SacBee: Padilla Wants Answers About El Salvador Deportations
By David Lightman
Sen. Alex Padilla and other Senate Democrats will make sure the Senate votes on a resolution to look into the Trump Administration’s actions involving U.S. citizens or residents deported to El Salvador.
The measure, also backed by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, would “investigate El Salvador’s human rights abuses and the Trump Administration’s compliance with due process and court orders,” according to a statement from Padilla’s office.
Padilla, D-California, and other Democrats have been critical of the deportation and detaining of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A federal judge said he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and that he should come back to the United States, but the administration says it’s unable to do so.
The senators want a report that the Padilla statement would detail “any steps the Administration is taking to ensure compliance with court orders applicable to U.S. citizens or residents wrongfully deported by the United States to El Salvador; confirming whether U.S. security assistance has been used to support the illegal detention of U.S. residents, and assessing El Salvador’s human rights record.”
If the administration did not produce that report, federal law would bar security aid to El Salvador.
“As the Trump Administration upends due process to wrongfully deport people to El Salvador, we must restore fundamental civil liberties, end the inhumane treatment of all detainees, and ensure freedom from oppression for everyone in El Salvador,” said Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee on border security and immigration.
The resolution’s chances are uncertain because Republicans control 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats.
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