On March 15, federal agents rounded up more than 230 Venezuelan nationals who were then deported to El Salvador and locked up in the country’s notorious megaprison. The Trump administration said the men belonged to a violent Venezuelan gang but presented no evidence, and there were no court hearings in which the men could contest the allegations. 

Nearly a month later, families of the Venezuelan men say they have heard nothing about their fate. It’s as if they disappeared. 

“We’re living in a world where you can just be rounded up with no hearing, not even an administrative hearing, nothing,” says immigration attorney Joseph Giardina. “Why couldn’t you have let their cases be adjudicated? There’s no logical answer other than a publicity stunt.” 

This week on Reveal, Mother Jones reporters Isabela Dias and Noah Lanard speak to the families and lawyers of 10 men now imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT. They vehemently deny allegations that the men are members of the Tren de Aragua criminal organization, and several provided evidence to support that. 

To learn more about the Trump administration’s arrangement with the government of El Salvador, host Al Letson speaks with Carlos Dada, co-founder and director of El Faro, a Salvadoran investigative news outlet. Dada says that in addition to foreign nationals, the agreement also allows for American citizens convicted of crimes to be imprisoned in El Salvador. 

As the Trump administration also targets international students who have spoken out about Israel’s war in Gaza, Reveal’s Najib Aminy reports on pro-Israel groups that are claiming to have shared lists of student protesters with the White House and then taking credit when some of those young people are targeted for deportation.

Dig Deeper

Read: “You’re Here Because of Your Tattoos” (Mother Jones) 

Read: What the Hundreds of Venezuelans Trump Sent to El Salvador Are Up Against (Mother Jones)

Read: What Happens to the Venezuelans Sent to a Salvadoran Megaprison Now? (Mother Jones)

Read: US Deports MS-13 Leader to El Salvador with Alleged Members of Tren de Aragua (El Faro)

Listen: The Spy Inside Your Smartphone (Reveal)

Credits

Reporters: Isabela Dias, Noah Lanard, and Najib Aminy | Producers: Nadia Hamdan, Najib Aminy, and Michael Montgomery | Editors: Cynthia Rodriguez, Taki Telonidis, and Jenny Casas | Fact checkers: Artis Curiskis, Nikki Frick, and Sarah Szilagy | Production manager: Zulema Cobb | Digital producers: Nikki Frick and Kate Howard | General counsel: Victoria Baranetsky | Original score and sound design: Jim Briggs and Claire Mullen | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Host: Al Letson | Special thanks: Sophie Hurwitz, Jacob Rosenberg, and Carlos Dada

Support for Reveal is provided by listeners like you, and the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation.

Transcript

Reveal transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. Please be aware that the official record for Reveal’s radio stories is the audio.

Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. When Donald Trump ran for president, he promised to, “Launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” And he vowed to do it with an obscure and rarely used law.  
Speaker 2:It’s known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.  
Al Letson:If you never heard of this wartime authority, that’s because it’s only been used three times before, during actual wars.  
Speaker 2:It gives presidents power to order the rapid detention and deportation of non-citizens who come from countries staging a, “Invasion or predatory incursion of the US.”  
Al Letson:The last time this country invoked the Alien Enemies Act was in World War II, when the law was used to justify the creation of Japanese internment camps, something the US has since paid reparations for. This time around, it led to the deportations of Venezuelan men to a notorious prison in El Salvador.  
Speaker 3:The president took action saying the US is being invaded by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.  
Al Letson:At a press conference in March, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt alleged that all of the men deported were part of the gang.  
Karoline Leavit…:These heinous monsters were extracted and removed to El Salvador where they will no longer be able to pose any threats to the American public.  
Al Letson:But she provided no proof. A federal judge had already ordered the deportations to stop when Leavitt made these claims, and he ordered any planes already in the air to turn around, but that didn’t happen.  
Speaker 4:Instead, they ended up in a maximum security prison in El Salvador.  
Al Letson:And who exactly was on those planes was a mystery. There were no court hearings and the government didn’t release the names of the people it was accusing of being gang members. Meanwhile, Venezuelan men were disappearing. Mothers and sisters, fathers and brothers, friends and employers were all left in the dark. They were angry, distraught, and wanted answers. Mother Jones reporters Noah Leonard and Isabella Diaz wanted answers too. They scoured the internet and found dozens of videos from family members who feared that their loved ones were now in El Salvador.  
Speaker 5:[Foreign Language 00:02:23].  
Speaker 6:[Foreign Language 00:02:29].  
Joseph Giardina:[Foreign Language 00:02:32].  
Al Letson:Noah and Isabella quickly collected nearly 40 names of men who were missing and started calling their families and friends.  
Isabela Dias:This call is being recorded.  
Speaker 9:[Foreign Language 00:02:51].  
Al Letson:Then CBS got a hold of an internal government document.  
Speaker 3:This is the internal government list of all the men who were placed on those controversial deportation flights to the Salvadoran prison.  
Al Letson:On that list were the names of 238 Venezuelans.  
Speaker 3:For many families, this list is the first confirmation that their loved ones were indeed flown out of the US last week and sent to the-  
Al Letson:Noah and Isabella cross-checked that list with their own, and they confirmed that the families they were speaking to had been right to fear the worst. The men they were looking for were now in El Salvador, in one of the most brutal prisons in the world. But their families say they were wrongfully accused and there are records to support this. The CBS News program 60 Minutes looked into all 238 men and couldn’t find criminal records for 75% of them. And we looked at US criminal records and couldn’t find charges for nine out of the 10 people we vetted. Today we’re going to hear the stories of two of those men starting with 25-year-old Neri Alvarado, Borges. Noah takes it from here.  
Noah Lenard:[foreign language 00:04:14].  
 One of the first people I called was Neri’s older sister Maria Daniela.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:04:19].  
Noah Lenard:She still lives back in Venezuela in their hometown of Yari Tagua.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:04:26].  
Noah Lenard:And she tells me her family is devastated. To know Neri is having to experience this injustice.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:04:34].  
Noah Lenard:She tells me they know Neri has never done anything wrong.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:04:40].  
Noah Lenard:And that her brother wouldn’t hurt a fly.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:04:49].  
Noah Lenard:She says he’s a person who in all his life and in all his years, has never had an ounce of evil in his heart.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:04:57].  
Noah Lenard:Maria Daniela says that Neri had always been a really hard worker. Their father is a farmer in Yari, Tagua, and Neri had been helping him in the fields since he was young.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:05:09].  
Noah Lenard:But she says that like every young person, he had dreams and goals, so he left for the U.S in late 2023.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:05:21].  
Noah Lenard:Maria Daniela tells me that he’d never been to another country before.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:05:29].  
Noah Lenard:Neri first went to Mexico and tried to apply for asylum in the U.S. At first, he tried requesting an appointment through CBP1 that was an app the Biden administration used so that migrants applying for asylum could schedule an interview at an official port of entry. Neri ended up waiting in Mexico for about four months, but he never got an appointment. So Maria Daniela says he decided to turn himself in at the border, instead.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:05:52].  
Noah Lenard:Records show that Border Patrol only held Neri for a day. He was then released into the U.S, allowed to apply for asylum and ended up in Dallas, Texas where he eventually met a man named Juan Enrique Hernandez.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:06:09].  
Noah Lenard:Enrique is an American citizen and has been in the U.S for 27 years. He owns two Venezuelan bakeries and Neri started working for him last year, showing up every day from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. That is until immigration agents arrested Neri outside his apartment in early February, just weeks after Trump took office. Despite the fact that Neri willingly turned himself in at the border nearly a year earlier and was allowed to apply for asylum, the Justice Department was now charging him with a misdemeanor alleging that he entered the country illegally. Enrique went to visit him in detention the next day.  
Juan Enrique He…:In Blue Bond Detention Center in [inaudible 00:06:51].  
Noah Lenard:Neri tells Enrique that one of the first questions he was asked by an ICE agent was-  
Neri:[foreign language 00:06:56].  
Noah Lenard:Do you have any tattoos?  
Neri:[foreign language 00:07:02].  
Noah Lenard:Neri responded, yes, I have three tattoos. His sister Maria Daniela describes them to us.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:07:14].  
Noah Lenard:There’s a tattoo on his forearm that says brother.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:07:17].  
Noah Lenard:And another that says, family. The biggest tattoo is on his leg.  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:07:23].  
Noah Lenard:She says, it’s a symbol for autistic children with the name of the fifteen-year-old brother, Nelyerson. Nelyerson has autism-  
Maria Daniela:[foreign language 00:07:37].  
Noah Lenard:… and Maria Daniela says, Neri has always been devoted to him. I’ve seen a picture of the tattoo that he got for his brother. It’s a large autism awareness ribbon made up of different colored puzzle pieces. His brother’s name is written in cursive along the side, and Enrique tells me that Neri explained the tattoos to an ICE agent-  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:07:59].  
Noah Lenard:Telling him the tattoos aren’t religious or political or symbols of any criminal gang. Enrique also says Neri was asked to hand over his phone so the agents could review it for evidence of gang activity. They don’t find anything.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:08:20].  
Noah Lenard:And Enrique says, the ICE agent told Neri he would write down that he is not a member of Tren de Aragua.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:08:34].  
Noah Lenard:He tells Neri, far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to be here, but for reasons that remain unclear, other officials in ICE’s Dallas Field office decided to keep Neri in detention. During that time, Enrique says, Neri went before an immigration judge and was given a choice, keep fighting for asylum and stay locked up or get deported back to Venezuela. Neri is eager to get out of detention, so he agrees to go back home to Yari Tagua. Enrique spoke to Neri shortly before he was going to be deported.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:09:07].  
Noah Lenard:Neri Told him, “look, the only concern I have here, boss, is that the 90 people detained with me”.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:09:19].  
Noah Lenard:“They all have tattoos”. It’s as if Neri is starting to realize that something was up. Maria Daniela says she and her family were in contact with Neri every day he was detained, but that stopped after Friday, March 14th. At the same time, Maria Daniela starts seeing that Venezuelans have been sent to El Salvador, and then on March 20th Neri’s 25th birthday, it was confirmed. CBS News published the full list of Deportees and Neri Alvarado Borges was one of the names.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:09:59].  
Noah Lenard:Enrique says, do you think a bad person would work with autistic children-  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:10:08].  
Noah Lenard:Or work at a bakery from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. every day?  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:10:15].  
Noah Lenard:He tells me it’s an incredibly difficult situation. What is he supposed to tell Neri’s mom?  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:10:24].  
Noah Lenard:She’s in Venezuela and ask for updates every day.  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:10:31].  
Noah Lenard:What can I tell her?  
Juan Enrique He…:[foreign language 00:10:34].  
Noah Lenard:How do I respond? Back in Venezuela, Neri actually taught swimming classes to kids with developmental disabilities. It was a place called Club [inaudible 00:10:46], and they actually released a video after they learned what had happened to Neri. In it, we hear from the president of the club.  
Speaker 18:[foreign language 00:10:53].  
Noah Lenard:And he says, “we want to make clear”.  
Speaker 18:[foreign language 00:10:56].  
Noah Lenard:Neri is not a gang member.  
Speaker 18:[foreign language 00:11:01].  
Noah Lenard:He demands the immediate release of his friend. Then the video cuts to several kids and parents from the club, including his brother, Nelyerson, who say Neri is an honest, good person and not a criminal.  
Speaker 18:[foreign language 00:11:17].  
Speaker 19:[foreign language 00:11:20].  
Speaker 20:[foreign language 00:11:20].  
Speaker 21:[foreign language 00:11:23].  
Noah Lenard:They all demand justice for Neri.  
