’60 Minutes’ Pulls Planned Segment On Trump Administration’s Deportation Of Migrants To Harsh El Salvador Prison; Show Says Report Will Air In Future; Deadline, December 21, 2025

Ted Johnson, Deadline ; ’60 Minutes’ Pulls Planned Segment On Trump Administration’s Deportation Of Migrants To Harsh El Salvador Prison; Show Says Report Will Air In Future

[Kip Currier: Time will tell if tonight's 60 Minutes reporting on El Salvadoran CECOT prison was censored. The timing and wording of the announcement are suspicious, particularly given concerns about new CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. (See here and here and here.)]

[Excerpt]

"CBS News’ 60 Minutes pulled a planned segment on the Trump administration’s deportation of mugrants [sic] to a harsh El Salvador prison. 

“The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast,” the network announced on Sunday evening, just hours before the planned broadcast.

A CBS News said of the segment, “We determined it needed additional reporting.” 

CBS News announced the segment on the 60 Minutes schedule last week. Per the network, the segment’s logline was: “Earlier this year, the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, a country most had no ties to, claiming they were terrorists. This move sparked an ongoing legal battle, and nine months later the U.S. government still has not released the names of all those deported and placed in CECOT, one of El Salvador’s harshest prisons.”

Immigration Agents Are Using Air Passenger Data for Deportation Effort; The New York Times, December 12, 2025

Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times; Immigration Agents Are Using Air Passenger Data for Deportation Effort

"The Trump administration is providing the names of all air travelers to immigration officials, substantially expanding its use of data sharing to expel people under deportation orders.

Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration provides a list multiple times a week to Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers who will be coming through airports. ICE can then match the list against its own database of people subject to deportation and send agents to the airport to detain those people.

It’s unclear how many arrests have been made as a result of the collaboration."

Catholic Bishops Rebuke U.S. ‘Mass Deportation’ of Immigrants; The New York Times, November 12, 2025

Elizabeth Dias , The New York Times; Catholic Bishops Rebuke U.S. ‘Mass Deportation’ of Immigrants

"America’s Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday rebuked the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in a rare and near-unanimous statement that framed the immigration crisis in starkly moral terms.

The statement, passed at the bishops’ annual conference in Baltimore, did not call out President Trump by name, but the context was clear. The bishops said they “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”

“We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity,” the statement said. “For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”

The bishops, who were often divided by American politics in the Pope Francis era, showed a united front in standing behind Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, who has spoken out for immigrants and urged U.S. bishops to do the same."

Pope Francis met briefly with Vice President Vance on Sunday; NPR, April 21, 2025

 Joe Hernandez, Rachel Treisman, NPR; Pope Francis met briefly with Vice President Vance on Sunday

"Before he died, Pope Francis met briefly Sunday morning with Vice President Vance. Vance was in Italy over the weekend meeting with Italian officials and celebrating Easter with his family. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019.

The Holy See Press Office said the pair exchanged Easter greetings in a private meeting that lasted for a few minutes.

In February, Pope Francis warned that the Trump administration's effort to dramatically ramp up deportations was driving a "major crisis." The pope also appeared to criticize Vance directly for claiming that Catholic doctrine justified such policies."