T still remembers the terror after being deported from the United States to El Salvador late last year. A transgender woman who asked to be identified only by her first initial for safety, she says airport officials forced her to strip so officers could inspect tattoos for gang marks. They questioned her about criminal records; she had none. She was allowed to go to her parents’ house but told local police might stop and question her at any time. Too frightened to leave, she stayed inside for weeks.
T’s story echoes many others. Human Rights Watch reported in March 2026 that more than 9,000 Salvadorans were deported from the U.S. since January 2025, and reporting by NPR finds a pattern of returnees disappearing into El Salvador’s prison system either immediately on arrival or shortly thereafter. Once detained, many are held incommunicado, often cut off from family and legal counsel for months.
The wave of arrests links back to March 2022, when President Nayib Bukele declared a state of exception after a series of gang-related killings. Although the emergency measures were meant to last 30 days, successive renewals have kept them in place for years. Human rights groups say the prolonged rule has created an effective police state that has produced widespread abuses.
The crackdown did lower the country’s homicide rate, but it also precipitated a massive rise in imprisonment. Tens of thousands have been detained under the state of exception; analysis by El País based on official figures estimates nearly 92,000 arrests, leaving El Salvador with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Rights organizations warn that many of those detained were not gang members before the crackdown: El País found that 64 percent of arrested people had previously been listed as gang-affiliated in intelligence files prior to 2022.
Prisons such as CECOT, a high-security mega-prison, have become focal points. The government briefly housed hundreds of Venezuelan deportees there under a $6 million deal with the Trump administration; those Venezuelans were later released. By contrast, many Salvadorans deported from the U.S. remain behind bars.
Families describe wrenching uncertainty. In Nebraska, U.S. citizen Jennifer Kesselberg Dubon has not heard from her husband since he was deported and jailed in 2023; she says he had no gang links but was labeled after his return. ‘In all honesty, he may be dead,’ she told NPR. A San Salvador legal aid group, Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, reports at least 517 people have died in prisons since the state of exception began.
Legal advocates say deportees are particularly vulnerable because authorities in the U.S. and El Salvador share information about prior arrests and even unverified suspicions of gang ties. Sarah Bishop, a professor at Baruch College who studies life after deportation, tracked 25 men returned from the U.S. over four years; 19 were jailed on arrival or soon after. Bishop says people can be arrested based largely on prior arrests or entries in intelligence files, and many remain afraid to leave home for fear of police violence.
Detention under the state of exception often means disappearing from view. Grace, who asked to be identified by a nickname because she still lives in El Salvador, says her brother was detained immediately after his 2025 deportation. He had been acquitted in 2021 of a statutory rape charge, she said, but is now accused of collaborating with gangs. She last saw him in October being processed into prison and has not had contact since.
In the United States, immigration attorneys say appeals can sometimes stop or reverse deportations. If a U.S. court overturns a removal order, the government must return the deportee. Jonathan Levy, director of pro bono programs at American Gateways, represents several Salvadorans and says the U.S. government must assess whether returning someone creates a real risk of torture or death. He warns evidence shows some people sent back to El Salvador end up dead in detention. Levy adds that recent policy changes have made it harder to block deportations, but lawyers continue appeals that could set precedents and win clients’ return. T herself is pursuing that path, now back in U.S. immigration detention fighting her removal.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer whether it is tracking disappearances or whether it is concerned about the state of exception, referring queries to El Salvador. A Bukele spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Human rights organizations condemn the state of exception as a framework that enables abuses against detainees, opposition figures and returnees. Advocates say the most immediate relief for separated families would come from restoring due process and transparency in El Salvador’s justice system so relatives and lawyers can learn detainees’ whereabouts and condition.