Kerry Kennedy, a human rights activist who is the daughter of assassinated U.S. politician Robert F. Kennedy and niece of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, told reporters during a trip to El Salvador on Monday that the Salvadoran government did not respect her clients’ rights to meet with their lawyer.
“Despite the right of our clients and thousands of Salvadorans to be attended by their lawyers, the government of El Salvador, starting with President Bukele, did not respect these rights and denied us, their lawyers, access to our clients,” Kennedy told a press conference.
El Salvador’s government didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
More than 250 Venezuelans were deported from the United States to a maximum security Salvadoran prison beginning of March, under an agreement through which the United States is paying El Salvador to hold the prisoners.
The U.S. administration alleges the people it deported are gang members and it can deport them under a 18th-century wartime law, but lawyers and family members say their clients and loved ones are innocent and were deprived of due process.
Kennedy said she visited El Salvador to speak with the defendants, document the human rights situation and learn about the condition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man the U.S. government said was mistakenly deported.
The Trump administration has refused to adhere to a Supreme Court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, while Bukele has said he would not release him in El Salvador nor “smuggle” him back into the country.
The case has pitted the U.S. executive against the courts, raising the prospect of a constitutional conflict.
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