Speaker 1: And first of all, I want to thank El Salvador
Speaker 1: and their president for their partnership with the United States
Speaker 1: of America to bring our terrorists here and to incarcerate them.
Speaker 2: And it looks like a scene from a very different
Speaker 2: period of history. US Secretary of Homeland Security Christine Noam
Speaker 2: standing in front of a prison pen filled with gaunt,
Speaker 2: shirtless men, their head shaved, staring silently at the cameras.
Speaker 1: First of all, do not come to our country illegally.
Speaker 1: You will be removed and you will be prosecuted.
Speaker 2: But the footage is from Ol Salvador, where the US
Speaker 2: government has whisked away over two hundred Venezuelan migrants to
Speaker 2: be held in a notorious prison. It's just one of
Speaker 2: the surreal propaganda post that Trump administration has put out,
Speaker 2: bragging about imprisoning men they deemed murderous gang affiliated terrorists.
Speaker 2: But looking at these images, one woman saw not a
Speaker 2: terrorist but her husband.
Speaker 3: And she recognizes a tattoo on his neck of a hummingbird,
Speaker 3: and she said, he got it because it signolizes kind
Speaker 3: of good vibes energy. So she recognized that and she
Speaker 3: was like, that's my husband.
Speaker 2: Another person who viewed the footage is reported Noel Leonard,
Speaker 2: who said at the fond who was taken and why?
Speaker 3: So the way that we want to go about finding
Speaker 3: this is it's quite bleak in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: In my colleague Isabella and I were on Facebook and TikTok,
Speaker 3: you know, googling things like who's tcl Salvador or Venezuela,
Speaker 3: like justice El Salvador, and you would see these videos
Speaker 3: from families that are heartbreaking, saying please, we're looking for
Speaker 3: a proof of life. We're looking for them to be released.
Speaker 2: Yea for Ela se.
Speaker 3: Kecia, terrorista's criminalist. But yeah, I mean it was just
Speaker 3: searching kind of these this prize for help that exists
Speaker 3: on social media almost almost entirely in Spanish.
Speaker 2: From Schwartz Media on Daniel James. This is seven a m. Today.
Speaker 2: Noel Leonard, a reporter at Mother Jones on the people
Speaker 2: in America, who is disappearing and what the spectacle deportations
Speaker 2: says about where America is headed. It's Monday, April seventh. Noah,
Speaker 2: you've been trying to find out about that he's main
Speaker 2: living in America who was suddenly deported to El Salvador.
Speaker 2: So to start with Can you tell me a little
Speaker 2: bit about Niri Alvarado Borjes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. Alvarado Borhez is someone who I spoke
Speaker 3: to her for a story that my colleague Isabella and
Speaker 3: Diaz and I were doing. He's twenty five years old.
Speaker 3: He just turned twenty five. He's from a kind of
Speaker 3: more rural part of Venezuela and came to the United
Speaker 3: States seeking asylum, also looking for economic opportunity. Obviously, Venezuela's
Speaker 3: economy has suffered one of the worst collapses in modern history.
Speaker 3: And at the time he's picked up as he's working
Speaker 3: at a bakery. His boss, who I interviewed that he
Speaker 3: was working basically seven seven every day, was an extremely
Speaker 3: hard worker and just kind of a great guy. And
Speaker 3: then on February fourth, he gets picked up by ICE
Speaker 3: or Immigration Enforcement Agency. They come out right in front
Speaker 3: of his apartment looking for him by name, and then
Speaker 3: they bring him into the ICE kind of office and say, hey,
Speaker 3: you're here because we're picking up people with tattoos. We're
Speaker 3: interrogating people with tattoos who are Venezuelan looking to see
Speaker 3: if they belong to this gang that has become a
Speaker 3: bigger news item recently in the US because of the
Speaker 3: Trump administration called trend de Aragua.
Speaker 2: So like the tiny asked to see his tattooes to
Speaker 2: check whether he's affiliated with a gang. What does Alvarado do.
Speaker 3: What he showed them was an autism awareness tattoo with
Speaker 3: the name of his brother, a fifteen year old with autism.
Speaker 3: That's on his leg. And then he has two other tattoos.
