gonzaga, at Shoreline Community College—where I once worked—my alma mater WSU, and more! It’s not clear whether these students have done anything wrong, and it’s not clear in some cases—what exactly they are supposed to do next. Because when the Administration can’t revoke visas—it has been trying to remove students’ records—something courts have already ruled against.
“One of the judges really put it best. And I want to read this and quote it to you. This is a judge. ‘I’ve got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS. And now, his two very experienced lawyers can’t even tell him whether or not he’s here legally, because the court can’t tell him whether or not he’s here legally, because the government’s counsel can’t tell him if he’s here legally.’
“M. President, the point seems to be, if we can’t deport you, we can scare and confuse you. And to add even more confusion, DOJ announced they were reversing course on some of this, only to then say they are still working on a plan to push out all these students. And by the way, we are only still scratching the surface of just how inhumane Trump’s immigration crackdown has become.
“Trump is slashing funds to ensure 26,000 migrant kids have legal assistance—meaning more four-year-olds are being marched in front of immigration judges, expected to make their own legal case with a plushy toy. Trump is also trying to mass cancel protected status for people who came here who were fleeing harsh conditions and dictators. Trump is sending Christian refugees and women back to live under the Taliban—where they will face near certain persecution. Trump is sending ICE officials to elementary schools, where they have tried to gain access by lying about having permission from parents to speak with their kids.
“ICE officials are arresting people with maximum violence and lawlessness—showing up without a judicial warrant, since the Trump Administration says it is fine to storm into someone’s house without one, showing up in masks, grabbing people off the streets without any badge or identification to distinguish them from a kidnapper, whisking people away in unmarked cars, and even smashing in windshields.
“M. President, back in my home state of Washington—I have heard from folks who saw that firsthand. Last month, ICE aggressively detained Lelo, a farmworker in my state—and it appears he may have even been targeted because of his advocacy for better working conditions for his fellow farmworkers. They are still denying him bond—despite no criminal charges. I spoke with his wife last week—who watched in horror as they arrested her husband shortly after he dropped her off at work. She told me through tears about how officers broke his window and pushed him against the car. And how, Lelo wants to be free so he can take care of his brothers and sisters and work so they can study. He wants to continue doing his work in the community and with the union. And they are working right now to try and get bond—something I strongly support. This is not someone M. President, with a dangerous record—it is someone with a record of hard work, and of trying to make his community better.
“Skagit County is known for its agricultural industry—and that industry doesn’t survive without the immigrant farmworkers who help power that local economy. Period.
“More than that, we are talking about many families who have been here for decades. They are part of our community—they’re not just the people who feed this country. These people work hard, they follow the law. They should not be terrorized as if they were violent criminals. Last week, I met with farmworkers there who told me there have been days they have been afraid to go to work, because an unmarked vehicle was seen in their neighborhood. They are absolutely terrified of being grabbed off the street by ICE and locked up with no semblance of due process, regardless of their legal status.
“And this situation is not unique to Skagit County or even to my state. It’s happening across the country. Let’s not forget, Trump is trying to deport a cancer researcher to Russia where she fears retaliation for protesting the war in Ukraine. Sending her away would both put her in danger and completely upend groundbreaking cancer research—her colleagues say her role is irreplaceable.
“But it’s not just cancer research, Trump also deported a little girl, a U.S. citizen, who was on her way to get cancer treatment! She was with her mother, an undocumented immigrant—who was forced to choose between being separated from her 10-year-old daughter or being sent away together. What an unthinkable choice to force on a mother. What an unthinkable thing to do to a child, a citizen, a citizen who is fighting cancer.
“And Trump has done that twice. That’s right twice, he has deported a mother—along with a kid who is fighting cancer—a kid who is an American citizen. And he is doing that without giving these parents any meaningful time to talk to a lawyer, or a spouse, to figure out what is best for their child. We know that because Trump deported another U.S. citizen last week—that’s right another one. Trump deported a two-year-old, an American citizen. They refused to tell this kids’ father where his wife and kid were being held. They refused to let him talk to his wife for more than a minute. They even forced him to hang up the phone when he tried to give his wife their lawyer’s number. And then, as the judge put it, they seem to have ‘deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.’
“And now we are hearing about a family in Oklahoma—U.S. citizens who recently moved in who had their home raided by ICE. A mom and her daughters—forced out of their house, in the rain, in underwear. ICE agents seized phones, laptops, even their full life savings—and didn’t leave so much as a number they could call to get their stuff back. That happened to U.S. citizens, who did nothing but move into a new house.
“These horror stories underscore something important—Trump’s cruel war on immigrants is hurting American citizens too. U.S. citizens are having their spouses ripped away, even servicemembers are seeing their families targeted. They are having their parents ripped away. They are having their lives turned upside down.
“And—let’s not forget—U.S. citizens are even being detained by this administration. We have several instances now—where American citizens have been caught up in Trump’s immigration crackdown. American citizens have been detained and wrongly locked up—even after someone showed them their birth certificates. Even for days! And let’s keep in mind—if you are a citizen who is mistakenly detained, and you are being denied due process, and you can’t reach someone to show your birth certificate, how are you supposed to get released? What if you are put on the next plane to El Salvador before you get the chance to set the record straight? And let’s not pretend that’s far-fetched.
“Not when citizens havealready been mistakenly detained. Not when the government hasalready admitted it sent some people to El Salvador by mistake. Now when Trump has already disappeared some people who were here legally, and many people who had no criminal record—with no due process. And not when Trump hasalreadysaid he wants to send U.S. citizens to El Salvador prisons. He was caught on mic telling the President of El Salvador he needs to build more jails, telling him the ‘homegrowns’ are next. What happens when you get sent there, and you can’t contact a lawyer? These are serious questions—what happens? Because if there is nothing we can do for the people there now, what precedent does that set for the people that are sent there next?
“M. President—I’ve been speaking for a while now and I’ve posed a lot of questions, and I hope my colleagues think about this carefully. So, I am going to wrap it up, but I will end now with just one more.
“Where will Republicans draw the line? Because we are well past the bounds of law—and we are well past the bounds of basic humanity. So, I hope more of my colleagues will join me in saying enough is enough. And in demanding transparency, accountability, and justice from the Trump Administration. That starts with some very basic things.
“First—accurate, up-to-date information on the names of people who are being detained in, and deported from, ICE facilities across the country—including by the way, the Northwest ICE Detention Center in Tacoma, so that their loved ones and community members can at least know where they are!
“And we need a clear list of every person who was disappeared to El Salvador, along with what evidence—if any—the government has. As well as the full terms of whatever agreement the Trump administration has negotiated with El Salvador’s dictator.
“But it doesn’t stop there. We need to see clear, good faith efforts to abide by court orders, and to bring back everyone wrongfully, unjustly sent to a foreign prison. We need to have lines of communication so these people can talk to their lawyers, or talk to their loved ones, and let us know if they are okay.
“And we need due process—with evidence, with judges, and a meaningful opportunity for people to present a defense. Let’s be clear we are not saying everyone is innocent. We are saying no more than what the constitution says, no more than what the courts have said time and again: Everyone, in the United States of America, gets due process.
“Thank you.”