CBS News has obtained an internal government list of the names of the Venezuelan men the Trump administration deported to El Salvador as part of a secretive operation last week that has triggered a legal standoff in the U.S. and a debate around the world.
On March 15, the U.S. government deported 238 male Venezuelan citizens on three flights to El Salvador, accusing them of being part of a transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua, which President Trump has labeled a foreign terrorist group and wartime enemy.
Upon landing, the deported men were forcefully led off planes by heavily armed Salvadoran authorities. They were marched into armored vehicles, had their heads shaved and were transferred into cells inside El Salvador’s notorious maximum security prison, known as CECOT.
The high-profile deportations quickly set off a legal battle in the U.S. The court fight initially centered on the legality of Mr. Trump’s move to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expel many of the Venezuelan deportees. It has since expanded into a showdown over whether the Trump administration knowingly defied a federal judge’s order to halt deportations under the wartime law and turn the flights around.
U.S. officials have said 137 of the Venezuelan men were treated as “enemy aliens” and removed from the country under the 18th century law. The other 101 were deported under regular immigration procedures, the officials have said.
Beyond that, the U.S. government has provided scant details about the deportations and has not publicly released the names of those sent to El Salvador. Family members and lawyers of deportees have said they only learned their loved ones or clients had been deported to the small Central American country through videos and photos posted by the Salvadoran government and news outlets.
The Trump administration has said it verified that all the Venezuelan deportees have connections to Tren de Aragua, but those accusations have been denied by relatives of some of those who were deported. The U.S. government has said in a court declaration that while some of those expelled have criminal histories in the U.S., “many” do not.
CBS News is publishing the U.S. government’s list of the names of the 238 Venezuelan deportees sent to El Salvador below. How long they will remain imprisoned in El Salvador and whether their family members and lawyers will be allowed to communicate with them remain open questions.
CBS News reached out to DHS and the State Department for comment on the list.
