Washington, DC — Today, a coalition of immigrants rights organizations and criminal defense lawyers filed a lawsuit to block the U.S. State Department’s backdoor agreement with El Salvador to implement the Trump-Vance administration’s practice of disappearing people indefinitely from U.S. territory into El Salvador’s prison system without due process, legal justification, or public accountability. 

The lawsuit is Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights et al. v. U.S. Department of State, et al. and the plaintiff coalition – Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Immigration Equality, and California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice – is represented by Democracy Forward. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights also represents themselves.

Today’s filing challenges the U.S.-El Salvador agreement, which has facilitated the rendition of hundreds of people to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), a facility infamous for torture, starvation, and indefinite isolated detention. Under the agreement, the United States is paying El Salvador up to $20,000 per person to open what has been described by human rights observers as a “tropical gulag” to those the U.S. government wishes to disappear, depriving people of legal counsel, medical care, visits by family or clergy, sunlight and effectively outsourcing violations of the U.S. Constitution and human rights protections. The American people are footing the bill.  

“Disappearing people into foreign black sites is unAmerican. It is not immigration policy—it’s an abuse of power typical of autocratic regimes and a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution, federal law, and human rights,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “Our lawsuit makes clear: No president—past or present—can buy their way out of the Constitution to disappear people behind a paywall of impunity. The State Department has acted without proper legal authority and in contravention of multiple constitutional guarantees and federal laws. Our suit urges the court to stop these abuses.” 

“Ten of our clients were kidnapped from U.S. streets and locked away in one of the world’s most notorious blackhole prisons in a scheme to use U.S. taxpayer dollars for enforced disappearances, incommunicado detention, and torture,” said Anthony Enriquez, Vice President of U.S. Advocacy and Litigation at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. “RFK Human Rights works to ensure that every person receives respect for their inherent dignity from law enforcement. This illegal agreement obstructs our mission and makes a mockery of that principle. So we’re suing to stop it from ever being used again.”

“This complaint addresses the fundamental right to access justice, encompassing the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, for individuals facing criminal charges,” said NACDL President Christopher Wellborn. “As criminal defense attorneys, we have a direct and undeniable interest—and a professional obligation—to ensure that those accused of a crime receive legal counsel and the full protections of the Constitution, no matter their location. When our government employs backdoor agreements to disappear people and detain them indefinitely, incommunicado, and without a fair hearing or meaningful judicial review, it violates their rights and impedes our capacity for zealous advocacy. This case threatens the bedrock principles of fairness and the rule of law that undergird our adversarial system of justice and define our democracy.”

“By abducting our clients and outsourcing their imprisonment to a facility known for committing torture and other human rights abuses, the U.S. government is deliberately violating the Constitution, ignoring our laws, and flouting its international human rights obligations,” said Alvaro M. Huerta, Director of Litigation and Advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef). “The federal government has condemned our clients to a legal black hole, denying them access to their lawyers and their loved ones,  all to fulfill a cruel, anti-immigrant agenda that betrays the core principles of our democracy. If our government can kidnap and disappear people without any due process, no one is safe.”

“The United States must be a nation based on the rule of law,” said Aaron C. Morris, Executive Director of Immigration Equality. “The Constitution guarantees every single person in this country due process, including LGBTQ asylum seekers. Disappearing them to one of the most sinister prison systems in the world, in a nation from which LGBTQ people are regularly forced to flee persecution, is atrocious and blatantly illegal. We cannot allow this mortally dangerous practice to continue.” 

“CCIJ is dedicated to working alongside people in immigration detention to end the abuse, medical neglect, due process violations, and torture that they often face at the hands of the U.S. government and private prison operators,” said Katie Kavanagh, Supervising Attorney with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.” When people are disappeared to a foreign torture site, it makes our work to end abuse and provide legal services virtually impossible. We’re suing to put an end to this unlawful agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador.”

The complaint alleges that the State Department’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act, including because it is contrary to multiple provisions of the U.S. Constitution, including the Fifth (due process), Sixth (right to counsel), and Eighth (protection against cruel and unusual punishment) Amendments. The agreement also bypasses U.S. immigration law, ignores federal regulations on detention and procurement, and violates international treaties like the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Democracy Forward attorneys representing plaintiffs include Jessica Morton, Kevin Friedl, and Robin F. Thurston. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights attorneys representing themselves include Anthony Enriquez, Sarah Gillman, Sarah Decker, and Medha Raman.