‘Bogus’ Interpol red notice kept mum from El Salvador in US immigration detention for six years

Published

1 year ago

February 26, 2024

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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.”

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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.

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”.

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.”

What is an Interpol red notice?

An Interpol red notice is a request to law enforcement all around the world to locate and detain an individual, pending extradition back to the country that put in the request or other legal action.

It is not an international arrest warrant, but it is the highest alert a country can make.

There are eight alerts in total, seven of which are colour-coded, while an eighth can only be used by the UN’s Security Council.

Most red notices can only be used by law enforcement.

The individuals are wanted by the requesting member country, or international tribunal, but each country applies their own laws in deciding whether to arrest someone.

Parts of a red notice may be published, if requested, if there is a feeling the public’s help may be needed to locate the person or if the individual poses a threat.

There are currently nearly 7,000 Interpol red notices in effect – just 12 coming from the UK.

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.

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.

“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.”

US

At least 82 dead in Texas floods as search continues for 10 missing girls

Published

5 hours ago

July 7, 2025

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At least 82 dead in Texas floods as search continues for 10 missing girls

At least 82 people have died in flash flooding in Texas as the search continues for dozens still missing.

At least 41 people remain missing, including at least 10 girls and one councillor still unaccounted for from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a Christian summer camp for girls along the Guadalupe River.

At Camp Mystic at least 27 people died, the camp confirmed in a statement to Sky’s US partner NBC News. It said it is working with local and state officials to try to locate those who remain missing.

“This tragedy has devastated us and our entire community. Our hearts are broken alongside the families that are enduring this tragedy, and we share their hope and prayers,” Camp Mystic added.

The director of the camp, Dick Eastland, was among those killed in the floods. He died trying to save the campers “he so loved and cared for”, his grandson George said on social media.

Water burst from the banks of the Guadalupe River and began sweeping into Kerr County and other areas around 4am local time on Friday, killing at least 68 people, including at least 28 children and 40 adults.

In nearby Kendall County, two people have died. At least six people were killed in Travis County, while at least four people died in Burnet County. In both Williamson and Tom Green counties, at least one person has died.

US President Donald Trump has signed a “major disaster declaration” for Kerr County to ensure that rescuers get the resources they need.

Rescue crews have already saved hundreds of people and would work around the clock to find those still unaccounted for, Texas governor Greg Abbott pledged, adding that there were at least 41 people confirmed to be missing.

Mr Abbott asked relatives of people who may have been camping in Kerr County to contact local authorities, as it was difficult to know just who is missing due to the number of people who may have been camping in the area unofficially.

“There are people who are missing who are not on the ‘known confirmed missing’ because we do not know who they are,” he said at a news conference last night.

Meanwhile, police are collecting DNA from family members to help identify those who have died in the floods.

Colonel Freeman Martin, from the Texas Department of Public Safety, said there are several “unidentified” people at funeral homes, both adults and children.

The DNA collected from relatives was flown to the University of North Texas in Dallas.

“We will have rapid DNA in hours, not days, to get some closure and information back to those families,” Colonel Freeman Martin said.

He also said the death toll is certain to rise over the next few days.

This comes as Mr Abbott indicated that the danger wasn’t over yet either, as additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more “rapid flash flooding events”, especially in places already saturated.

The governor urged drivers to be “extraordinarily cautious” for the next 48 hours due to the potential floods, as some people across Texas died when they were swept away in vehicles.

“Rising water on roads can occur very rapidly. You may think you can drive through it, only to find out when you’re in there that it is too late and you are getting swept away,” he said.

“You don’t need to get from point A to point B if you are going to risk your life,” he added, telling people to “turn around, don’t drown”.

US

Texas floods: The victims and people missing that have been named so far

Published

17 hours ago

July 6, 2025

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Texas floods: The victims and people missing that have been named so far

Details of those who have died and those who are missing after US flash floods are slowly emerging – with several young girls among those unaccounted for.

At least 69 people have died from the flooding in Texas, with an unknown number of people – including 11 girls and a counsellor from Camp Mystic in Kerr County – still missing.

As much as 10ins (25cm) of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County on Friday, causing the banks of the Guadalupe River to burst at around 4am local time.

Tributes to those who died, and appeals for those who are still missing, are now being shared.

Who are the victims?

Renee Smajstrla, eight

Renee’s uncle Shawn Salta confirmed the eight-year-old had died, and said she was one of 700 children staying at Camp Mystic.

“Renee has been found and while not the outcome we prayed for, the social media outreach likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly,” he said.

“We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this picture from yesterday.

“She will forever be living her best life at Camp Mystic.”

Sarah Marsh, eight

Mountain Brook mayor Stewart Welch confirmed the death of eight-year-old Sarah, from Alabama, who was a pupil at Cherokee Bend Elementary.

“This is an unimaginable loss for her family, her school, and our entire community,” he said. “Sarah’s passing is a sorrow shared by all of us, and our hearts are with those who knew and loved her.

“As we grieve alongside the Marsh family, we also remember the many others affected by this tragedy.”

Eloise Peck and Lila Bonner, both nine

Eloise’s mother Missy Peck told local broadcaster FOX4 that her daughter and Lila were best friends and cabinmates at Camp Mystic.

Writing about her daughter on Instagram, Ms Peck said: “She lost her life in the tragic flooding… our family is grieving and processing this unimaginable loss together.”

Lila’s family told NBC Dallas Fort Worth, a local affiliate network of Sky’s US partner network, that they were in “unimaginable grief”, and said: “We ache with all who loved her.”