Speaker 21:[foreign language 00:11:30].  
Noah Lenard:My reporting partner, Isabella and I have seen many videos like this one online.  
Isabela Dias:Venezuelans both here in the U.S and back in Venezuela are outraged at the thought that their friends and family members could be treated this way.  
Noah Lenard:We’ve spoken to nearly a dozen of them ourselves, and we continue to hear from more  
Isabela Dias:People like Genesis Lozada Sánchez, whose brother William was sent to El Salvador.  
Jenesis :[foreign language 00:12:01].  
Isabela Dias:They were kidnapped, she says. Why do I say kidnapped?  
Jenesis :[foreign language 00:12:09].  
Isabela Dias:Because if they have no ties to El Salvador and they don’t have to pay for any crimes in El Salvador-  
Jenesis :[foreign language 00:12:21].  
Isabela Dias:… Then this is a kidnapping.  
Joseph Giardina:There’s no barometer for this type of thing. It’s not something that actually happens or has ever happened before.  
Isabela Dias:Joseph Giardina is an immigration attorney who represents [inaudible 00:12:38] De Jesus Cotnejo.  
Joseph Giardina:He did everything he was supposed to do right? He came through CBP1 He waited for months in Mexico for his appointment as he was supposed to do. He didn’t just cross illegally. He came through the port of entry at a pre-scheduled time and appointment.  
Isabela Dias:[inaudible 00:12:56] came to the U.S in June of last year, along with one of his brothers, his girlfriend and two friends. The group used a U.S government app, CBP1 the same one Neri tried to use and actually got an appointment. All of them were released into the country except [inaudible 00:13:14].  
Joseph Giardina:He did remain in detention, but that’s not abnormal.  
Isabela Dias:Joseph says [inaudible 00:13:19] was held at a detention facility in Louisiana where he waited for his immigration case to be decided.  
Joseph Giardina:We had filed his asylum application and he was set for a final hearing on April 10th. At no point did the government ever mention or bring up any allegations that he was associated with Tren de Aragua or any sort of derogatory information of any kind. They’ve provided absolutely no evidence whatsoever.  
Isabela Dias:Joseph has been trying to figure out why [inaudible 00:13:51] was targeted even though he didn’t have a deportation order from a U.S immigration judge or any criminal history.  
Joseph Giardina:The only reason that we can surmise is that he has some tattoos and frankly, the list of tattoos that they say are membership in Tren de Aragua are tattoos that you might see on anybody walking around a coffee shop in America. I mean, someone might have a crown, okay? That doesn’t mean they’re a member of Tren de Aragua.  
Isabela Dias:[inaudible 00:14:17] even got a declaration from his tattoo artist confirming the tattoos were harmless and gang experts say that Tren de Aragua doesn’t use tattoos as a form of gang identification, but none of that seemed to matter. On March 9th, [inaudible 00:14:36] was unexpectedly moved to the Alvaya Detention Center in Texas. Like Neri, he thought he would be sent to Venezuela and like Neri, he never arrived and suddenly became clear to Joseph that his client was one of the men deported without due process to El Salvador.  
Joseph Giardina:If we’re living in a world where you can just be rounded up with no hearing, not even an administrative hearing, nothing, why couldn’t you have let their cases be adjudicated? There’s no logical answer other than a publicity stunt, other than they wanted to show they’re being tough and they don’t care if they violate people’s rights to do so.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:15:25].  
Isabela Dias:Carlos Xavier Cornejo Pulgar says he knew his brother was one of the men taken after seeing him in a TikTok video, a video that included footage produced by the Salvadorian government. It shows that Deportees being dragged off a bus in chains and marched into President Naib Bukele’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center known as CICOT.  
 The men aren’t even allowed to walk up straight. Guards in black masks, their faces completely covered, forced the man to walk looking down their bodies bent at a 90 degree angle. They are then put in white uniforms. Their heads are shaved, and then they’re filed into giant prison cells. It’s all set to this very ominous music, like something you would hear in a trailer of a Batman movie. Only, these are real people.  
 Similar videos have been shared widely across social media. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio promoted one of them on X, thanking President Bukele for his “assistance and friendship”. That same video was then reposted by the White House’s official account. When Carlos saw his brother in the video, [inaudible 00:16:57] seems to be on his knees, a guard pressing his head down, his big curly hair gone, but Carlos knew it was him because he recognized the rose tattoo on his neck.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:11].  
Isabela Dias:When we saw the image of him all bent over-  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:17].  
Isabela Dias:… his hair shaved off-  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:25].  
Isabela Dias:We felt helpless-  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:28].  
Isabela Dias:… and in so much pain.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:36].  
Isabela Dias:Carlos says the best thing, it’s for [inaudible 00:17:39] to be with his family in Venezuela instead of suffering through all of this right now.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:45].  
Isabela Dias:He’s concerned about what he sees as the inhumane treatment his brother is receiving in El Salvador.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:17:56].  
Isabela Dias:They don’t let him communicate with anyone.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:18:00].  
Isabela Dias:What’s most worrying about this case. Carlos is right. Prisoners at CICOD do not get any family visits, not even phone calls. Lawyers can’t reach them there; no one can. Once you’re in CICOD, you basically disappear.  
Noah Lenard:According to the Trump Administration, Neri, [inaudible 00:18:25] and 236 other Venezuelans deserve to be sent to CICOD because they were allegedly members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, which the Trump Administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. All of the family members we’ve spoken to say their relatives have tattoos, and they believe that is why their loved ones were targeted. They reject the idea that they had anything to do with the gang.  
Isabela Dias:We asked both ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to provide us with any evidence that the 10 men we looked into were part of Tren de Aragua or had any criminal history. In response, DHS provided no evidence to support either. Instead, a senior DHS official said they aren’t going to undermine national security by sharing intelligence reports every time someone denies they’re a gang member. They said that would be “insane”. The official also claimed that many of these men who were counted as non-criminals are actually terrorists, human rights, abusers, gangsters, and more. They just don’t have rap sheets in the U.S. But Noah and I have revealed documents from several of these families that showed their relatives had no criminal history in Venezuela either.  
Noah Lenard:On March 31st at a press conference with White House Press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, her reporter asked her directly If having tattoos and wearing certain clothes were enough to get someone classified as a member of TDA, and instead of answering them, she gets angry.  
Karoline Leavit…:TDA is a vicious gang, and our agents on the front lines take deporting these people with the utmost seriousness and shame on you, and shame on the mainstream media for trying to cover for these individuals-  
Speaker 24:Not trying to cover for anyone [inaudible 00:20:10].  
Karoline Leavit…:This is a Vicious gang, Andrew.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:20:17].  
Isabela Dias:[inaudible 00:20:20] brother Carlos told me that all they can do now is speak up.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:20:27].  
Isabela Dias:All the families of those who are there, of those who are taken unjustly.  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:20:35].  
Isabela Dias:It has to be a joint effort. Everyone must work together-  
Carlos Xavier C…:[foreign language 00:20:41].  
Isabela Dias:… and raise their voices.  
Al Letson:While the fate of Carlos’ brother and the other men already in El Salvador is uncertain. This past week, judges in Texas and New York stopped the Trump administration from expelling other Venezuelan men who were also about to be deported under the Alien Enemies Act until their cases can be reviewed. The move came a day after the Supreme Court gave the government the green light to continue these types of deportations as long as it gives people notice and a reasonable amount of time to challenge their removal in court. The hundreds of men now imprisoned in El Salvador never got that chance, and DHS secretary Kristi Noem recently said The men should be imprisoned for life. Our story was reported by Isabella Diaz and Noah Leonard and produced by Nadia Hamda. In El Salvador, the mega prison where recent deportees are locked up is one of the most notorious in the Western Hemisphere, and that’s by design.  
Speaker 25:According to President Bukele, they don’t see the light of the sun ever.  
Al Letson:That’s next on Reveal.  
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. About six weeks before the Trump administration sent hundreds of migrants to El Salvador, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in the country to sign a deal that opened the way for those deportations.  
Marco Rubio:The president, in an act of extraordinary friendship, has agreed to the most unprecedented and extra extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.  
Al Letson:Rubio is talking about President Nayib Bukele, who once called himself the world’s coolest dictator. Under the agreement, the Trump administration is paying El Salvador at least $6 million to lock up deportees. And it leaves open the possibility that US citizens could also be imprisoned in El Salvador. But there’s a lot more to the deal than meets the eye. That’s according to reporting from El Faro, the Salvadorian investigative news outlet, where Carlos Dada is the co-founder, and he’s here with me today. Carlos, it’s so nice to have you back on the show.  
Carlos Dada:Thank you. It’s nice to be here.  
Al Letson:So I want to start by asking you about this mega-prison, CECOT. It was built after Bukele declared a state of emergency in 2022 to deal with violent gangs which were controlling large parts of the country. The government suspended some civil liberties, including the right to due process. Now, given all of this, what are conditions like in that prison?  
Carlos Dada:This mega-prison is a poster child of our prison system. It’s a high security prison, built allegedly to exclusively hold gang members. It has been heavily used by Bukele’s propaganda machine, producing, as you might have seen, highly professional videos in which every single image is meticulously taken care of. So if you see something from that prison, it is because the regime wants to see it.  
