- Noah Bullock, Executive Director of Cristosal, a highly respected human rights organization in Central America.
- Gabriela Santos, Director of the Human Rights Institute at the Jesuit University of Central America (UCA).
- Bill Ong Hing, Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and founder of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
This eye-opening conversation focused on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the father “mistakenly” seized last month in Maryland and then summarily deported to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT mega-prison with no review and in violation of a court order. This ongoing case is at the center of a multi-front legal battle to stop the blatantly unconstitutional overreach of the Trump Administration in sending prisoners to foreign custody with zero due process.
In this context, we also took a closer look at the democratic decline in El Salvador under President Nayib Bukele that culminated in a “state of exception,” that has suspended constitutional rights there since 2022 and given Bukele a free hand to further erode democratic institutions and to jail anyone he wants without charges or trials.
Our panelists stressed the importance of organizing and standing together across borders to challenge the arbitrary application of the law – saying that whether in the United States or in El Salvador, we cannot build strong societies based on respect for the rule of law if our rulers violate basic civil rights with impunity.
The conversation was hosted and moderated by Ted Lewis, Human Rights and Co-Executive Director at Global Exchange.