El Salvador says it shares gang intel with the US — and requests specific deportees

El Salvador says it shares intelligence with the United States about gang members wanted by the Central American nation and provides “complete records” on them before formally requesting their deportation.

El Salvador says it shares intelligence with the United States about gang members wanted by the Central American nation and provides “complete records” on them before formally requesting their deportation. “We raise our hands and say, ‘Look, this guy,’” the country’s Security and Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro said in an exclusive interview with CNN. Asked if that meant the country specified which individuals it wanted deported, he said, “Yes … it’s not random.” Villatoro’s comments come after the Trump administration deported more than 270 men to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang or Salvadorans tied to the MS-13 gang. US officials later admitted that one of those deported – Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland-based sheet metal worker and father of three – was removed from the US in an “administrative error.” He is now in El Salvador’s notorious high security prison Cecot, despite a 2019 ruling by an immigration judge that was meant to protect him from deportation due to death threats from a gang targeting his family’s pupusa business. The case has sparked a broad debate over due process in the deportations. While the Trump administration has alleged Garcia Abrego was a member of MS-13, his attorneys and family have rejected those claims and insist his detention is unjust. Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told CNN Wednesday her family is “very hurt” by her husband’s deportation. “My kids ask daily, ‘When is Dad coming home?’” she said, adding that her family has not heard from the Trump administration.