Al Letson:Some people have described this mega-prison as basically a black hole. Is that accurate?  
Carlos Dada:I think it is a good description. No one can enter this prison. Relatives of the prisoners cannot visit them. They are not allowed to receive anything from outside. According to President Bukele, they don’t see the light of the sun ever and they are kept behind bars for most of the day. This is what we know from the Salvadoran authorities because we cannot enter this prison. And right now, this situation is not exceptional. It’s the same situation for the other 32 prisons.  
Al Letson:It sounds like from your reporting, the director of this prison system is somewhat notorious.  
Carlos Dada:The director of the Salvadoran prison system, a man called Osiris Luna, has been sanctioned by the US State Department and also by the Treasury Department. Even the El Salvador Police Intelligence Unit has described him as an important piece of a criminal organization that distributes drugs. His administration of the prison system has brought back systematic torture to our prisons, something we thought was part of our most painful past.  
Al Letson:One thing that El Faro reported is it wasn’t just Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador. Who else was on those planes?  
Carlos Dada:As far as we know, there are at least four different categories of people that came in those first three flights. One, Venezuelan suspects belonging to the Tren de Aragua crime organization. Two, Venezuelan undocumented migrants, completely unrelated to this criminal organization. Three, Salvadoran undocumented migrants. And four, Salvadoran members of the MS-13 gang, including at least one gang boss who was preparing to stand trial in the United States.  
Al Letson:And I gather this is important because of reporting El Faro did about Bukele and the deal he made with the MS-13 gang?  
Carlos Dada:That’s right. Bukele made a secret agreement with the gangs five years ago that helped his party win elections. In exchange, Mr. Bukele freed some of the gang of bosses, including a few required by the United States for extradition. Some of those freed by Bukele were recaptured in Mexico and sent to the United States where they are expected to disclose all the details of their pacts with the Bukele administration. We also know that when Mr. Bukele offered Secretary Rubio to receive deportees and criminals, he also demanded that the gang bosses were also sent back to El Salvador. And at least one of them was sent to El Salvador in those first flights.  
Al Letson:Carlos, as I understand it, it was El Salvador’s Ambassador to the US who said Bukele asked for those gang leaders to be deported. I guess the idea here is that if you put them in a jail in El Salvador, then they can’t tell their secrets?  
Carlos Dada:That’s what we think. As you know, MS-13 is considered a terrorist organization in the United States. If the trial in New York proves Mr. Bukele’s deals with them, it could potentially be very damaging since it would mean that he had illegal deals with a terrorist organization and also illegally freed some of the terrorist organization leaders.  
Al Letson:So what happened to the charges that the US had against them?  
Carlos Dada:We only know of one because we saw him in the images of the deportees that arrived to El Salvador. In this specific case of this one single person, we found documentation where the Justice Department instructs the attorney assigned to the case to ask the judge to dismiss the charges against this gang leader in order for him to be deported.  
Al Letson:Let me ask you a question, just pulling away from the prison a little bit. The Trump administration has praised Bukele for slashing crime in El Salvador and yet just two years ago, the State Department cited reports of arbitrary killings, forced disappearances and torture. Is the Trump administration ignoring this evidence or is there something in Bukele’s harsh policies that they connect with?  
Carlos Dada:I can’t answer that. I think you know much more about the nature of Mr. Trump’s administration. What I can say is that Mr. Bukele has been very successful in grabbing power and still keep his high popularity. He still enjoys, after almost six years in power, a popularity that comes around 75% depending on the polls. So that makes him a very attractive person for all the people in these extreme rightist movements all over the world.  
Al Letson:So for your typical Salvadorian, life is better because of the moves that he’s made?  
Carlos Dada:Mr. Bukele has effectively taken the gangs out of the communities of Salvadoran people and lowered the murder rate in the country. So life is apparently better. But we know how in exchange for this so-called security, one person or one group of people is grabbing power, dismantling democracy. And there’s no more accountability. There’s no more checks and balances. There’s a lot of violence still in El Salvador, but now it’s being inflicted by the authorities. Police and the army now can make arrests without a judge’s order and hold anyone in prison almost indefinitely. 70,000 people have been detained in these years, which makes El Salvador the country with the highest rate of incarcerated population, even above the United States.  
 I don’t know of any experience when only through repression you really cancel a violence that has grown out of a society that is not functioning. Let me quote Archbishop Romero, who was killed in El Salvador in 1980. He used to say, “Violence will not be eradicated unless we address it root causes.” And we have to know that gangs are just the most radical, the most horrible and the most violent expression of a dysfunctional society. But if we don’t address the causes that built a fertile ground for these young kids to become so violent, then we are not solving any problem.  
Al Letson:Carlos Dada is the director of the news website, El Faro. Carlos, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.  
Carlos Dada:Thank you. It’s a great opportunity for me. Thank you very much.  
Al Letson:And a footnote. A few years ago after El Faro first exposed President Bukele’s secret deals with the gangs, its reporters were targets of a massive cyber attack with Pegasus spyware. Many experts believe it was a state-sanctioned hack. We’ve got a link to a Reveal episode about that on our website, revealnews.org. Our story was produced by Michael Montgomery. International students who have spoken out about the war in Gaza have also been targeted by the Trump administration. And the government is getting help from pro-Israel organizations.  
Speaker 4:It was my belief that they needed help. And as a proud American and somebody who was deeply concerned about what was happening in college campuses, I want to volunteer myself.  
Al Letson:That’s next on Reveal.  
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson.  
 As the Trump Administration continues to deliver on its campaign promise of mass-deportations, the federal government has zeroed in on a group of people who have one thing in common. International university students, particularly those who have spoken out about Israel’s military killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.  
Audio:You’re going to be under arrest. Turn around, turn around, turn around. Turn around. Stop resisting. Stop resisting.  
 He’s not resisting. He’s giving you his phone, okay?  
Al Letson:On March 8th, Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Mahmoud had been the lead negotiator for students who were demanding the university divest from Israel. He was the first campus protester to be targeted by the Trump Administration in this way. And his wife, then eight months pregnant, was by his side recording his arrest.  
Audio:You guys really don’t need to be doing all of that.  
 It’s fine, it’s fine.  
 Those look fake. Okay.  
Al Letson:Since Mahmoud’s detention, the Trump Administration has targeted more and more international students for deportation by exercising a rarely used executive power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says, “The Administration isn’t planning to stop any time soon.”  
Marco Rubio:It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa. At some point, I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day.  
Al Letson:As the Trump Administration gleefully talks about adding more names to the list, some Zionist organizations are also celebrating and claiming their groups may have influenced the president’s efforts to deport student protesters. Reveal’s Najib Aminy wanted to find out how much influence these groups really have and who is behind them. Here’s Najib.  
Najib Aminy:First, ICE came for Mahmoud Khalil, and then they came for Rumeysa Ozturk.  
Rumeysa Ozturk:[inaudible 00:02:24].  
Najib Aminy:This is audio from a security camera that captured Rumeysa’s arrest on March 25th. Rumeysa is a PhD student at Tufts University and she’s on the phone with her mom, walking to dinner to break her Ramadan fast. She gets stopped by someone wearing a dark blue hoodie, a cap, and black jeans. Then, all of a sudden, she’s surrounded by six plain clothes officers with masks covering their faces. She frantically tells her mother to call her best friend in Boston before ICE agents take her away in an unmarked car.  
 Almost a full day passes, and her family, friends, and legal counsel have no idea where she is. That is, until they hear that she’s 1300 miles away, in a federal detention center in Louisiana.  
Samira:That was just incredibly gut-wrenching. It’s like the Gestapo taking you off the street.  
Najib Aminy:This is a longtime friend of Rumeysa’s, who we’re calling Samira. We’re not using her real name and we’ve agreed to disguise her voice because she’s at a university where she fears retaliation for speaking publicly about what happened.  
 In early March, she system Rumeysa had come to New York to visit. It had been a while since the two friends had hung out. When she arrived, Rumeysa had a lot on her mind.  
Samira:One of the first things she said to me was, “I think this is the last time I’m going to be able to visit you,” which was really concerning. But I initially just reassured her like, “No, that’s preposterous.” She was concerned that there is this Canary Mission page.  
Najib Aminy:Rumeysa had a profile on a website called Canary Mission. The profile has her picture, where she goes to school, and screenshots of her LinkedIn profile. Canary Mission is like IMDB, except instead of actors and directors, it’s a database of mostly students and academics. They’re on Canary Mission because the organization claims to have evidence that these people have hateful views towards Israel.  
 Do you mind pulling it up, just to walk through what it says?  
Samira:“Rumeysa Ozturk engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024 in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israelis on October 7th, 2023.”  
Najib Aminy:But what makes Rumeysa’s profile stand out is the timing. In March 2024, she was one of four authors of an op-ed that ran in the Tufts student paper. The op-ed criticized the university for not acting on a series of student government resolutions that called on the school to hold Israel accountable.  
