evidence: The US government’s hardening immigration policy is putting thousands of deported El Salvadorans at risk of death or abuse, according to the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW). From 2014 – 2018, the US and Mexico deported about 213,000 people back to El Salvador, a new HRW report says. The number of deportations increased more than 40 percent in 2019 compared to 2018. For many deportees readjusting to life in El Salvador is a struggle, particularly for those returning to a country with which they have had little if any connection since their birth. And it can be that lack of connection that puts them in harm’s way. Human Rights Watch identified more than 200 cases of violence aimed at deportees, 138 of those were killed.