US-Backed Repression in Latin America Paved the Way for ICE

"Josué Aguilar Valle, a Honduran national, recalls the "terrible" conditions at the migrant jails where U.S. immigration authorities imprisoned him last year. In La Salle County, Texas, Aguilar shared a frigid cell with 50 men, sleeping on the concrete floor. "I thought I was going to experience hypothermia," he explained."

"Human rights experts claim that President Donald Trump's administration has restructured the immigration system to "disappear" people, undermining due process and expediting deportations by abducting civilians, hiding detainees, and deleting their data. Those searching for the vanishing victims of ICE arrests have compared the institution's clandestine practices to "trafficking people.""

"Since the 1970s, the U.S. government and its Latin American allies have frequently disappeared civilians to eliminate dissent and members of marginalized communities, while pursuing law enforcement initiatives that make immigrants vulnerable to human trafficking and state violence. In many ways, Trump's deportation drive reflects this deeper past."

Honduran migrant Josué Aguilar Valle experienced severe conditions in U.S. immigration detention, including overcrowding and hypothermia risks, while authorities repeatedly transferred him between facilities, preventing family contact. His eventual deportation separated him from his U.S. family. Human rights experts characterize Trump administration immigration practices as systematically designed to "disappear" people through detention facility transfers, data deletion, and expedited deportations that undermine due process. These practices resemble human trafficking operations. This pattern reflects historical U.S. government involvement in civilian disappearances since the 1970s across Latin America, where marginalized communities faced elimination through law enforcement initiatives.

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