‘Bogus’ Interpol red notice kept mum from El Salvador in US immigration detention for six years
A woman spent six years languishing in US immigration detention due to a “bogus” Interpol red notice stemming from a harassment campaign by a police officer in El Salvador.
Jessica Barahona Martinez, who is originally from the Central American country, told Sky News and its US partner NBC News about her ordeal in her first sit-down interview since her release.
During her time in detention, her sister died of cancer and she rarely saw her children after being moved to a facility more than 1,000 miles away from her family.
Ms Barahona Martinez’s lawyer Sandra Grossman describes it as one of the worst cases she had come across.
“We have been fighting bogus red notices for over 15 years,” she said.
“And I can tell you that this is one of the most egregious examples of Interpol abuse that we’ve ever seen.”
The US is considered a leader in tackling Interpol abuse – in which authoritarian states use the notice system to target dissidents abroad, or when individuals use it in the service of private disputes.
While the US has specific legislation to prevent Interpol from being used for transnational repression, immigration authorities are ignoring guidance not to arrest people solely based on a red notice.
Since her release, Ms Barahona Martinez has been trying to repair her mental health
Ms Barahona Martinez said her ordeal began when a local police officer in her hometown in El Salvador began a campaign of harassment, targeting her due to her sexuality.
She said he initially accused her of being interested in his girlfriend, and went on to sexually harass and assault her in the town’s market.
“He talked to me like I was nothing, like I was trash,” she said. “He called me a waste of a woman.”
Dangerous allegation
Eventually, the police officer accused Ms Barahona Martinez of extortion, for the amount of roughly $30, and said she was part of a gang – which is considered an extremely serious allegation in El Salvador.
The country has a long history of gang violence, and at one point had the highest murder rate in the world.
The subsequent crackdown has been effective but brutal; human rights groups say it has included torture and arbitrary detention, while police have bragged about being able to “arrest anyone we want”.
Jessica Barahona Martinez reunited with her family. Pic: ACLU
Ms Barahona Martinez spent nine months detained in El Salvador waiting for a court date, until her case was dismissed for lack of evidence in March 2015.
Upon her release, the harassment resumed. She said the same car would drive by her house each night.
Ms Barahona Martinez has three children from a previous relationship, and says she started receiving threatening phone calls from a person who listed her children’s names and where they went to school.
In May 2016, a year after her case was dismissed in El Salvador, Ms Barahona Martinez fled to the US. She submitted an official asylum application in April 2017.
However, she was unaware that police in El Salvador had attempted to re-open her case in the meantime.
She did not show up for a subsequent court appearance, and so local police circulated a red notice via Interpol.
Immigration officers in the US are not supposed to detain somebody purely on the basis of a red notice.
But when Ms Barahona Martinez attended her monthly check-in with immigration authorities on a Friday in June, she was told to head home and pack her bags, say goodbye to her children and report to a detention centre the following Monday morning.
Two asylum bids
Ms Barahona Martinez first learned she had been detained due to a red notice when she was denied bail a month later.
She would spend six years in detention.
Twice she was granted asylum. Two separate immigration judges found her claims of persecution in El Salvador credible – in 2018 and again in 2019.
However, both times an immigration board overturned the asylum decision, citing the existence of the red notice.
Authorities claimed the red notice meant that Ms Barahona Martinez was banned from refugee status under a rule called the mandatory non-political crime bar, which is designed to prevent people who have committed crimes abroad from seeking asylum after they have gone on the run.
But for Ms Barahona Martinez, the red notice resulted from – and was evidence of – the very persecution she was escaping.
Nevertheless, she was detained for the entirety of her asylum proceedings.
Ms Grossman said this was because of a disconnect between US policy and practice when it comes to Interpol notices.
‘Fundamental misunderstanding’
Although the US government guidelines state that a red notice should not automatically lead to detention, in practice that is what happens in the immigration system.
“I think this might hopefully be changing in the United States, but it appears in most of these cases that the red notice is sort of looked at as evidence of criminality and often as conclusive evidence of criminality,” Ms Grossman said.
“There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding in the United States about what a red notice is and is not.”
Ms Grossman believes that if Interpol was more transparent about the ways in which red notices can go wrong, both officials and victims of Interpol abuse would be better equipped to respond.
“It would be really helpful for cases where there’s bogus red notices involved for Interpol to be much more open about the fact that this happens,” she said.
Ms Barahona Martinez’s case came to light after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) met with her on one of their regular tours of detention centres in early 2023.
They then turned to Ms Grossman for specialist help.
