People imprisoned in a CECOT prison cell in El Salvador. Photo: Marvin Recinos/AFP.
By William Camacaro – May 28, 2025
Although the primary victims of El Salvador’s neo-fascist prison system are the Salvadorans themselves. Hundreds of migrants have been illegally deported by the US to these infamous prisons, currently there are approximately 110,000 prisoners across the country; approximately 85,000 of these prisoners have been arrested since the start of the state of exception, an emergency measure that has been renewed 36 times by the National Assembly since its promulgation in March 2022. 78% of prisoners arrested during the ongoing state of exception have never seen a judge and according to Socorro Jurídico Humanitario (SJH) at least 30,000 are Innocent and eight thousand have been freed. The so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), designed for approximately 40,000 people, currently holds around 84,000 prisoners. According to the NGO SJH, there are approximately 12,000 missing persons in El Salvador, many of whom are believed to be in this confinement center. Additionally, more than 410 prisoners have died since CECOT opened, some of whom had judicial orders for release. In this context of pervasive human rights violations, the Trump administration has partnered with the president of El Salvador to systematically hunt and then traffic migrants in the United States.
On March 15, the U.S. government, without due process, illegally and unconstitutionally transferred 253 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s notorious anti-terrorist prison, CECOT. These individuals were accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, yet no evidence was provided. The prisoners were subjected to humiliation and egregious human rights violations.
CECOT, which opened in 2023 and was partially built with U.S. funds, has been transformed into Bukele’s signature mega-prison, a symbol of his crackdown on gangs, alarmingly resembling a Nazi concentration camp.
According to a report by the human rights organization Cristosal, the prisoners at CECOT do not receive enough water, food is very scarce, and they are only allowed one hour outside their cells. They are constantly beaten by their guards and have no access to phone calls, lawyers, or family visits. In short, they are completely isolated. This dire situation has unleashed enormous corruption within that gigantic prison unit, where relatives and friends of inmates pay up to $200 or more to visit their loved ones.
President Maduro strongly condemned the illegality and inhumane conditions of Venezuelan migrants arrested in the United States and hired a law firm to defend his compatriots in El Salvador. This firm was led by Ruth López, chief attorney of the anti-corruption unit of the human rights NGO Cristosal. Just a year ago, the BBC recognized Ruth as one of the 100 most influential women in the world. The renowned lawyer had been in charge of the case of the more than 250 Venezuelans imprisoned at CECOT for less than a month when she was arrested and held incommunicado on May 19.
It’s no secret that Cristosal’s lawyer is an inconvenience to the Bukele regime. She has already filed 15 counts of corruption and illegal acts against the Salvadoran President’s administration since 2021. Attorney Ruth López has been a fervent critic of human rights violations by the Bukele administration, especially since the construction of CECOT.
International implications and human rights concerns
Washington has been at odds with the Bolivarian revolution since its onset with the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1998. But the enmity intensified in 2015 when the Obama administration issued an executive order declaring a national emergency regarding the “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” posed by the situation in Venezuela. Since then, Bolivar’s homeland has faced more than 1,000 coercive and illegal measures against the Venezuelan people. This has caused incalculable damage to the Venezuelan economy and consequently resulted in a mass exodus of Venezuelans abroad. The Center for Economic and Policy Research found in a 2019 report by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs that the sanctions have inflicted, and continue to inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017–2018. The report details the devastating consequences of U.S. sanctions on the daily lives of ordinary Venezuelans.
In what appears to be a new attack on the Venezuelan people, the Trump administration, without providing evidence, accuses Venezuelan migrants of being terrorists and members of a criminal gang called the Tren de Aragua. It invokes a primitive law called the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which can be used only in times of war and allows the president to detain or deport natives and citizens of an enemy nation. This law has been used only three times in history. Reports from the New York Time, CATO Institute and CNN contradict the Trump administration’s accusations against Venezuelan migrants. Bloomberg notes that nearly 90% of those deported and imprisoned in El Salvador have no criminal records, despite all the Trump administration’s rhetoric against Venezuelan migrants. According to the Washington Post, more than 18 U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that the Venezuelan government isn’t directing an invasion of the United States in conjunction with the Tren de Aragua gang. Ironically, this so-called criminal gang’s existence is highly questionable.
Venezuelan UN Representative Denounces Actions of US, El Salvador Against Migrants
Contradictory narratives and political weaponization of migration
The demographic shift of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States underscores these broader geopolitical dynamics. In 1980, the number of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States was about 33,000. According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Venezuelans have been among the fastest-growing U.S. immigrant groups, with the population growing 318% between 2010 and 2023. By 2023, there was already a population of more than 770,000 Venezuelans in the United States. This dramatic increase is undoubtedly a profound consequence of the coercive and illegal measures imposed on the Venezuelan people
The goal is not merely to return immigrants, but rather to punish and penalize immigration, a large part of which the United States itself generates through its wars and policies of global domination. The Intercept reports that the U.S. is currently building a network of prisons for immigrants captured by ICE. The Trump administration has begun talks with 19 nations, including Libya, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Moldova, to accept deportees.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s friend, Erik Prince, the well-known mercenary and founder of the Blackwater mercenary group, is currently trying to sell the Trump administration a $25 billion project to privatize the mass deportations of 12 million migrants and the build of a maximum-security prison for undocumented immigrants. Prince has managed to extract millions of dollars in contracts from the CIA and the Pentagon.