Janie Hunt, nine

Janie’s family confirmed her death to a reporter from NBC Dallas Fort Worth, who said “her mother tells me she’s devastated”.

Richard ‘Dick’ Eastland, owner of Camp Mystic

Kerr County judge Rob Kelly told the Washington Post that Mr Eastland, who owned the camp died in a helicopter on the way to a Houston hospital.

Local outlet The Kerrville Daily Times reported he was killed while trying to save the girls from the flash floods.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that his last act of kindness and sacrifice was working to save the lives of campers,” guest columnist Paige Sumner said in the Daily Times’ tribute to Mr Eastland.

Blair and Brooke Harber, 13 and 11

RJ Harber told CNN his daughters died during flooding in Kerr County, saying Blair “was a gifted student and had a generous kind heart”.

He added that Brooke “was like a light in any room, people gravitated to her and she made them laugh and enjoy the moment”.

He also said both his parents were still missing.

Jane Ragsdale, owner of Heart O’ the Hills camp

On Heart O’ the Hills’s website, the camp confirmed it was “right in the path of the flood” along the Guadalupe River.

While there were no campers in residence, Jane Ragsdale died. The camp said: “We at the camp are stunned and deeply saddened by Jane’s death.

“She embodied the spirit of Heart O’ the Hills and was exactly the type of strong, joyful woman that the camp aimed to develop with the girls entrusted to us each summer.”

Julian Ryan, 27

Relatives of Mr Ryan told local news broadcaster KHOU 11 that he died saving his family from floodwaters in Texas Hill County.

They described how he tried to smash a window to help them escape the rising water, but it cut his arm and he bled out before help could arrive.

Who is still missing?

Penny, Emlyn, and Madelyn ‘Emmy’ Jeffrey, 11

Christin Jeffrey Jones posted on Facebook that her parents Penny and Emlyn Jeffrey are missing, as well her niece Madelyn ‘Emmy’ Jeffrey.

She said her family were in Hunt, Texas, and “were spending the night at their cabin on the river at Casa Bonita which is now completely gone”.

“We ask for continued prayers and miracles,” she said. “Please share the word.”

Charlene and Mike Harber, 74 and 76

RJ Harber also told CNN that his parents, Charlene and Mike Harber, are still missing.

He believes the couple have died.

US

Deadly Texas floods: What were the warnings?

Published

20 hours ago

July 6, 2025

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Deadly Texas floods: What were the warnings?

Questions have been raised over extreme weather warnings in Texas, after heavy rain caused fatal flash floods along the Guadalupe River.

At least 51 people have died from the flooding in Texas, with an unknown number of people – including 27 girls from Camp Mystic in Kerr County – still missing.

As rescue teams continue to search for the missing, local and federal officials have come under fire over their flood preparations and about why those along the river weren’t warned of the risks sooner.

What happened?

As much as 10ins (25cm) of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County on Friday, causing the banks of the Guadalupe River to burst at around 4am local time.

Homes and vehicles were swept away by the downpour – equivalent to months’ worth of rain – while 27 girls staying at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river, went missing when the fast-rising floodwaters hit.

The death toll stands at:
• At least 43 people, including 15 children and 28 adults, in Kerr County,
• One person in Kendall County,
• At least four people in Travis County,
• At least two in Burnet County,
• And one person in the city of San Angelo.

What flood warnings were there?

Private forecasting company AccuWeather said it and the National Weather Service (NWS) sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before it began, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.

The NWS also issued flash flood emergencies – a rare alert notifying of imminent danger – at 4.23am local time.

In a statement, AccuWeather said that “these warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety”.

It also called Texas Hill County one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the US because of its terrain and many water crossings.

However, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management Nim Kidd said that one NWS forecast earlier in the week had called for up to six inches of rain.

“It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.

Were they enough?

Locals have told various news agencies that while there had been phone alerts late into the night, forecasts headed into Friday evening did not predict the extreme conditions.

Christopher Flowers, who was staying at a friend’s house along the river when the flooding started, told the Reuters news agency: “What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now.”

Kerrville resident Darryl Huffman told Sky’s US partner network NBC News that he did not believe the storm would pose such danger before its arrival.

“I looked out the window and it was barely sprinkling outside,” he said, “so I had no indication that the river was going to be right outside my driveway”.

Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities.

He said in a statement: “People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast.”

Separately, the NWS’s union told NBC News the agency’s offices in central Texas were well-staffed and had issued timely warnings, “giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before warning criteria were met”.

What have officials said?

Local and federal officials have said they had not expected such an intense downpour of rain and insisted that no one saw the flood potential coming.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official, said: “We know we get rain. We know the river rises. But nobody saw this coming.”

“We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States,” he said, adding: “We had no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever.”

Mr Kelly separately noted that while the county considered a flood warning system along the river that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, “the public reeled at the cost”.

At a news conference with the Texas governor, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said on Saturday that “everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict” before saying “we have all wanted more time and more warning and more alerts and more notification” from the NWS.

She said a “moderate” flood watch issued on Thursday by the NWS had not accurately predicted the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade their technology.

Will forecasting get better?

While Ms Noem said technology for the NWS would be upgraded, the White House has previously been criticised after Donald Trump‘s administration ordered 800 job cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – the parent organisation of the NWS.

A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress.

Professor Costa Samaras, who worked on energy policy at the White House under President Joe Biden, said NOAA had been in the middle of developing new flood maps for neighbourhoods and that cuts to NOAA were “devastating”.