4 days ago
Trump admin loses track of 'dozens' of illegal migrants on El Salvador deportation flight
Hacked data from an airline carrying out President Donald Trump 's deportations allegedly shows that 'dozens' of migrants did not appear on manifests published by the U.S. government.
The hacked material, first obtained by 404 Media, reportedly shows that on three deportation flights from Texas to El Salvador there are scores of individuals who do not appear on the official lists of deportees provided by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The deportees were sent to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison, the largest detention facility in the world where the U.S. is sending recently deported individuals.
The flights were operated by GlobalX, the same airline that hackers breached to discover the files on the migrant flights.
CBS News unveiled earlier this year a list of those included on the three March 15 deportation flights operated by GlobalX, amounting to 238 men in total.
However, the data obtained through the hack reportedly shows additional names on the flight manifest that were not included on the list provided to CBS.
This disclosure has set off alarms for liberals who have long railed against Trump's deportations for being opaque and ignoring due process.
'We have this list of people that the U.S. government has not formally acknowledged in any real way and we pretty much have no idea if they are in CECOT or someplace else, or whether they received due process,' Michelle Brané, a former DHS official under Joe Biden, told 404 Media.
'I think this further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the US government is disappearing people,' she continued.
'These people were detained and no one knows where they are, and we don't know the circumstances […] For almost all of these people, there's no records whatsoever. No court records, nothing.'
The White House referred the Daily Mail to DHS when reached for comment.
'ICE does not 'disappear' people,' DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLauchlin told the Daily Mal in a statement. 'This is a ridiculous lie that the media is peddling to demonize ICE law enforcement who are facing an 830% increase in assaults against them.'
'Claims that transfers of detainees are being 'weaponized' are categorically false. Once an alien is transferred to ICE custody, the agency makes a custody determination based on bed space and ensures their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United States,' she added.
Despite CBS News reporting that only 238 men were aboard the deportation flights, the hackers uncovered a manifest from GlobalX indicating that at least 281 people were deported on the three flights.
According to 404 Media, there were over 40 men and women whose presence on the flights were never acknowledged by the U.S. government.
'[The government is] not disclosing it and they've presumably been sent to a prison or sent somewhere by the U.S. government on a plane and have never been heard from since,' Brané said.
'We have not heard from these people's families, so I think perhaps even they don't know.'
The former Biden DHS official shared that it is unclear whether the people on the hacked manifest were actually on the flight, adding questions remain about why these individuals were on the manifests in the first place.
The whereabouts and condition of the dozens of individuals on the hacked manifests remain unknown, the report states.
One of those named in the hacked manifests was arrested in Texas in December for drug possession charges, the outlet claims. They were listed in arrest records as an 'illegal alien.'