When she petitioned Interpol’s review body she received an unusually swift reply telling her the red notice had been deleted.
From shock to panic
Still, Ms Barahona Martinez remained in detention until September last year, when she was released without warning after several interview requests by Sky News and the filing of a habeas petition by the ACLU, which would have seen her case brought before a higher judge.
Read more:
El Salvador opens 40,000-inmate prison in ‘war against gangs’
10,000 police and soldiers to seal off entire El Salvador town
On 28 September, as Ms Barahona Martinez was working in the kitchen at a Louisiana detention centre, an immigration official sought her out to inform her she was being released the following day.
She told Sky News she was so shocked that she told the officer there must have been a mistake.
However, her shock soon turned to panic. After six years inside, she was not sure how she would cope with the outside world or even how to get back to her family.
Jessica Barahona Martinez with her family
“What was I going to find outside? I spoke to my mother, I said to her ‘Mum, what if I get lost?’ It was something that I honestly wasn’t prepared for at the time. And she told me, ‘You’re not going to get lost. We will find you’.”
The day after Ms Barahona was released, US authorities published updated guidance, reiterating that immigration officers shouldn’t detain people solely on the basis of a red notice.
‘Very robust system’
In an earlier episode of Sky News’ Dirty Work podcast, Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock defended the red notice system.
He said: “I think it is a very robust system, and it is a very successful system first and foremost because it helps almost every day around the world to catch dangerous fugitives, murderers, rapists, those who are exploiting children, drug traffickers.”
When asked about people ending up with a notice that should not have been issued, he said: “[It is] a small number of cases, but of course, very often significant cases that end up in the media and where we say, yes, this notice should not have been published.
“Every one of those cases is a case too many because we know the consequences this might have,” he said.
A spokesperson for the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) said: “Regardless of nationality, ICE makes custody determinations on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with US law and US department of homeland security policy, considering the circumstances of each case.”
Donald Trump has announced he is going to deploy National Guard troops to Washington DC to make the US capital’s streets safer.
At a White House news conference on Monday, the president said the city’s police would come under federal control as he said the murder rate in DC was “higher than” in some of the “worst places on earth”.
He said he was sending in the troops to “re-establish law, order, and public safety”.
Members of the National Guard outside the US Capitol. File Pic: AP
Mr Trump said he was announcing a “historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.
“This is liberation day in DC and we are going to take our capital back.”
The president continued: “So today we are declaring a public safety emergency in the district of Columbia.”
He added it is not just about safety but also the “beautification” of the city.
“Washington DC should be one of the safest, cleanest and most beautiful cities anywhere in the world and we’re going to make it that.”
Last week, the Republican president directed federal law enforcement agencies to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option “to extend as needed”.
A member of the National Guard patrols the area outside of the US Capitol in 2021.
File pic: AP
On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the US Marshals Service assigned more than 120 officers and agents to assist in Washington.
National Guard troops usually belong to individual states and personnel in many cases are trained to help with emergencies that those states have to deal with, such as natural disasters.
Read more from Sky News:
Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza
Mo Salah calls out UEFA over tribute to ‘Palestinian Pele’
Since they are the reserve force of the US military, National Guard troops are usually part-time, meaning that they have other jobs as well.
Minority leader of the US House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, responded to Mr Trump’s announcement on Monday with a post on X which read: “Violent crime in Washington, DC is at a thirty-year low.
“Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. And zero credibility on the issue of law and order.
“Get lost.”
In a social media post on Sunday, Mr Trump emphasised the removal of Washington’s homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Mr Trump wrote.
“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”
The White House is considering inviting Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska, according to reports in the US.
The reports come a day after Washington and Moscow confirmed the US and Russian presidents will meet on Friday to discuss bringing about an end to the war in Ukraine.
A senior US official and three people briefed on internal discussions have told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News that the Trump administration is now considering inviting the Ukrainian president to the summit.
“It’s being discussed,” one of the people briefed on the talks was quoted as saying.
Analysis: Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal
For Ukraine – its exhausted, brave soldiers, its thousands of bereaved families mourning their dead, and its beleaguered president – it is exactly what they feared it would be.
They fear the compromise they will be forced to make will be messy, costly, unfair and ultimately beneficial to the invading tyrant who brought death and destruction to their sovereign land.
The sources said a visit by Mr Zelenskyy has not been finalised – and it is unclear whether the Ukrainian leader will be in Alaska.
However, the senior administration official said it is “absolutely” possible.
“Everyone is very hopeful that would happen,” the official said.
