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 lads had been launched final week and returned to Venezuela. (In complete, 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 Faux Information (Faux Information Hunters). To verify the deportees’ identities, we used the lads’s dates of beginning to look official Venezuelan authorities databases, together with the identification card database of the Ministry of Individuals’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 relations of greater than 100 of the Venezuelan deportees, along with dozens of attorneys and advocates representing the lads. The interviews had been performed earlier than the lads had been freed, and plenty of had been achieved in Spanish.
We combed social media accounts of the lads and their family members, 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 Govt Workplace for Immigration Overview.
We additionally solely 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 prices or had been listed solely as having immigration violations. Some data was lacking about 9 males. To confirm and increase 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 legislation enforcement companies and court docket methods throughout the nation. The findings on felony information should not complete since there’s no common database of prices or convictions.
To search out felony histories in overseas nations, 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 towards the names of the 238 males and located no matches.
For people whom the Trump administration flagged as having pending felony prices or convictions within the U.S., we tried to achieve out to their family members and to their protection attorneys. If we acquired 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.
