A new Human Rights Watch report again confirms our fears: Refugees from violent nations like El Salvador are being killed after the United States deports them. As reported by ABC, the report documents that between 2012-2017 "at least" 138 deportees to El Salvador who were killed after being returned to that country, along with "at least" 70 cases of sexual assault and other violent acts. The true numbers are likely higher.
The years examined by Human Rights Watch obviously fall mainly in the Obama administration, before Donald Trump enacted an overtly white nationalist policy of rebuffing refugees at the southern border. What we don't know, yet, is how Trump's "zero tolerance" policies of blocking border crossings, arresting those that present themselves for asylum at other points on the border, separating out families, holding rapid-fire and largely lawyerless "hearings" in hastily constructed tent "courtrooms," and then deporting those refugees post-haste are affecting those numbers.
But we can assume that spending far less time hearing the cases of those that seek asylum here because they fear retaliation or death in their own countries, and more time rapidly deporting them after more stringently demanded "proof" of their fears, is almost certainly resulting in those facing genuine death threats being returned in higher numbers.
This is not likely to dissuade Trump or his white nationalist base. They have been fairly blunt in their belief that rougher treatment of refugees is exactly what America ought to be doing. If that results in tent cities for separated children or asylum-seekers being returned to the very places they have fled from, perhaps that sends a "message" that will dissuade the others from even trying. The cruelty is, after all, the point.
It is likely to get worse. It is likely getting worse in ways we cannot yet see, as it has with every passing month and scandal.