ACLU Challenges Trump Admin’s Offshore Detention Transfers
New U.N. document contradicts U.S. claims in high-profile habeas case over Venezuelan detainees held in El Salvador under Trump-era offshore detention program.
WASHINGTON — Attorneys representing Venezuelan men held in El Salvador under a Trump administration detention program submitted a United Nations report to a federal court Monday, claiming the document undermines the U.S. government’s assertions about legal custody and raises new questions about the program’s legality.
The filing, submitted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, concerns a habeas corpus case brought by the ACLU and Democracy Forward on behalf of Frengel Reyes Mota and others challenging their detention in El Salvador. The case—Liyanara Sanchez, as next friend on behalf of Frengel Reyes Mota, et al. v. Donald J. Trump, et al.—is one of the first major court tests of the Trump administration’s 2025 foreign detention policies.
The notice includes a newly surfaced report from the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), which investigated the disappearance of four Venezuelan men transferred to El Salvador on March 15, …