Asked whether the US had officially invited Mr Zelenskyy, a senior White House official said: “The president remains open to a trilateral summit with both leaders. Right now, the White House is focusing on planning the bilateral meeting requested by President Putin.”
On Friday – before the summit was confirmed – Mr Trump had told reporters at the White House that “we’re getting very close to a deal” that would end the conflict.
The US president added there will be “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both sides”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
US diplomacy ‘totally amateur’
Zelenskyy suggests he’s unwilling to give up territory
Yesterday, the Ukrainian president warned that allowing Russia to keep territory it has occupied in Ukraine will result in another invasion.
He said allowing Mr Putin to annex Crimea in 2014 didn’t prevent Russia forces from occupying more parts of Ukraine during the current conflict.
Mr Zelenskyy added: “Now, Putin wants to be forgiven for seizing the south of our Kherson region, Zaporizhzhia, the entire territory of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and Crimea. We will not allow this second attempt to partition Ukraine.
“Knowing Russia – where there is a second, there will be a third.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Zelenskyy: Ukraine will not give land to ‘occupier’
NATO allies say Ukraine must be involved in negotiations
Ukraine and several NATO allies have reportedly been privately concerned Mr Trump might agree to Mr Putin’s proposals for ending the war without taking their positions into account.
In a joint statement last night, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said Ukraine’s future cannot be decided without Kyiv.
They said: “Ukraine has the freedom of choice over its own destiny. Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities.
“The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.
“We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.
“The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”
Read analysis:
Lifting sanctions a ‘massive victory for Moscow’
Stakes high for Alaska summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal
Why Trump will have a lot of ice to break at Alaska summit
From left: Volodymr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Pics: AP
UK hosts Ukrainian officials ahead of summit
Earlier, Foreign Secretary David Lammy hosted a meeting of top Ukrainian officials and European national security advisers alongside US Vice President JD Vance.
The meeting took place at Chevening, the foreign secretary’s official country retreat in Kent, where Mr Vance is staying at the start of a UK holiday.
After the meeting, Mr Lammy said: “The UK’s support for Ukraine remains ironclad as we continue working towards a just and lasting peace.”
From left: Rustem Umerov, David Lammy, JD Vance and Andriy Yermak. Pic: X/David Lammy
It is understood that the meeting had been called at Washington’s request, and included representatives from the US, Ukraine, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and Poland, as well as the UK.
Ukraine was represented by Rustem Umerov, secretary of the country’s national security and defence council, and the head of Mr Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak.
In a post on social media, Mr Yermak said the allies’ positions were “clear” that “a reliable, lasting peace is only possible with Ukraine at the negotiating table, with full respect for our sovereignty and without recognising the occupation”.
Ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir discussed the talks in a call with Mr Zelenskyy, and also spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said Sir Keir and Mr Macron “discussed the latest developments in Ukraine, reiterating their unwavering support for President Zelenskyy and to securing a just and lasting peace for the Ukrainian people”.
A man who opened fire on the headquarters of America’s national public health agency – leaving a police officer dead – had blamed the COVID vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.
Patrick Joseph White, a 30-year-old from Georgia, had tried to enter the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards, a law enforcement official said.
They added that White then drove to a pharmacy across the street before opening fire late on Friday afternoon.
He was armed with five guns – including at least one long gun.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose, who had three children, was shot dead while responding to the incident.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. Pic: Reuters
White also died, but authorities haven’t said whether he was killed by police or if he killed himself.
His father had contacted police and identified his son as the possible gunman.
White’s father also said his son had been upset over the death of his dog and had become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whose scepticism of vaccines has been a cornerstone of his career, voiced support for CDC employees yesterday.
But some laid-off CDC employees said Mr Kennedy shares responsibility for the violence and should resign.
An armed police officer at the scene. Pic: AP
Mr Kennedy has a history as a leader in the anti-vaccine movement, but he reached new prominence by spreading distrust of COVID-19 vaccines. For example, he called it “criminal medical malpractice” to give these jabs to children.
He said after the shooting: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose.
“We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today. No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.”
Sarah Boim, a former CDC communications staffer who was fired this year during a wave of terminations, said the shooting was the “physical embodiment of the narrative that has taken over, attacking science, and attacking our federal workers”.
The CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Pic: AP
White’s ‘distrust of COVID vaccines’
A neighbour of White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the gunman spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 jabs.
Nancy Hoalst, who lives on the same street as White’s family, said he seemed like a “good guy” but he would bring up vaccines even in unrelated conversations.
“He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people.” Ms Hoalst told the Atlanta newspaper. “He emphatically believed that.”
However, she said she never believed White would be violent and added: “I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike