The Trump administration insists that the Venezuelan men it sent to a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador were all "illegal aliens" connected to a violent gang, but at least 50 of them entered the country legally, according to a new report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
David J. Bier, director of immigration policy at the Cato Institute, tried to gather information on 238 Venezuelan men identified by CBS News who were sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration earlier this year—an incomplete list because the administration has never released a full manifest. Of the 90 cases where Bier could determine a method of entry, 50 men had entered the country legally as refugees, parolees, or temporary visa holders. They were vetted in advance and entered the U.S. through an official border crossing point. That is, they violated no immigration law.
The Cato report follows a CBS News investigation that also found that 75 percent of the men on the list had no criminal record in the U.S. or abroad.