Speaker 3: One is in English it says brother again about his brother,
Speaker 3: and the other says familia family. What is so strange
Speaker 3: about this case is that the ICE agent said, you know,
Speaker 3: basically you're clean. We know you're not in a gang.
Speaker 3: That's kind of absurd here. But despite all that, he
Speaker 3: a little over a month later ends up being sent
Speaker 3: to El Salvador, accused of being theoretically a gang member.
Speaker 3: And he is there and no one in his family
Speaker 3: has spoken to him.
Speaker 2: Since when you were speaking to these families, was there
Speaker 2: any evidence that the people in their family that were
Speaker 2: being sent to El Salvador were actually gang members?
Speaker 3: Nothing that I saw that, you know, nothing that would
Speaker 3: really hold up in a court. And what was striking
Speaker 3: is we spoke, you know, ten families, All ten said
Speaker 3: their relatives had tattoos, and that's why they believed that
Speaker 3: their relatives had been picked up.
Speaker 2: And so can you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 2: the process of getting these men to El Salvador. Were
Speaker 2: they told where they were going, while they were going there,
Speaker 2: what the process was, what their rights were. Can you
Speaker 2: give us any insight into what, if any process was
Speaker 2: involved in this deportation.
Speaker 3: The short answer is no. And then to explain and
Speaker 3: expand on that, basically you had Venezuelan's calling their family
Speaker 3: members on Friday Friday night, March fourteenth, saying, Okay, we've
Speaker 3: been told we're going to be sent to Venezuela and
Speaker 3: there as far as we know. While they're on that
Speaker 3: plane in the air, they believe they're going to Venezuela,
Speaker 3: and it may only be when they land and basically
Speaker 3: walk out of the plane and they're in chains, and
Speaker 3: then they see basically the Salvador and military and police
Speaker 3: apparatus in masks kind of waiting for them, and they're
Speaker 3: then kind of frog marched off the plane and onto
Speaker 3: buses and into this prison. But most of these people
Speaker 3: had open immigration cases, meaning like they were scheduled to
Speaker 3: be in court tomorrow or last week, and you know
Speaker 3: they in many cases people we spoke to, like the
Speaker 3: judge would say, hey, where's the guy, and the government's
Speaker 3: own attorney would say, you know, we're not sure, and
Speaker 3: then the defense attorney would have to say, well, I
Speaker 3: think he might be an L. Salvador and that would
Speaker 3: kind of be the end of the case because the
Speaker 3: judge no longer has jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: And has anyone heard from them since has anyone actually
Speaker 2: spoken with them.
Speaker 3: Not that I'm aware of. They have no way to
Speaker 3: contact these family members. They don't know when they're going
Speaker 3: to get out, are they ever going to get out?
Speaker 3: And so it's just every day is torture.
Speaker 2: After the break the message the Trump administration wants to
Speaker 2: send all of us.
Speaker 4: Hi Ruby Jones.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 4: Seven am tells stories that need to be told. Our
Speaker 4: journalism is founded on trust and independence, and now we're
Speaker 4: increasing our coverage. Every Saturday until the election, will bring
Speaker 4: you an extra episode to break down the biggest political
Speaker 4: moments of the week. If you enjoy seven am, the
Speaker 4: best way you can support us is by making a
Speaker 4: contribution at seven am podcast dot com dot au forward
Speaker 4: slash support. Thanks for listening and supporting our work.
Speaker 2: Noah, can you tell me about the prison where these
Speaker 2: men have been sent? What do we know about this place?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is known as one of the world's
Speaker 3: most infamous prisons. It was built only a few years
Speaker 3: ago as part of President Bukelly's state of Exception, essentially
Speaker 3: martial law, and it was theoretically built a whold kind
Speaker 3: of the worst of the worst MS thirteen gang members,
Speaker 3: the people who had made El Salvador into the one
Speaker 3: of the world's most brutal and violent countries. It's called
Speaker 3: the Terrorism Confinement Center in English, and it is a
Speaker 3: very extreme environment. It is known for having horrendous conditions.
Speaker 3: Prisoners spend about twenty three and a half hours a
Speaker 3: day and they're basically barracks. I think it's about eighty
Speaker 3: people per unit, and they live in bunks that are
Speaker 3: stacked four high, with no mattresses, no calls to family.