Samira:She had written the op-ed last spring, and the Canary Mission page came up a year after. What is that, to go after me for one op-ed a year later?  
Najib Aminy:Mahmoud Khalil also had a Canary Mission profile, and Rumeysa had followed the news of his arrest. During their visit, Rumeysa told Samira she was preparing for all possible outcomes.  
Samira:She’s thinking, “Okay, am I going to be able to finish my program here?” But again, I kept saying and trying to reassure her that, “You’re okay for now.” I didn’t think it would be so immediate.  
Najib Aminy:A week after she visited Samira, Rumeysa was detained.  
 Canary Mission has no public board of directors or staff. When it first went live more than a decade ago, its website said it was “about protecting the public by exposing people who are anti-freedom, anti-American, and anti-Semitic.” But a promotion video described its mission more bluntly using the tagline, “Today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.” Many students activists I’ve spoken to knew about Canary Mission, but didn’t take it seriously. For some, it was even a badge of honor. Their activism made Zionist groups want to target them.  
 But now, students worry having a profile on the site could lead to more dire consequences. Canary Mission has posted online, proudly taking credit for the arrest and detention of Mahmoud and Rumeysa. The organization’s work has been cited in a Congressional investigation into anti-Semitism at Northwestern University.  
 I reached out to the State Department, asking if Canary Mission and organizations like it have played a role in the cancellation of student visas. A State Department spokesperson said, quote, “The United States has zero tolerance for non-citizen who violate US laws.” They added, quote, “No matter how information comes to our attention, every visa decision is made by trained consular staff.”  
 We don’t know whether Canary Mission is influencing the State Department, but Rumeysa’s Attorney Mahsa Khanbabai says the federal government hasn’t provided any evidence of what laws Rumeysa broke.  
Mahsa Khanbabai:How they could justify detaining someone under this circumstance is beyond me.  
Najib Aminy:Mahsa thinks there’s a connection between Rumeysa’s Canary Mission profile and her detention.  
Mahsa Khanbabai:Within, I think it was a week or two of being identified by Canary Mission and posted on their website a year after she wrote the op-ed, she is now suddenly detained and picked up by ICE.  
Najib Aminy:What is the significance of that?  
Mahsa Khanbabai:I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a time when an outside group hands up names to the US government like a hit list. And it’s incredible chilling and scary that our government would go after individuals for something like this.  
Najib Aminy:Canary Mission hasn’t responded to our requests for comment, but they’re not the only group doing this kind of work. For example, there’s Betar US, a self-proclaimed Zionist organization that claims to have lists of student protestors they say are anti-Semitic. The group has also posted online, seemingly taking credit for identifying students that were later targeted for deportation.  
 I emailed Betar asking for an interview and someone from the organization responded that they weren’t interested. I asked them to elaborate and they wrote back, quote, “Your news outlet is pro-Jihadi.” I asked again for clarification and they responded, quote, “Go to hell.”  
 I reached out to Betar’s former Executive Director Ross Glick. He only served in that role for three months, but he’s been involved with the group for most of his life and got more active after the student protests.  
Ross Glick:If you go back to when Trump started talking about his plans, they were setting themselves up to do this. It was my belief that they needed help. As a proud American and somebody who was deeply concerned about what was happening on college campuses, I want to volunteer myself.  
Najib Aminy:Betar is a militant Zionist organization that has been around for more than 100 years. It started as a youth movement that promoted the idea that a state of Israel could only be achieved through force. For the last several months, the group has been calling for the punishment of protestors by sharing their names and faces online.  
Ross Glick:I’m a counter-doxxer.  
Najib Aminy:What does that mean?  
Ross Glick:If you go into a school, again, you’re a 19-year-old kid, you’re still maturing. Then you’re there with some keffiyeh-wearing kids who are like, “Zionist. Baby killer.” Now you’re going to be ostracized, and heckled, and doxxed, which has been happening. I’m here to help them fight back.  
Najib Aminy:Ross has a background in public relations, specializing in branding and crisis management for major retail brands. When he took the executive director job with Betar in 2024, he felt like he had the tools to change the narrative about the student protest.  
Ross Glick:If you have the hearts and the minds of the youth, you control the future.  
Najib Aminy:Ross says he helped revitalize the US chapter of Betar in 2024, building out its research operations. Under his leadership, the group openly courted the Proud Boys and it pulled a controversial stunt, offering $1800 to anyone willing to pass out beepers to local activists and organizers. The stunt referenced an Israeli military attack in Lebanon that involved bombs inside beepers and walkie-talkies. The attack killed 42 people, including 12 civilians, and left 4000 others injured. Betar’s beepers were physically harmless, but some people who received them felt like they had just received a death threat.  
Ross Glick:Yeah, it was satirical. It was political satire. It was a joke. Symbolism. It pisses them off.  
Najib Aminy:After the election, Ross traveled to DC to meet with lawmakers. That’s where he shared his beeper joke with members of Congress, including the Senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman.  
John Fetterman:The beepers thing, I love it.  
Najib Aminy:Not everyone loved it, though. Meta decided to ban Betar for what it perceived as death threats. Even other pro-Israel organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League, classified Betar as a hate group.  
 But Ross went back to DC, this time shortly after Trump’s inauguration, to advocate for Betar’s campaign to punish student protestors.  
Ross Glick:My thing wasn’t, “You got to just deport people.” It was, “We need to clean up the campuses, these are bad actors. They shouldn’t be getting federal funds.” That was the broader narrative. It led into the deportation because that was what Trump was pushing. I didn’t invent that for them, that was their initiative.  
Najib Aminy:When you say clean up the campuses, did that include the possibility of student deportations?  
Ross Glick:Well, yes.  
Najib Aminy:Ross says he stepped down as executive director right after that trip. He says his interests in political lobbying and other projects conflicted with Betar’s nonprofit status. I tried reaching out to Betar one last time to find out why Ross left, even after they told me to go to hell. The organization replied via email and said, quote, “Ross worked for Betar three months and no longer does. We wish him success.” They added, quote, “You are a Jihadi.”  
 Before I leave, I asked Ross what he makes of all the attention organizations like Betar are getting for their self-described role in the recent student deportations.  
 The idea though that the federal government is using, I guess essentially your documents or your database?  
Ross Glick:So? What’s the question?  
Najib Aminy:Is that significant?  
Ross Glick:What do you think?  
Najib Aminy:I’m asking you.  
Ross Glick:Well, I don’t think you’d be here talking to me and asking these questions if it wasn’t. Clearly, we mean what we say.  
Najib Aminy:In the past few weeks, there’s been a rise in reports of international students self-deporting. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of federal dollars from universities that don’t crack down on student protests and anti-Semitism. No place has felt this more than Columbia University.  
Joseph Howley:That’s simply not the case that universities like mine have done nothing about anti-Semitism or about protest. In fact, arguably, the only thing we’ve done for the last year is punish protest and investigate charges of anti-Semitism.  
Najib Aminy:This is Joseph Howley, a professor of classics at Columbia University. Joseph has been a vocal supporter of the student protests, and he says he got involved early because he felt uncomfortable about what was happening in his name. Joseph is Jewish.  
Joseph Howley:The framing was, look, this is dangerous to Jews if you let students protest the bombardment of Gaza. I thought, “Look, none of this is endangering me.” To see this line being sold that says to protect the Jews, you must crush this protest movement. And to look at the protest movement and see basically a bunch of young people saying that it’s not okay to bomb civilians in Gaza, just like it’s not okay to slaughter civilians in Israel, I thought there was a fundamental disconnect here.  
Najib Aminy:Joseph’s support for the students is also detailed in his Canary Mission profile.  
Joseph Howley:The goal here is not actually to create a situation or a society in which this stuff doesn’t get said. The goal is to create a society in which there are regular opportunities to intimidate and terrorize people by demonstrating the costs of saying things that are not approved.  
Najib Aminy:It’s a chilling effect.  
Joseph Howley:Yeah.  
Najib Aminy:It’s not every day that I get to talk to a professor of classics, so I asked Joseph if there are any parallels from history that can teach us about this moment.  
Joseph Howley:The word maiestas, it’s where we get the English word majesty from.  
Najib Aminy:He explains that, in the time of Roman emperors, there were speech codes, basically laws, that made it a crime to critique the Empire.  
Joseph Howley:The crimen maiestas, the crime of majesty, which is a shorthand that means the crime of offending the majesty of the Roman people. When you create a speech code like that, you either have to have total Orwellian surveillance so that you can catch every single person who says the forbidden phrase free Palestine, or you empower informers and spies to monitor and denounce people for alleged crimes against the state by offending the dignity of the government.  
 What’s so insane here is that we are still in the stage where the speech code is not even criticizing the Trump Administration, it’s criticizing the political ideology of another country in another part of the world. But you know what, I have to say that we’re getting there.  
Najib Aminy:Is this where we’re headed? Temporary solo apparator, only time will tell.  
Al Letson: On Friday April 11th, an immigration judge ruled on the case against Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. The court sided with the Trump administration, allowing the deportation process to move forward. Mahmoud’s lawyers are likely to challenge the ruling in court, and they say their client, who is a legal permanent resident, is being targeted for his constitutionally protected speech.

