Overview
- CBS added the segment to Sunday’s 60 Minutes lineup and a network spokesperson said viewers would see it tonight as part of coverage underscoring the outlet’s independence.
- The report examines the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador’s CECOT prison and includes accounts of brutal treatment, with Human Rights Watch findings supported by ICE data that many deportees had no criminal history.
- Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulled the finished segment hours before its Dec. 21 airing to seek more on-the-record sourcing, a move correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi criticized as political after legal and standards reviews had cleared it.
- Producers and Alfonsi traveled to Washington to pursue interviews with senior officials, but promised on-camera conversations did not materialize.
- A Canadian airing of the original version leaked online in December, enabling direct comparisons to tonight’s broadcast, which will compete with an NFL playoff game that observers expect to draw much of the TV audience.