The U.S. Applies a Wartime Law Against Venezuelan Migrants: ALBA Movements
Migrants in a Salvadoran jail. March, 2025. X/ @DiarioCoLatino
March 18, 2025 Hour: 1:58 pm
In blatant violation of international law, 238 migrants were kidnapped and imprisoned in a Salvadoran jail.
On Tuesday, the social and political organizations that form part of ALBA Movements issued a statement condemning the human rights violations against Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States to El Salvador. The full statement is presented below.
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The organizations and social movements that are part of ALBA Movements take a firm stance in strongly rejecting the recent joint action between the U.S. government and the Salvadoran government. In blatant violation of international law and fundamental human rights, 238 individuals in migrant status were kidnapped and imprisoned in a “confinement center for terrorists” created by President Nayib Bukele.
This constitutes a barbaric act, demonstrating the fascist, racist, and defiant nature of basic human rights conventions by the government of Donald Trump, who, invoking a law from 1798, assumes the power to kidnap, deport, and imprison individuals solely for being Venezuelan and under the presumption of belonging to the “Aragua Train” gang—without any evidence and without the right to defense.
One of the gravest consequences of enforcing this law is the criminalization of migration, particularly Venezuelan migration, allowing any Venezuelan migrant over the age of 14 to be labeled an “invader,” an “enemy of the United States,” or an “Aragua Train terrorist” and immediately deprived of their freedom. Their assets, bank accounts, and all belongings can be confiscated.
The characteristics of this law even permit its application to any migrant from any country, as the U.S. government is not required to present any evidence for its enforcement. Its application in this context is a clear neo-fascist action by the U.S. government, which is now reviving a law originally created and used in wartime to effectively declare war on Venezuelan and Latin American migrants.
The Aragua Train was dismantled by the Venezuelan government within its territory, as it was a network that terrorized many communities. It was also used by Venezuelan far-right leaders to participate in insurrectionary actions. The Aragua Train criminals were financed by opposition parties, which in turn were funded by USAID. Among them, the current leader of the far-righ faction, Maria Corina Machado, stood out as a prominent figure.
These far-right activists are the same ones who have promoted and continue to promote the blockade and economic war against the Venezuelan people, which triggered the exponential increase in migration for economic reasons. They encouraged migration with false promises, used it as a tool to attack the Venezuelan government, and now turn their backs on migrants by applauding the U.S. government’s actions.
We cannot ignore that the right-wing government of El Salvador is profiting from the misery of our peoples, as they have publicly stated for months. They offer the U.S. a “service” of trading human beings as commodities for their own enrichment—through the imprisonment of migrants.
In light of these events, we issue an urgent call to the peoples of the world: we must stop these dangerous expressions of neo-fascism that global right-wing forces, under Trump’s leadership, are attempting to normalize and intensify.
They besiege countries, generate migration, promote armed groups, and then use those same groups to justify policies of migrant criminalization. To make matters worse, some countries are now commodifying the imprisonment of migrants.
Therefore, we call for an international campaign to condemn and denounce this dangerous escalation of criminalization against migration and the Venezuelan people.
We stand with and support the actions of the Venezuelan government before international organizations to rescue the kidnapped Venezuelan citizens and to take all necessary legal actions under international public law to prevent this neo-Nazi policy from continuing or spreading.
Likewise, we call on all allied organizations worldwide to speak out and confront the dangerous narrative promoted by major media corporations, which justify the unjustifiable and thereby become accomplices in this barbarity.
Stop criminalizing migration! Stop impunity for this atrocity!
Dignity, justice, and reparations for all kidnapped individuals!
teleSUR/ JF
Source: ALBA Movements