Within this Dantesque scenario is a political actor who presented himself as one of the greatest friends of the Venezuelan people.The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who in his previous rhetoric was a great defender of Venezuelan migrants fleeing the “dictatorship,” Marco Rubio, himself is the one who orders the withdrawal of TPS (Temporary Protected Status) from the more than 350,000 Venezuelans already living in the United States. Yet now, Rubio himself is the one who is ordering the withdrawal of TPS (Temporary Protected Status) from the more than 350,000 Venezuelans already living in the United States. This is the largest revocation of immigration status in U.S. history. Without a doubt, the United States is seeking to generate more chaos at a time when the empire faces enormous contradictions between those who want to put as much pressure as possible on Venezuela and those who prefer to reach an agreement with Maduro for fear that the moment they leave Venezuela, China will assume control of Venezuelan oil. If the United States resorted to maximum pressure, Their interests in the region would also be affected, but without any business with the Caribbean country. At a time of great challenges, it is in the United States’ best interest to reach an agreement that will give them rapid access to the world’s largest oil reserves.If the US resorts to maximum pressure on Venezuela, it would cut off Washington’s rapid access to the world’s largest oil reserves.
On Thursday, May 22, in a massive march closing out the election campaign to elect members of the National Assembly, state parliamentarians, and governors, President Nicolás Maduro join marchers who displayed an enormous popular euphoria. Just a few hours after capturing more than 50 mercenaries whose mission was to assassinate the president and sabotage the infrastructure critical to the daily lives of Venezuelans, President Maduro declared that nothing and no one will stop this revolution; there is still no empire that can defeat us. “Let the world know that we are facing a great victory! We are going to a great victory this coming Sunday, May 25! And sooner rather than later, we will rescue our immigrants from the clutches of the empire.”
According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, a list of Venezuelan immigrants kidnapped in El Salvador.
Below you can read a letter from the families of the young men unjustifiably imprisoned in El Salvador, delivered to the United Nations representative in Caracas.
Caracas, April 9, 2025
Mr. VOLKER TÜRK United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Switzerland.
Attention: GIANLUCA RAMPOLLA United Nations Resident Coordinator Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
We, the relatives of the Venezuelans who were arbitrarily detained in the United States of America and illegally transferred to El Salvador, are writing to you to request an immediate response to the complaint filed last Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at the United Nations Headquarters in Caracas, Venezuela. In this complaint, we expressed the grave violation of human rights committed by the governments of those countries against our loved ones.
As we explained to the High Commissioner’s team in Caracas, on March 14, 2025, the President of the United States of America, at his discretion, classified our relatives as members of a criminal gang known as “Tren de Aragua,” without a prior trial and without minimum guarantees of due process, the right to defense, or the presumption of innocence.
This stigmatization of our relatives deepens xenophobia and all forms of discrimination against migrants of Venezuelan origin. It also serves as a nefarious argument to justify the arbitrary detentions and alleged forced disappearances to which they have been subjected, as well as their illegal transfer to El Salvador on March 15, 2025.
None of our relatives were subjected to a prior procedure that would have allowed them to exercise their right to defense. On the contrary, many were arbitrarily detained, expelled, and subsequently detained in El Salvador simply for having a tattoo on their body or a certain physical stereotype. They have also not been allowed to communicate with their families or lawyers, and to date, none have been brought before a judge or formally charged with any crime in El Salvador.
Mr. High Commissioner,
The detention of our relatives in the United States of America and their subsequent transfer and detention in El Salvador were carried out in a manner that clearly violated human dignity and personal integrity. They were beaten, humiliated, and exposed to the media, all of which constitutes a flagrant violation of their human rights.
The inhumane detention conditions where our relatives are allegedly held are widely known internationally. Detainees there are subjected to forced labor and remain in conditions that deny their fundamental human rights. Experts on the subject have described it as “a concrete and steel death cesspool where a perverse calculation is made to eliminate people without formally applying the death penalty.”
In light of the foregoing, we address you, in your capacity as the highest representative of the United Nations for human rights, and the highest representative of the United Nations in Venezuela, respectively, to demand a prompt and timely response and pronouncement regarding the flagrant violation of the human rights of our loved ones. In this regard, we respectfully request:
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- Publicly condemn the detention of Venezuelans in the United States and their subsequent transfer and imprisonment in El Salvador, in clear violation of human rights and civil and political rights.
- Take action to guarantee respect for the personal integrity, right to defense, and due process of Venezuelans illegally deported to El Salvador.
- Demand that the Government of El Salvador immediately release and return all Venezuelans arbitrarily deprived of their liberty who are unjustly held in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
William Camacaro
William Camacaro is a Venezuelan-American National Co-Coordinator in the Alliance for Global Justice. He was a co-founder of the Bolivarian Circle of New York “Alberto Lovera” and Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. William has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. He has been a long-time activist for social justice in the United States, such as organizing protests against police brutality in NYC, for the independence of Puerto Rico, and for the freedom of political prisoners. William has also been a leader in defense of progressive governments and social movements in Latin America.