Speaker 3: It's even a stretch to call it a prison. I
Speaker 3: think it's nothing like what people think of a prison,
Speaker 3: and a lot of the images, frankly, are reminiscent of
Speaker 3: what you solve concentration camps in the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: Now, can you explain why the Venezuelan community is being
Speaker 2: single outlocked these Yeah.
Speaker 3: So during the Biden administration, Venezuelans were the largest group
Speaker 3: of migrants coming to the United States. It really was
Speaker 3: off scale and records any numbers in the hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands each year, And that was, I was totally unprecedented.
Speaker 3: Even though Venezuela's economy had been, you know, in a
Speaker 3: terrible position for many years, it didn't translate to that
Speaker 3: kind of massive numbers at the borders. Many of those
Speaker 3: people ended up being bussed all around the United States,
Speaker 3: including to where I live in New York City, by
Speaker 3: the tens of thousands, and so it became this kind
Speaker 3: of big it's a big national issue. But the Trump
Speaker 3: administration now kind of needs, I think, to a villain
Speaker 3: here or a boogeyman to kind of target here and
Speaker 3: trend there. A Agua, this gang which I most Americans
Speaker 3: still probably have never heard of or certainly have never
Speaker 3: heard of one year ago, has become that as.
Speaker 5: We speak, heavily on im Venezuela and gangs or taking
Speaker 5: over entire apartment buildings and apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado,
Speaker 5: terrorizing your residence and taking over the old days. You
Speaker 5: have to pay to buy that bill.
Speaker 3: So the Trump administration declared trend Aragua foreign terrorist organization.
Speaker 3: And for people who don't live in the United States,
Speaker 3: like there are probably some issues with trend are Agua.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there are some crimes committed by people affiliated
Speaker 3: with it, but it's not a major gang. It's not
Speaker 3: MS thirteen. Also, it's importantly it's not known for tattoos
Speaker 3: being an identifying mark for its members, despite that being
Speaker 3: one of the main things that Trump administration used. And
Speaker 3: the second thing they did, which is probably more important
Speaker 3: here is for only for the fourth time in the
Speaker 3: entirety of American history, they invoked a seventeen ninety eight
Speaker 3: wall called the Alien Enemies Act, and that is only
Speaker 3: supposed to be used when America's in times of war
Speaker 3: or invasion. So this has not been used since we
Speaker 3: were using it basically to round up potential Nazis in
Speaker 3: at the height of World War Two, and this case,
Speaker 3: obviously we're not at war with then as well, of
Speaker 3: course we're not, so they have to say we're under
Speaker 3: invasion by this gang, and it's patently absurd.
Speaker 2: And so the Trump administration's going into sort of full
Speaker 2: propaganda mode when it comes to exaggerating the reasons as
Speaker 2: to wall they're being sent. What is the administration getting
Speaker 2: out of.
Speaker 3: That I think they're getting I would say two things
Speaker 3: that immediately come to mind to me. One you could
Speaker 3: argue there's putting pressure on Venezuela to resume taking deportation flights,
Speaker 3: so that would be one, And the second is the
Speaker 3: spectacle of it. This facility is.
Speaker 1: One of the tools in our toolkit that we will
Speaker 1: use if you commit crimes against the American people.
Speaker 3: And you're right, I'm shocked there wasn't a prison break, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because that's like a riot right there. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: surprised if they could walk Tom Holman through that jail
Speaker 3: and you think he's hot at that point.
Speaker 5: But Christy, my god.
Speaker 2: So this you know what I love about that visit.
Speaker 5: She stood in front of criminals in their environment, because
Speaker 5: usually Democrats when they want you to see criminals.
Speaker 3: Part of it here is, you know, there are only
Speaker 3: so many ICE agents in the United States, and there
Speaker 3: are twelve million or so undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Speaker 3: They don't have the capacity to arrest even a large
Speaker 3: percentage of those people. And what they're relying on and
Speaker 3: hoping for is is self deportation essentially, So in some sense,
Speaker 3: the fact that there are innocent people, clearly innocent people
Speaker 3: in this prison now has it benefit to them because
Speaker 3: it is horrifying. It makes people, even people who are
Speaker 3: following all the rules here, who have opened court cases,
Speaker 3: feel that they could be next and maybe then they
Speaker 3: all get on a plane and go back home, which
Speaker 3: is what the Trump administration wants them to do.
