The knowledge on this database covers 238 of the Venezuelan males who had been despatched to CECOT, a maximum-security jail in El Salvador, on March 15, and whose names had been first revealed by CBS Information. The boys had been launched final week and returned to Venezuela. (In whole, greater than 250 Venezuelan males had been imprisoned and launched.)
The database is a part of a joint investigation by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and the Venezuelan information shops Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Insurgent Alliance Investigates) and Cazadores de Pretend Information (Pretend Information Hunters). To substantiate the deportees’ identities, we used the lads’s dates of start to look official Venezuelan authorities databases, together with the identification card database of the Ministry of Folks’s Energy for Inside Relations, Justice and Peace; the general public database of the Nationwide Institute of Social Safety; and the general public database of the Venezuelan Electoral Registry. The information organizations interviewed members of the family of greater than 100 of the Venezuelan deportees, along with dozens of attorneys and advocates representing the lads. The interviews had been carried out earlier than the lads had been freed, and lots of had been executed in Spanish.
We combed social media accounts of the lads and their relations, information tales, U.S. authorities press releases and court docket paperwork. To find out what occurred with their immigration instances, we analyzed information from the U.S. Division of Justice’s Government Workplace for Immigration Overview.
We additionally completely obtained knowledge units the federal government had concerning the males earlier than it deported them. These knowledge units included whether or not they had been convicted of crimes within the U.S., had pending expenses or had been listed solely as having immigration violations. Some data was lacking about 9 males. To confirm and broaden on that data, we then searched U.S. public information databases; reviewed police, sheriff’s division and county court docket web sites; learn by way of court docket paperwork; and submitted dozens of public information requests to regulation enforcement businesses and court docket programs throughout the nation. The findings on prison information will not be complete since there’s no common database of expenses or convictions.
To seek out prison histories in international international locations, we reviewed information from the official web site of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice and consulted a worldwide authorized database. We additionally interviewed police officers in Peru, Chile and Colombia. As well as, we obtained three Venezuelan police databases and a January 2024 Interpol report back to create a listing of greater than 1,400 names of alleged Venezuelan gang members, together with members of Tren de Aragua. We checked that in opposition to the names of the 238 males and located no matches.
For people whom the Trump administration flagged as having pending prison expenses or convictions within the U.S., we tried to achieve out to their relations and to their protection attorneys. If we bought a response, we included it.
As well as, we requested the Trump administration about every of those instances. Except it’s famous in particular person entries, the administration didn’t reply to questions concerning the males.
The database displays the ages of the lads on March 15.
