Man 'Disappeared' by ICE Was on El Salvador Flight Manifest, Hacked Data Shows

"Ricardo Prada Vásquez was not on a government list of people sent to a mega prison in El Salvador. But hacked data shows he was booked on a flight to the country.

Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan man whose family says he was “disappeared” and who wasn’t included on a previously leaked government list of people sent to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador, was included on a private airline’s flight manifest to the country, according to hacked airline data obtained and analyzed by 404 Media."

Those are the first two paragraphs of the story, what do you think is missing that would help your comprehension of the situation?

These two paragraphs say nothing about who he is.

Does it matter? Apparently, laws were broken by the US administration once again. In working democracies, people don't just disappear.

It doesn’t matter who he is.

The problem is that he hasn’t had an opportunity to plead his case.

Good law enforcement officers regularly make honest mistakes. Courts are a safeguard against this.

Imagine that you get caught up in an immigration raid. Maybe you were at a Mexican restaurant. ICE shows up and half the staff quickly sit at tables pretending to be customers. ICE arrests everyone, including you.

Will ICE let you go home to go look for your birth certificate? If your wife hires a lawyer what process will your lawyer use to present your birth certificate to ICE?

Due process and the rule of law protects you from the arbitrary power of the state.

All I know is that if I was an illegal immigrant or "refugee" I'd be heading for that border as fast as possible.

It matters to me because I want to understand why he was sent to that prison.

I get it, you want someone to admit he was an undocumented immigrant, but sending an undocumented immigrant to an El Salvador prison without due process is repugnant. And, to unpack that further, sending prisoners to another country to wash your hands of them and how they are treated in captivity is repugnant in all cases, regardless of the crime. "Why he was sent to that prison" can be answered simply with "because this administration said so," and that is the problem that needs addressed, not whatever this man may or may not have done.

I doubt he was a random immigrant. There must be something else to this story.

And you're not getting that that's not the point. Are you saying that you think it is good public policy for the US to send some prisoners to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, and you're just reserving judgment until you are able to determine whether or not this specific guy deserved it?

Maybe the journalists have no answer because the government didn’t provide any information about him. We should invent a process by which the government presents facts and arguments to the public so that we know “who” they are deporting and why before they do it. There will be rules for what evidence can be presented and what type of arguments can be made, and an expert could preside over it, “judging” if you will, the validity of the facts and arguments and deciding what should be done. We could call it immigration court. Oh wait! it already exists, and this administration just ignores it, because nothing they would present there would justify disappearing someone to a foreign prison in a country they have never been to with no criminal conviction. That and they lack the resources to follow the rules while also making their quotas, and ~every lawyer with integrity and competence has quit or been fired.

There is perhaps some “reason” this happened to him that the news doesn’t know yet, but it can’t possibly be a good enough reason to do this. I think it’s unlikely many of these men are violent criminals, but even if they are, the law should be followed and their family and lawyers should know where they are.

MAGA say stuff like “if you want to immigrate here or seek asylum, there’s a process; don’t do it illegally.” The same is true of deportation. While I don’t think it should be a big priority, I would be a lot less angry about deportations if the law and basic human decency was being followed while doing it.

I’ve just seen that he did go to immigration court and was ordered deported. I still don’t think that makes it legal to chuck him in prison and not tell anyone where he is.

Moreover, in some countries it's actually honorable to be on a "wanted" list, like terrorist, extremist, tax evasion etc. Because that lists are often used as oppression against opponents. E.g. Russia routinely does that against pacifists. Khodorkovsky was jailed for 10 years for "stealing" from his own company after he announced his West-leaning political ambitions.

Incompetence? What if he was sent to El Salvador by accident?

Maybe everyone is calling him a gang member to cover their own asses?

Without a hearing we don’t know.