Speaker 2: And what's been the general reaction to these deportations and
Speaker 2: people being picked up off the streets. Is this something
Speaker 2: that people that are talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, initially, the Trump administration and I did a lot
Speaker 3: of stories on the attitudes of Latino voters before the election,
Speaker 3: and they were really sure. They said, well, I'm all
Speaker 3: four criminals being deported so and that's what Trump says
Speaker 3: he's going to do, so it doesn't bother me. And
Speaker 3: I think, initially, and if you look at the polling
Speaker 3: right now, still Trump's kind of immigration approval is still favorable.
Speaker 3: I think it was about fifty eight forty two approve
Speaker 3: of his overall deportation efforts. But if you look at
Speaker 3: this El Salvador Venezuela operation that pulls quite negatively. So
Speaker 3: I think it's starting to shift as people start to realize,
Speaker 3: you know, oh, this is not just all hardened criminals
Speaker 3: and gang members who are being sent there.
Speaker 2: Could this approach affect other movements within American society, locked
Speaker 2: their pro Palestinian movement for instance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that is. You know, you
Speaker 3: have to see these as length you're having. For example,
Speaker 3: someone like Mark mu Khalil, who's a Green card holder
Speaker 3: married to an American citizen, whose wife is pregnant eight
Speaker 3: months pregnant at the time of the arrest, being arrested
Speaker 3: at is Columbia University student housing apartment and sent to
Speaker 3: an immigration detention center in Louisiana. I used to report
Speaker 3: on the detention center during the first Trump administration, the
Speaker 3: idea that a Green card holder is now there because
Speaker 3: of political speech and he's not alone. You know, they
Speaker 3: were going after a Columbia University juniorlea, which is one
Speaker 3: of our most elite universities in Ivy League school. She
Speaker 3: had come to the United States when she was seven
Speaker 3: years old. And that's all just because of pretty milk
Speaker 3: toast pro Palestine activism.
Speaker 2: Right, So, at the end of the day, Trump is
Speaker 2: doing what he said he do. The polms indicate that
Speaker 2: what he is doing is popular. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to these man, what happens to them? Now? What does
Speaker 2: their future look? Luck?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is very unclear. There's a very contentious and
Speaker 3: high drama court case right now having the United States.
Speaker 3: You know, the judge would order that these jets be
Speaker 3: turned around while they're in the AIRHL salvad Or in
Speaker 3: the Trump administration extremely rare move basically ignored that court order,
Speaker 3: so that court case is continuing to heat up. It's
Speaker 3: bleak to say, but the best possibility would be that
Speaker 3: they are let out and allowed to be deported to Venezuela.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the odds of them returning to
Speaker 3: the United States are quite slim. I don't want to
Speaker 3: say it's impossible, but if you're a family member who
Speaker 3: has a son or a husband there, you have no
Speaker 3: idea not only when you will see your loved one,
Speaker 3: but when you might even ever be able to know
Speaker 3: that they're alive.
Speaker 2: Now, look, thanks so much for your reporting and thanks
Speaker 2: so much for you Tom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: Also in the years today, Prime Minister Anthony Albernezi has
Speaker 2: pledged two point three billion dollars to be spent on
Speaker 2: subsidizing home batteries should his government be re elected. Labour
Speaker 2: release data showing that while one in three Australian households
Speaker 2: have solar panels, only one in forty have a battery.
Speaker 2: Batteries can push household bills down and reduce reliance on
Speaker 2: the grid. The new plan will make the cost of
Speaker 2: installing a new home battery thirty percent cheaper and is
Speaker 2: designed to find one million more units by twenty thirty
Speaker 2: and Peter Darton has promised to cut the number of
Speaker 2: international students in Australia by eighty thousand per year if elected.
Speaker 2: The opposition leader has argued that international students are contributing
Speaker 2: to the housing crisis. The policy would allow thirty thousand
Speaker 2: fewer foreign students than Labour's plan announced last year. I'm
Speaker 2: Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You have