That story was reported and produced by Reveal’s Najib Aminy. Our lead producer for this week’s show is Michael Montgomery, Cynthia Rodriguez, Brett Myers, Taki Telonidis, and Jenny Casas edited the show. Special thanks to our colleagues at Mother Jones, including Reporting Fellow Sophie Hurwitz and Editor Jacob Rosenberg. For complete coverage of the Trump Administration policies around immigration and deportation, check out motherjones.com. Artis Curiskis, Nikki Frick, and Sarah Szilagy fact-checked today’s show. Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel. Our production manager is Zulema Cobb. Score and sound design by the Dynamic Duo, Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs, and Fernando “My Man, Yo” Arruda. We had additional engineering help this week from Claire “C-Note” Mullen. Our interim executive producers are Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis. Our theme music is by Camerado Lightning.  
 Support for Reveal is provided by the Riva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you, our listeners. We are a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. I’m Al Letson. Remember, there is always more to the story.  

Isabela Dias is a reporter at Mother Jones. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Slate, The Nation, Pacific Standard, Texas Observer, and elsewhere. She has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

Noah Lanard is a reporter in Mother Jones’ Washington bureau. Before joining Mother Jones, he was an editorial fellow at Washingtonian magazine. While living in Mexico City, his work appeared in the Guardian, Fusion, and Vice.

