1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

I’m writing to you with urgent concern regarding the immediate deportation of Venezuelan nationals from the United States to El Salvador’s CECOT supermax prison. These removals are happening right now—within a 24-hour window announced to detainees just last night. According to credible reports, including legal filings and first-hand accounts, buses are already rolling. Immigration officers told detainees late last night that they would be forcibly removed within hours. No due process. No clear destination. And no legal transparency. Families and advocates have not been informed. In some cases, courts had issued emergency orders blocking these deportations—orders that have been ignored or circumvented. These deportations are not only inhumane; they are illegal and chillingly secretive. CECOT is one of the most notorious prisons in the world. Detainees there are subject to inhumane conditions, indefinite detention, and systemic abuse. It is being used as an offshore holding facility by the U.S. in a move that appears to be coordinated quietly under the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement policies. Here’s what we know: • Deportees are overwhelmingly nonviolent individuals, many of whom have no criminal record and were seeking asylum. • These removals are being carried out under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a centuries-old law never meant to be used this way. • The Biden administration was previously not using this facility; this shift is new, sudden, and terrifying. • Legal representatives have not been given access to their clients before these removals. That is a violation of basic due process. • Human rights organizations and immigration attorneys have not been given clear information on how many have already been deported or where exactly they are going. I am begging you to act. Please: • Demand a complete and immediate halt to all deportations to El Salvador and specifically to CECOT. • Launch a formal investigation into DHS and ICE’s role in these secret deportations. • Introduce or support legislation that prohibits offshore detention and deportation to facilities that violate human rights standards. • Speak out publicly to raise awareness and pressure other lawmakers to act. The United States cannot be complicit in human rights violations. We must not allow detainees to vanish into a black site under the cover of night, especially without due process and in defiance of court orders. This is a crisis of conscience and law. I urge you to act now.