Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Lawless Third Country Disappearances

Thank you Ranking Member Jayapal and other distinguished members of the committee for holding this hearing and for inviting me to testify today. 

Human Rights First is a non-partisan organization that for more than 45 years has worked to advance human rights for all including by providing pro bono representation for individuals fleeing persecution and supporting policy outcomes that bolster refugee and anti-torture protections.  

I am honored to appear before this committee as a lawyer with deep experience representing people seeking asylum in our country, including many arriving at the southern US border and in immigration detention. I represented people seeking asylum throughout the first Trump administration, including those subject to policies like Remain in Mexico or Title 42. 

The Trump administration has used a pattern of disappearances to detain, remove, and expel people to countries which are not their countries of origin, and for which no removal proceedings have been conducted nor the required fear screenings. These actions are part of a broader effort to subvert due process and the checks and balances that are central to the U.S. Constitution. Among those impacted in these first few months of the administration have been countless asylum seekers, including people fleeing persecution by repressive governments, religious-based persecution, anti-LGBTQI attacks, and other harms. A Russian asylum seeker forcibly transferred to Costa Rica told us “[y]ou are taken to a country which you don’t know about, and we have no idea what’s going to happen next.”

The government has sought to justify these extraordinary acts under the guise of protecting our country from an invasion or from infiltration by members of a Venezuelan gang. The President invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which has only ever been invoked during times of war, in order to disappear hundreds of Venezuelans and others they accused of being members of a gang to a prison in El Salvador. The individuals were given no notice or opportunity to contest the accusations of gang membership. Accusations which are baseless for the majority and based almost exclusively on tattoos that are not symbols of gang membership but rather expressions of their personal life. Whether the accusations are true or not, it is our firm belief that the United States should not be in the business of sending anyone to torture.   

The President’s invasion proclamation has also been used as the pretext for unlawfully denying people access to the U.S. asylum system since February. Asylum seekers, including families with young children, from Afghanistan, China, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and others, have been denied the opportunity to present their asylum claims and instead have been sent to third countries like Panama and Costa Rica, where they risk onward chain refoulement. When these individuals arrived in Costa Rica and Panama, authorities immediately detained them and withheld their passports, limited their contact with lawyers and others, and transported them to remote facilities lacking sufficient accommodation, food, potable water, medical care, and interpreters. Those detained in Panama were held incommunicado when Panamanian authorities confiscated their phones and blocked access to lawyers. In both countries, they were isolated and lacked information about where they were, how long they were to be there, and what recourse they had. 

Before being disappeared to these third countries, many asylum seekers were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in unbearable conditions. They went days or weeks without any contact with the outside world. They were subject to medical neglect, physical and psychological mistreatment, and intolerable living conditions that are especially traumatizing for children. Some of the children were detained separately from one or both parents for days or weeks at a time, were hungry and cold, and some went over a month barely seeing the sun. The American Academy of Pediatrics has found that even short periods of detention can cause psychological trauma and long-term mental health problems for children. 

These actions violate U.S. law, protections under the U.S. Constitution, and our treaty obligations to not send people to places where they would face persecution or torture. This is a purely punitive policy designed to incite fear in communities and uses human beings as pawns in the government’s campaign to terrorize immigrants into leaving our country. It is dangerous for every person, including US citizens, to allow this abuse of power to continue unchecked because these actions erode the very foundations of our democracy. 

Thank you again for this opportunity. I hope Committee Members and Members of Congress will demand transparency as to the past and future agreements between the United States and other countries that has resulted in these disappearances and work to ensure the return of all of those who have been disappeared or forcibly transferred to third countries.