Berkeley Human Rights Center challenges CBS decision to pull '60 Minutes' El Salvador prison report

"SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Human Rights Center, based at UC Berkeley's School of Law, is pushing back after CBS pulled a "60 Minutes" investigation into alleged abuses inside El Salvador's CECOT prison. That is the notorious megaprison where the Trump administration had sent Venezuelan migrants. The report that would have aired on December 21 featured the center's student-driven analysis that sought to verify claims of abuse at the prison."

"In an interview with ABC7 News anchor Kristen Sze on ABC7 News at 3 p.m., HRC's co-faculty director Alexa Koenig said her team was "surprised" to learn the segment had been shelved despite clearing CBS's extensive legal and editorial review. Berkeley researchers had spent months corroborating detainees' accounts using geolocation, image analysis, and other opensource methods. Koenig noted that while CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss reportedly questioned the relevance of the Berkeley analysis, "What matters most to us is that the information our students collect is accurate and rigorously verified.""

UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center conducted a student-driven, open-source investigation to corroborate detainees' accounts of alleged abuses at El Salvador's CECOT megaprison. Researchers used geolocation, image analysis, and other methods and cleared CBS's legal and editorial review, but CBS ultimately shelved a planned 60 Minutes segment scheduled for December 21. Co-faculty director Alexa Koenig said the team was surprised and stressed accuracy and rigorous verification of student-collected evidence. The decision to withhold the vetted report raises questions about political pressure, public access to evidence-based human rights reporting, and trust in independent, court-admissible documentation methods.

Read at ABC7 San Francisco