In July, the Central East Region Summer Institute (CERSI) is held at Oberlin College in Ohio. This year, one of the participants – Julie Whiteker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — organized a candlelight vigil in honor of migrant individuals who have been taken from their families and incarcerated in El Salvador. In Good Faith asked Julie about the vigil and to talk about her efforts highlighting the lives of those who have been disappeared. We thank Julie for her contribution. 

About 100 attendees of this year’s Central East Region Summer Institute (CERSI) met on the expansive, verdant quad at Oberlin on Thursday, July 10th, for a candlelight vigil, in honor of the over 280 young migrants who disappeared to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March. Rev. Melissa Jeter led us in song and Rev. Jamie Henson-Rieger led the service with beautiful prayers.

During the first Trump administration, after family separation started, a small group of people form the CERSI community traveled to Brownsville, Texas to volunteer with Team Brownsville, a group that provided food, schooling and other resources to the many migrants at the refugee encampment in Matamoros, Mexico.

Some of these very people were included on the Trump Administration’s first list of 238 migrants whom it claimed were connected to criminal gangs and thus deportable to a foreign prison under the supposition of domestic terrorism.

A couple weeks after the first list of 238 men was leaked, I started searching for them on the internet and social media. What I found was immense grief. Parents, siblings, aunts and even children of the captives crying that their loved ones are innocent.

Many families showed proof of the captives’ clean criminal records in Venezuela and screenshots of their legal entry appointments; some even had copies of their work permits. They all shared photos of the men: goofing around, being in love, working, playing, and with their families. Many are fathers of young children. All are breadwinners.

The stories of the men have an eerie similarity. All but a few came to the US from Venezuela in 2023 or 24; they crossed the border either with a pre-approved appointment or by surrendering themselves with an asylum claim. Some were detained at a legal entry appointment, told they were suspected of gang membership because they had common tattoos. Most were released into the US and got jobs in construction or kitchens, Doordash or Uber, often more than one job. They were in the immigration process, filling out the forms, attending their hearings.

After their seemingly random detentions in their homes or places of work, they were abruptly moved from all over the US to a detention center in Texas and placed in the red uniforms of violent detainees. On March 13, 14, and 15th almost all the families heard from their loved ones for the last time. They called home and said were being deported back to Venezuela, some of the men were heartbroken about losing their dream of a better future or frantic about leaving their wives and children without their support, others were relieved to finally be free again. Their Venezuelan families: wives, mamas and grandmas made their favorite dishes and got rooms ready. Entire families camped out at the Caracas Airport to wait.

But on Sunday, March 16th, the planes didn’t arrive in Venezuela. The news broke of the videos coming out of El Salvador, airplanes full of mostly Venezuelan young men, chained so tightly they couldn’t stand upright, being roughly handled, slapped and shaved bald, as they entered incarceration in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador. The families combed through these brutal videos and photos, frame by frame, blowing up a hand, or a neck, looking for their loved ones.

I wanted to help these families push back against the propaganda of the Trump and Bukele Administrations. I wanted Americans to see that these men were not only deprived of their right to due process, many, perhaps most, were completely innocent of any crime. I wanted my people to see their humanity, to share my outrage, and use their privilege to stop this horror.

All the social media, and nearly all the press I found was in Spanish, so I put together the content for each person as I found it, into a story and translated it to English to make short profiles. I started by posting the stories with photos to a Facebook page called The Disappeared. I am a member of Witness at the Border, a wonderful nationwide migrant activist group, and they shared the stories.

Two non-profits who are helping the families get press and lawyers, Together and Free and LULAC, contacted me to use the stories on their websites. Starting in early April, I set a goal of one story per/day. A local activist group made a website for the disappeared, the-disappeared.com, I started a sub-Reddit, and a volunteer started a BlueSky. Then a couple months ago, families started reaching out for interviews. First it was just one person, a sister of one of the men in CECOT.

My Spanish isn’t good enough to do the interviews myself, so I called a Mexican friend who lives nearby, and she agreed ask the questions while I listened, interjecting with follow ups if needed. After we hung up with the first family member, my friend was stunned. “He’s innocent,” she said, with that same teary panic on her face that I had been filling my chest for months. It was another example of how, even good-hearted, liberal people, like my friend, didn’t know how dark this situation is. Many still believe these men are violent criminals.

We are in the middle of unfolding crimes against humanity. Imprisonments without due process of innocent people, captives being kept incommunicado and tortured, families being torn apart and experiencing psychic torture, nothing can justify these this. Our government has turned against justice and civil society, and it no longer respects human dignity. Please join me in outrage. Please lift the names of the disappeared and demand their release.

Visit The Disappeared to read their stories and find actions. Follow The Disappeared on Facebook to be part of the conversation. Spread the stories and talk about this horrible situation. Go to protests, organize protests. There are many horrible things happening right now, but this one is emblematic of cruelty and disregard for humanity. It is the dark beginning of something much darker, and we can already see that in ICE raids and immigrant detention centers across the country and migrants being sent to war torn countries. We can’t wait; we must act now.