When Death Awaits Deported Asylum Seekers
Ronald Acevedo waited eight months for asylum in Phoenix. Days after he was deported, he was found dead in the trunk of a car.
By Kevin Sieff
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The threats from MS-13 had become incessant. There were handwritten letters, phone calls and text messages that all said the same thing: The gang was preparing to kill Ronald Acevedo.
His family pieced together a plan. They paid a smuggler to take Acevedo to the United States border. It was April 2017, three months after President Donald Trump was inaugurated. The family believed that Acevedo could convince anyone, even the new president, that returning to El Salvador meant certain death. The country had the world’s highest murder rate. Acevedo had already been stabbed once.
“They already kill my friends, and they are going to do the same to me,” he said, according to his asylum application.
The plan didn’t work. After eight months in detention, Acevedo, 20, abruptly withdrew his asylum claim, reversing course and telling an immigration judge, “I don’t have any fear” of returning to El Salvador.
He was deported to El Salvador on Nov. 29, 2017. He disappeared on Dec. 5, 2017, and his body was later…