Najib Aminy joined Reveal in 2018 and has worked as a production manager, associate producer, reporter, and producer. His reporting has landed him on Democracy Now, The Brian Lehrer Show, and Slate’s What Next podcast. His work at Reveal has earned him the George Polk Award, two Edward R. Murrow awards, two Gerald Loeb awards, multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors awards, and recognition as a DuPont-Columbia finalist. In a previous life, he was the first news editor at Flipboard, a news aggregation startup, and he helped build the company’s editorial and curation practices and policies. Before that, he reported for newspapers such as Newsday and the Indianapolis Star. Najib also created and hosted the independent podcast Some Noise, featured by Apple, the Guardian, and the Paris Review. He is a lifelong New York Knicks fan and is a product of Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism, and mainly works so he can feed his cat.

Nadia Hamdan (she/her) is a reporter and producer for Reveal. She’s worked on a wide range of investigative stories covering elections, immigration, health care, gun violence, and more. Most notably, she co-reported and produced the historical investigation “40 Acres and a Lie,” exploring a reparation that wasn’t—and the wealth gap that remains. The project was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize and the winner of an Edward R. Murrow Award, a duPont-Columbia Award and a National Magazine Award. Nadia also once conducted an entire interview while riding a mule. Reach her at nhamdan@cir.org or on Signal at nadiaCIR.42.

