The US state department announced the designation of Afghanistan as a sponsor of wrongful detention, accusing it of engaging in hostage diplomacy. Afghanistan joined Iran as countries singled out by the United States for detaining Americans in hopes of extracting policy concessions.
Due to his "lack of experience," he said, he had misunderstood federal immigration jargon and believed that De La Garza's residency bid had been denied - though it hadn't. He repeated his misunderstanding on a form that government attorneys cited in court to justify the detention. On the same form, he also wrongly reported that De La Garza had admitted to illegally entering the country in 2015.
Like hundreds of thousands of others, Brayan Palencia decided to migrate to the United States to financially support his family. He didn't earn much in Colombia and had a daughter to look after. He crossed the Darien Gap with an injured knee; he paid bribes to cartels in Mexico so that he would be allowed to continue his journey. Even so, he emphasizes, nothing compares to what he experienced at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the mega-prison in El Salvador built by President Nayib Bukele.
