Abrego García was tortured in El Salvador
July 3, 2025
Kilmar Abrego García, the man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in that country’s notorious maximum security CECOT prison, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed by his lawyers yesterday.
Abrego García’s testimony is one of the first detailed insights the world has into the conditions inside the CECOT prison, as he is the only one of the more than 200 people deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador to have been released (albeit into U.S. custody).
While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Abrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, and guards struck those who fell over from exhaustion, according to the court papers filed yesterday.
During the time he spent there, the lawyers said, Abrego García was “denied bathroom access and soiled himself.” He and other prisoners were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell that had no windows, but was outfitted with bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day.
More Deportations
A U.S. federal court has ruled that President Donald Trump’s proclamation of an “invasion” at the US-Mexico border is unlawful, saying that the president had exceeded his authority in suspending the right to apply for asylum at the southern border. If the ruling holds up, the Trump administration would have to renew processing asylum claims at the border, reports the Guardian.
In a 128-page decision released yesterday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said that the executive branch was overstepping its authority and violating U.S. immigration law. The president cannot “adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted and the regulations that the responsible agencies have promulgated,” Moss stated. (El País)
Venezuela declares Türk persona non grata
Venezuela’s ruling party-controlled National Assembly on Tuesday declared Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, persona non grata. The move comes just days after Türk said his office has documented increasing arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and torture under Maduro’s government.
The rare diplomatic designation has no immediate practical effect but reflected the broader anger of President Nicolás Maduro at the U.N. agency that monitors and defends human rights, reports the Associated Press.
Türk's office has previously been expelled from Venezuela and it is possible the government may remove it again, reports Reuters.
Colombia
Colombia's Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia announced her resignation today, as President Gustavo Petro's government faces turbulence over an administrative dispute involving the printing of national passports, reports Reuters.
The Petro administration wants a public company to print passports, while successive foreign ministers have said the public press is not prepared to take on the task yet. (La Silla Vacía)
Sarabia’s resignation also comes on the heels of growing tension with her former political ally, Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who Sarabia accused of corruption and gender violence in April, reports El País.
Regional Relations
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said today that the Mercosur bloc should focus on strengthening its ties with Asian nations, which he described as the "dynamic center" of the global economy. (Reuters)
Argentine President Javier Milei, in turn, urged his Mercosur partners to push for greater trade openness within the bloc as he opened a major summit of the South American bloc in Buenos Aires. Milei warned that his government would pursue that goal unilaterally if necessary, implying – not for the first time – that an exit from the bloc could be on the cards, reports the Buenos Aires Times.
The Mercosur trade bloc and a group of four small European nations — Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, and Liechtenstein — wrapped up talks on a sweeping free-trade agreement a decade in the making that will cover nearly all shipments between the countries. (AFP, Reuters)
Mexico
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is set to approve changes to at least 16 laws pushed through congress in a rapid, nine-day legislative blitz that will increase government power and allow for expanded surveillance of citizens, reports the Financial Times.
“The Guzmán family, the ruling dynasty of drug trafficking in Sinaloa, is weakening under the judicial siege of the United States. The recent crossing of 17 family members into U.S. territory, along with the imminent guilty plea of the youngest son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán— the family patriarch, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. —signals their decline,” according to El País.
Argentina
After the Mercosur summit, Lula visited former Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in her apartment, where she is serving a house arrest sentence. He is the first international heavyweight to do so — Fernández and her political movement have been stalwart allies of Lula, including during his own imprisonment on charges of corruption. (Página 12)
A slew of social media attacks by Argentine President Javier Milei against journalist Julia Mengolini, after an A.I.-generated smear video falsely accused her of incest, is just “one of the most extreme episodes in a pattern of escalating attacks against journalists by the right-wing libertarian president and his allies,” reports the New York Times. “Experts say Mr. Milei’s rhetoric, often laced with misogynistic insults, sexually charged innuendo and disinformation, is eroding press freedom and raising the risk of real-world violence.”
“Billionaire Elon Musk now regrets his chainsaw-wielding appearance with President Javier Milei, it seems...” - Bloomberg
Brazil
Brazilian journalist Nicole Froio writes on her country’s failure to protect reproductive rights under democracy: “I started identifying as an anarcho-feminist six years ago, when I realized that actually, it isn’t democratic at all that people’s rights have to be voted on to be granted. It isn’t democratic that people’s ability to raise children or not raise children is up for debate. Both in Brazil and in the US, I have watched conservative legislators make abortion more difficult to access through ostensibly democratic means. I have watched conservative and liberal governments make the life of the working class more difficult, or continue not to address the inequality that is necessary for upholding capitalism,” she writes in The Nation.
Haiti
Haiti’s gangs have gained “near-total control” of the capital and authorities are unable to stop escalating violence across the impoverished Caribbean nation, senior U.N. officials warned yesterday - Associated Press
U.S. Trump administration cuts to U.N. funding could hit Haiti particularly hard, reports the Miami Herald.
Trinidad and Tobago
“News that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi will receive Trinidad and Tobago’s highest honor during a historic visit to the country has been welcomed by the Indo-Trinidadian Hindu population but has drawn strong objections from the country’s largest Muslim organization,” reports the Guardian.
Guyana
A new tour to the site of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana has some asking what makes a valid tourist destination, while others in Guyana reject the association with what they say is an American tragedy that happened on their soil — New York Times
Critter Corner
“The U.S. government is preparing to breed billions of flies and dump them out of airplanes over Mexico and southern Texas to fight a flesh-eating maggot.” - Guardian