As Kristi Noem named special envoy to new Latin America security bloc, former DHS Deputy Secretary, Troy Edgar, nominee for U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, appears before Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Hours before Trump announced he was removing Kristi Noem from her position as DHS Secretary and assigning her as a special envoy to a newly-announced bloc of right-wing governments in Latin America being dubbed the “Shield of the Americas,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met to consider the nomination of Troy Edgar, who, until December, served as Deputy DHS Secretary, as the new ambassador to El Salvador.

The decisions suggest that the Trump administration is doubling down on its commitment to extend DHS’ violent aggression and disregard for the rule of law further into the Western Hemisphere with the help of designated friend” such as President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. Bukele, was invited along with 11 other right-wing leaders who have demonstrated allegiance to Trump, to an upcoming meeting in Miami this weekend.

During today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Democrats questioned Troy Edgar, a former Boeing executive, on the Administration’s rendition of Venezuelans, including asylum-seekers and refugees, to El Salvador in March 2025 to be jailed at the CECOT, over which he expressed “no concern.” He also stated that he “had not seen any” significant human rights abuses in the country.

Since suspending constitutional and due process rights in March 2022, the government of El Salvador has reported over 90,000 arrests; none have had a preliminary hearing before a judge. Salvadoran human rights organizations have documented 470 deaths in the prisons during this period, though the number is likely higher, as well as torture in the prisons. Dozens of human rights and land defenders, attorneys, and vocal critics of the government have been jailed while hundreds more, including journalists, have fled the country.

Statement from CISPES: “The proposal for any high-ranking DHS official to represent the United States in a diplomatic capacity anywhere in the world would be cause for alarm given DHS' demonstrated disregard for the rule of law under this administration. The scenario is all the more alarming in El Salvador, where the government has already colluded with the Trump administration to violate international laws and subject asylum seekers to torture. It should also alarm everyone that the Trump government describes the Bukele, whose regime has systematically persecuted human rights defenders and constitutional attorneys, as one of the United States’ ‘most important partners in the region.’”