Michael Montgomery is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal who leads major collaborations and reports on America’s penal system, human rights and international trade, and labor exploitation. Previously he held staff positions at American Public Media, CBS News, and the Daily Telegraph, where he was a Balkans correspondent. Michael is a longtime member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a recipient of numerous national and international honors, among them Murrow, Peabody, IRE, duPont-Columbia, Third Coast, and Overseas Press Club awards. Contact him at mmontgomery@revealnews.org or @mdmontgomery.

Cynthia Rodriguez is a senior radio editor for Reveal. She is an award-winning journalist who came to Reveal from New York Public Radio, where she spent nearly two decades covering everything from the city’s dramatic rise in family homelessness to police’s fatal shootings of people with mental illness.

In 2019, Rodriguez was part of Caught, a podcast that documents how the problem of mass incarceration starts with the juvenile justice system. Caught received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for outstanding journalism in the public interest. Her other award-winning stories include investigations into the deaths of construction workers during New York City's building boom and the “three-quarter house” industry – a network of independent, privately run buildings that pack vulnerable people into unsanitary, overcrowded buildings in exchange for their welfare funds.

In 2013, Rodriguez was one of 13 journalists to be selected as a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where her study project was on the intersection of poverty and mental health. She is based in New York City but is originally from San Antonio, Texas, and considers both places home.

Jenny Casas is a senior radio editor for Reveal. She was previously a narrative audio producer at the New York Times. Before that, she reported on the ways that cities systematically fail their people, for WNYC Studios, USA Today, City Bureau, and St. Louis Public Radio. Casas is based in Chicago.

Nikki Frick is a copy editor for Reveal. She previously worked as a copy editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and held internships at the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and WashingtonPost.com. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was an American Copy Editors Society Aubespin scholar. Frick is based in Milwaukee.

Kate Howard is an editorial director at Reveal, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Previously, she was managing editor at the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and spent nearly 14 years as a reporter before that. She is a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and Louisville Public Media. Reach her at khoward@revealnews.org.

Victoria Baranetsky is general counsel at the Center for Investigative Reporting (d/b/a Foundation for National Progress), where she advises the organization on its full range of legal activities, including counseling reporters on newsroom matters (newsgathering, libel, privacy, subpoenas), advising the C-level on business matters, and providing legal support to the board. She has litigated on various issues on behalf of the organization, including arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to CIR, Victoria worked at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the New York Times. She also clerked on the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds degrees from Columbia University, Columbia Journalism School, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University. She teaches at Berkeley Law School as an adjunct professor and is a fellow at Columbia’s Tow Center. She is barred in California, New York, and New Jersey.

Claire Mullen worked at The Center for Investigative Reporting until September 2017. is an associate sound designer and audio engineer for Reveal. Before joining Reveal, she was an assistant producer at Radio Ambulante and worked with KALW, KQED, the Association of Independents in Radio and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She studied humanities and media studies at Scripps College.

Zulema Cobb is an operations and audio production associate for the Center for Investigative Reporting. She is originally from Los Angeles County, where she was raised until moving to Oregon. Her interest in the wellbeing of families and children inspired her to pursue family services at the University of Oregon. Her diverse background includes banking, affordable housing, health care, and education, where she helped develop a mentoring program for students. Cobb is passionate about animals and has fostered and rescued numerous dogs and cats. She frequently volunteers at animal shelters and overseas rescue missions. In her spare time, she channels her creative energy into photography, capturing memories for friends and family. Cobb is based in Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, three kids, three dogs, and cat.

Steven Rascón is the production manager for Reveal. He has also produced the KQED podcast On Our Watch: New Folsom, a serial investigation into the death of two whistleblowers inside California’s most dangerous prison. Their reporting has aired on NPR stations such as Capital Public Radio, WHYY, and KCRW. He also helped produce the Peabody-nominated Reveal podcast series Mississippi Goddam. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.

Jim Briggs III is a senior sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. He joined the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2014. Jim and his team shape the sound of the weekly public radio show and podcast through original music, mixing, and editing. In a career devoted to elevating high-impact journalism, Jim’s work in radio, podcasting, and television has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, IRE, Gerald Loeb, and Third Coast awards, as well as a News and Documentary Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound. He has lent his ears to a range of podcasts and radio programs including Marketplace, Selected Shorts, Death, Sex & Money, The Longest Shortest Time, NPR’s Ask Me Another, Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, WNYC’s live music performance show Soundcheck, and The 7 and Field Trip from the Washington Post. His film credits include PBS’s American Experience: Walt Whitman, the 2012 Tea Party documentary Town Hall, and The Supreme Court miniseries. Before that, he worked on albums with artists such as R.E.M., Paul Simon, and Kelly Clarkson at NYC’s legendary Hit Factory Recording Studios. Jim is based in western Massachusetts with his family, cats, and just enough musical instruments to do some damage.

Al Letson is the Peabody Award-winning host of Reveal. Born in New Jersey, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, at age 11 and as a teenager began rapping and producing hip-hop records. By the early 1990s, he had fallen in love with the theater, becoming a local actor and playwright, and soon discovered slam poetry. His day job as a flight attendant allowed him to travel to cities around the country, where he competed in slam poetry contests while sleeping on friends’ couches. In 2000, Letson placed third in the National Poetry Slam and performed on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, which led him to write and perform one-man shows and even introduce the 2006 NCAA Final Four on CBS.

In Letson’s travels around the country, he realized that the America he was seeing on the news was far different from the one he was experiencing up close. In 2007, he competed in the Public Radio Talent Quest, where he pitched a show called State of the Re:Union that reflected the conversations he was having throughout the US. The show ran for five seasons and won a Peabody Award in 2014. In 2015, Letson helped create and launch Reveal, the nation’s first weekly investigative radio show, which has won two duPont Awards and three Peabody Awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. He has also hosted the podcast Errthang; written and developed several TV shows with major networks, including AMC+’s Moonhaven and Apple TV+’s Monarch; and is currently writing a comic for DC Comics. (He loves comics.) When he’s not working, Letson’s often looking for an impossibly difficult meal to prepare or challenging anyone to name a better album than Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides.