How the Trump regime is emulating the Pinochet regime
The only information Ysqueibel Yonaiquer Peñaloza Chirinos’ family has received about him in the past three months came from former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz probably didn’t mean to help. But last month, as part of a propaganda video for the far-right One America News Network, he took a tour of the infamous Salvadoran prison to which President Donald Trump has sent hundreds of U.S. immigrants for indefinite detention, without charge, trial or sentencing: El Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT. By the time Gaetz arrived, the men Trump had rendered to the prison had already been there for two months.
It happens quickly: The OANN camera pans across a cluster of cells Gaetz says are being used to hold the people Trump sent to El Salvador. Many chant “Libertad!” Some press their hands together in prayer, pleading.
Peñaloza’s face flashes on screen, framed by two metal bars. He looks mournful, almost crying, and does not say anything. But he does what most others are doing, opening and closing his fingers over a closed thumb, making what his lawyers say is an internationally recognized hand symbol for distress — a flashing “send help” request popularized by domestic violence advocacy groups during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Peñaloza’s mother, Ydalys Chirinos-Polanco, spotted him in the video. She already knew he was at the prison — Peñaloza’s olive branch tattoo was visible in the initial March 15 footage of the U.S. CECOT detainees — but she hadn’t seen him since then.
Peñaloza’s only encounter with the law in the United States had been a traffic ticket, she said.
“I felt a lot of pain,” Chirinos recalled to HuffPost on a video call Wednesday, speaking in Spanish and through tears. “But at the same time — a lot of happiness to see that he is alive and that he had the strength to stand up.”
A month later, she hasn’t seen any more of her son.
In his absence, the U.S. government has worked to remove Peñaloza, who is Venezuelan, from domestic immigration court entirely. Six days after Gaetz’s prison tour, an immigration judge granted the Department of Homeland Security’s request to dismiss Peñaloza’s case. As far as the United States immigration court system is concerned, he does not exist. [Continue reading…]