>El Salvador’s ministry of foreign affairs confirmed that it “will house these individuals for one (1) year, pending the United States’ decision on their long term disposition.” S.A. 149 (quoting Matthew Lee & Regina Garcia Cano, Trump Officials Secretly Deported Venezuelans and Salvadorans to a Notorious Prison in El Salvador, ASSOCIATED PRESS (Mar. 15, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/trumpdeportations-salvador-tren-a... (emphasis supplied)).
>The Government undertook this action pursuant to its agreement with El Salvador, wherein the United States paid El Salvador six million dollars to hold detainees “for one (1) year, pending the United States’ decision on [their] long term disposition.” Dist. Ct. Op. at 6
A federal judge recognized the imprisonment service agreement in trade for money.
That's a contract.
You can semantic-smith all you want that a memo cannot present the contract. A contract can be referenced without there being some big document that says 'contract' on it. Everyone else but you knows what it is. Whatever you reply next will just be word-garbage to try and refute that. Judges in this case aren't buying it, and they aren't buying your case that informal arrangements are nothing but memos.
So you can show me this contract in the Governmentwide Point of Entry, as is required under FAR Part 5?
No, you can't. You can try to escape the substance of the argument with phrases like "semantic-smith" if you'd like, but law is semantics.
And no, the judges referencing the memo that claims such an agreement exists does not indicate that judges "buy it" that there is a contract. The case before them is not about contracting compliance and public records, so they wouldn't be interested to bottom out that issue. The quoted language is not even allegedly from any agreement, contract or not, formal or informal. The quoted language is from a memo about the alleged agreement.
Edit to your edit:
> they aren't buying your case that informal arrangements are nothing but memos.
Ah, so it's "an informal arrangement" now? Interesting change of heart you've had. Our government is not allowed to make "informal arrangements" that involve shipping human beings to foreign governments and paying them several million dollars per year, for all sorts of very obvious procurement and budgetary reasons, even aside from the human rights issues.
Trump & co pulled one over on you. Just because it's not in the GPoE does not mean it doesn't exist.
It appears to be an informally arranged contract. Federal judges and 'memos' also recognizes this contract. Bukele and Trump publicly have reiterated much of the terms. I do not know if you will ever see a single traditional looking contract paper you desire, but the evidence is everywhere, not the least of which that the memos statements and actual reality of El Salvador taking prisoners on behalf the US and publicly stating they have an agreement to do it.
What? I am not claiming there is no "agreement", duh.
You can't fly aircraft full of prisoners into a foreign country and have a televised propaganda show depositing them into a gulag without "an agreement."
Great job moving the goal posts and answering now to my original point: the USG has not produced evidence of a contract, as they are legally required to have and present.
Neither I, nor you, nor the public, nor the judge actually know what the terms of any agreement actually are. We know only what appeared in a memo written about an agreement.
Sorry but there's no way you thought I was suggesting the US just unilaterally put people in a foreign prison, lol. Good luck lifting those goal posts.
You're punching your fist into the air because the contract is not in a form you'd like. In the same judgements, judges go on to either call, or quote the calling of the facility as a 'contract' facility after establishing the contract agreement.
> The contract between the two countries is only for 1 year
Ty's red herrings about court filings and so on are just that: red herrings. All sources lead back to exactly one piece of information, which is an AP article about a memo from El Salvador about an agreement. That AP article claims the memo says the following:
"El Salvador confirms it will house these individuals for one (1) year, pending the United States’ decision on their long term disposition"
That's it. It does not say "only" for one year. There is no information about the renewal terms. There is no information about what happens after one year. No one has produced the full set of terms of this agreement, and no one has produced evidence (as is required under US law) that an actual signed contract even exists (as is required under US law).
>The Government undertook this action pursuant to its agreement with El Salvador, wherein the United States paid El Salvador six million dollars to hold detainees “for one (1) year, pending the United States’ decision on [their] long term disposition.” Dist. Ct. Op. at 6
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/ab...
I think this was written by Judge Thacker