16/ Story brought to you by an amazing @ProPublica collaboration with @msanchezMIA, @Jodiscohen, @mariamaelba, Sebastian Rotella, and many, many others.
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16/ Story brought to you by an amazing @ProPublica collaboration with @msanchezMIA, @Jodiscohen, @mariamaelba, Sebastian Rotella, and many, many others.
15/ We “are limited on further information we can provide,” said Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the DHS. “The safety and protection of sources is more important than your story.”
14/ The DHS did not respond to a detailed list of questions regarding the raid. It said the operation was “performed in full compliance of the law.”
13/ For the Venezuelans as well as the other tenants, the raid was a lot of hype and a lot of hurt. “I lost everything,” one told us. “For those fools, everyone from Venezuela is a criminal.” Lea el reportaje aquí, en español: www.propublica.org/article/chic...
12/ As of now, some Venezuelans remain in detention. Others have already been deported. A judge granted some voluntary departure — a sign that they are not seen as a serious threat and can apply for return to the United States.
11/ “I don’t know whether these people were or weren’t thieves,” one Venezuelan told us. “Because to tell you the truth, I just passed right by them. ‘Good morning, good morning,’ and that’s it. I was focused on going to work.”
10/ The building was not a nice place. Some occupants engaged in criminal activity, flashing guns and selling drugs. One Venezuelan was killed in an apartment in June. But nobody interviewed by ProPublica said they knew of Tren de Aragua members living in the building.
9/ (Caveat: Our findings on criminal records are not comprehensive since there’s no universal database of charges or convictions. ProPublica could not ascertain if any of the detainees had records in other countries.)
8/ We found no criminal convictions for 18 of the 21 Venezuelans we identified. Besides Parra, two others were arrested, but the charges were dropped. And three were convicted on crimes ranging from domestic battery to battery against an officer to marijuana possession.
7/ “I don’t have anything to do with that,” Parra, 24, told us. “I’m very worried. I don’t know why they are saying that. I came here to find a better future for me and my family.”
6/ We tracked down one of the “confirmed” Tren de Aragua members in detention in Indiana. Ludwing Jeanpier Parra Pérez told us he had no links to the gang. Criminal records show Parra was arrested for drug possession and driving without a license. The charges were dropped.
5/ Federal prosecutors have filed no charges or warrants in connection with the raid. The DHS told us that the agents had arrested two “confirmed” Tren de Aragua members, including one on a terrorist watch list. Here's the full statement.
4/ We found that none of that was true. How? We identified 21 of the Venezuelan immigrants arrested in the raid and interviewed a dozen for the first time. We spoke with other tenants. And we examined court and criminal records. Find the story here: www.propublica.org/article/chic...
3/ Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration adviser, said the building was “filled” with members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. He called the raid “one of the most successful law enforcement operations that we’ve seen in this country.”
2/ .@DHSgov raided a 130-unit apartment complex in late September in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. Some 300 federal agents swarmed the building. They knocked down doors, tossed in flash grenades and kicked almost everybody out.
Remember the immigration raid on the apartment complex in Chicago almost two months ago? The one with the Black Hawk helicopter and federal agents rappelling on ropes? @ProPublica decided to take a deeper look. We found little evidence to support the government’s claims. 🧵
19/ The contractor’s removal had consequences: It resulted in a decline in U.S. cooperation with Salvadoran anti-corruption prosecutors. “Nobody really replaced him,” a former Salvadoran law enforcement official told us.“He was the most active of the Americans working with us.”
18/ Johnson determined the contractor had unauthorized contact with the press and had misled internal investigators about it, the IG report says. The ambassador defended the contractor’s dismissal during his Senate confirmation hearing this year.
www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
17/ The State Dept. gave us a written statement from Johnson about Bukele. “Our cordial relationship was based on honest and frank dialogue to advance issues of mutual benefit for both of our nations,” Johnson said.
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
16/ Responding to our request for comment, the State Dept. said it was “false” that Johnson impeded law enforcement efforts to protect Bukele or his allies. A spokesperson said the allegations made by Manes in the inspector general report were untrue.
15/ “Manes would go see Bukele to convey U.S. concerns about some of his policies. Then the station chief would go see him and say the opposite,” a former National Security Council director told us. Neither Manes nor the station chief responded to our inquiries.
14/ In a striking move, @jeanmanes had the CIA station chief removed from post. She wrote a memo that Johnson “loyalists” were preventing her from carrying out her duties. She required staff to get approval before talking to senior Bukele officials.
13/ Manes concluded that the CIA station chief — a Johnson friend — was “too close” to Bukele, the report said. Former U.S. officials suspected that he was undermining a new Biden administration policy to curb the Salvadoran president’s growing authoritarianism.
12/ There’s more. After Biden was elected, Jean Manes took over as the top diplomat at the embassy. State Dept. officials told her to review what was happening at the post. They felt reports from the embassy showed favoritism to Bukele.
11/ Johnson is now Trump’s ambassador to Mexico, one of the most important diplomatic posts in Latin America. And Bukele has a new friend in Trump, whose administration paid a reported $6 million to use the CECOT prison.
10/ Johnson joined Republican luminaries such as @TuckerCarlson, @DonaldJTrumpJr and @kimguilfoyle at Bukele’s inauguration in June 2024.
8/ Why is this important? Johnson helped promote Bukele in MAGA Republican circles, clearing the way for Trump’s deal earlier this year to house deportees in an infamous Salvadoran megaprison.
7/ Johnson and Bukele had an unusually close relationship. Johnson even posted a photo on @LinkedIn showing his family and Bukele’s family spending time at the Johnson’s Miami home around Christmas 2021.
6/ Johnson had told staff at the embassy in El Salvador that Trump’s most important priority was migration, not corruption in Bukele’s government. “The thinking was let El Salvador be El Salvador,” one official told us.
