Venezuelan migrants being treated as terrorists by Salvadoran security agents. Photo: El Salvador President Press Office.
LeĂłn Rengel, a Venezuelan citizen who was deported by the US authorities to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador last year, has sued the United States for $1.3 million as compensation. He has become the first Venezuelan deported to a third country to seek compensation from the US.
US President Donald Trump’s government systematically denied him his right to due process, claimed without evidence that he was a gang member, and illegally sent him to a foreign prison.
Rengel explained to the press that his intention in filing the lawsuit is not to return to the United States. “However, I do want to clear my name. I want to show who I am and explain what happened to me. When people point their fingers at you, life becomes very difficult,” he said.
LeĂłn Rengel was one of the 252 Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador in March 2025. There, they were kept incommunicado after being labeled as “extremely dangerous” criminals belonging to the defunct Tren de Aragua gang.
“What happened to the Venezuelans sent to CECOT could happen to anyone, to any migrant in the US,” Rengel commented to a US media outlet.
After months of tensions between Venezuela and the US over the immigrants illegally incarcerated in a foreign prison, Rengel, along with the other Venezuelans, finally returned to Venezuela in July 2025 as part of a prisoner exchange deal between the two governments.
Venezuela Receives 411 Repatriated Citizens as US Deportations Continue
LeĂłn Rengel had entered the US in June 2023, after obtaining an appointment through the CBP One app, an initiative established by former US President Joe Biden.
According to court documents, Rengel was awaiting a scheduled immigration court hearing for 2028 and had an active application for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) when he was arrested in March 2025 in Irving, Texas.
The lawsuit claims that the US immigration agents ignored the immigration documentation confirming that he was legally in the United States and instead justified his detention by alleging that his tattoos supposedly linked him to the Tren de Aragua gang, classified as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the Trump administration.
The legal complaint alleges that Rengel was deceived into being sent to CECOT, where he was subjected to physical and psychological abuse.
(Ăltimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
