Human Rights Watch: More Than 200 Salvadorans Were Abused, Killed After Deportation

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/05/803134436/human-rights-watch-more-than-200-salvadorans-were-abused-killed-after-deportatio

February 5, 2020

After living in the U.S. for five years, cousins Walter T. and Gaspar T. were deported to their home country of El Salvador in 2019, where they were ripped from their beds one night and beaten by police, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.

"They began beating us until we arrived at the police barracks," Gaspar said in interviews.

The thrashings went on there for three days, according to the men. Despite threats from authorities that they'd be charged with gang membership, they were eventually released. No charges were filed.

Walter and Gaspar, who say they had initially fled El Salvador to escape forcible gang recruitment, had hoped to gain asylum in the U.S. But their applications were denied.

The pair's experience is one of more than 200 cases uncovered by Human Rights Watch in which Salvadorans are put in harm's way — at risk of violence at the hands of gangs, law enforcement or security forces — as a result of tightening asylum and immigration policies in the U.S.

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