By Misión Verdad – Jun 4, 2025
In a new episode of the systematic offensive waged by the United States against Venezuelan migrants, more than 50 Venezuelans have been detained and imprisoned in El Salvador after having entered US territory legally and without having violated any immigration law.
The information, published by the Cato Institute, a think tank not exactly hostile to US foreign policy, exposes a maneuver that goes beyond migration: it reveals the use of third countries as prisons at the service of Washington.
This is part of a US transnational system of control and punishment in which Venezuelan migration is reduced to a threat and processed as a crime. In this logic, El Salvador operates as a neocolonial enclave, while the myth of the Tren de Aragua is used as justification.
Illegal forced disappearance
On March 15, 2024, approximately 240 Venezuelan nationals were transferred from the United States to a maximum security prison in El Salvador infamous for allegations of torture and inhumane treatment. Subsequently, a list obtained by CBS News showed that at least 75% of the people deported had no criminal record, either in the United States or abroad. Moreover, dozens of them had not even violated immigration laws.
The US authorities have not published any official list of those deported, nor have they provided precise information to their families or lawyers. In most cases, the deportees were never informed of the reasons for their detention, nor did they know that they would be sent to a foreign prison. The process has been opaque, without trial, without charges, and without the possibility of defense.
Among the Venezuelans sent to El Salvador, more than 50 entered the United States legally, with prior authorization, temporary visas, approved refugee status, or admission through the official CBP One application. Of these, 24 were admitted under parole and another 21 were detained at the same border port where they were authorized entry. All were reviewed, cleared, and formally admitted. Even so, they were disappeared by the same state that had received them.
The numbers lay bare the reality: dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their rights and detained in a foreign country without known cause or due process.
The detainees are mostly workers in various trades: construction, delivery, cooking, mechanics, art, sports, and services. Among them are a musician, a veterinarian, a makeup artist, and a soccer coach. Several were already legally employed in the United States, contributing to the local economy and fulfilling their family responsibilities. Together, they were supporting 44 children. No authorities notified their families of their detention or transfer to a foreign prison.
The US government claims that these men are members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang but has refused to present evidence. In fact, only two of the more than 240 migrants had any prior criminal convictions, and those were for drug possession in small quantities. The US justified the arrests solely by the presence of tattoos allegedly linked to gangs.
According to official documents, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) drew up a list of symbols to identify alleged members of the Tren de Aragua. The catalog includes the Jordan logo, a train, a crown, the word “hijos” [sons], a gas mask, and even a watch or a star. These images were copied from social media outside Venezuela, including accounts of Michael Jordan fans in the US or Turkish tattoo artists.
As the Cato Institute article documents, even personal tattoos with no criminal connotations, such as song lyrics, video game symbols or sports emblems, were used as purported evidence to incarcerate these individuals.
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El Salvador as a neocolonial prison enclave
The mass incarceration of Venezuelans in El Salvador is part of a transnational punishment device in which El Salvador acts as a tool in Washington’s migration control structure. This model operates through the delegation of repressive practices to governments allied with US interests and permits actions that would be more visible or questioned inside the US.
The mega-prison where the Venezuelan migrants are incarcerated has been criticized by international organizations due to the inhumane conditions prevailing there: prolonged incommunicado detention, overcrowding, absence of basic guarantees, and documented complaints of torture. Far from avoiding this, the US government directly finances the Salvadoran government to keep these people in prolonged confinement. It is a conscious decision that relies on the repressive effectiveness of the Nayib Bukele administration’s prison apparatus.
By operating from third countries, control becomes more diffuse, more efficient, and less verifiable. In El Salvador, there is total opacity. There are no official lists of detainees, there are no judicial processes, and the transfers are carried out in flights without public registration. If they are fortunate, families discover the situation of their loved ones through leaks or posts on social media. This constitutes a regime of organized forced disappearance on a transnational scale.
The problem lies in the willingness of certain regimes to operate within the framework of subordination that the United States needs in order to implement its policies of containment and punishment.
The Guantánamo experience had already revealed the US interest in creating legal spaces of exception outside US territory. Now, the target is not only prisoners of war or alleged suspects of international terrorism but Latin American migrants, many of them with approved legal entry. The use of these places of exception consolidates a structure of extraterritorial punishment that operates with precision and total impunity.
Manufacturing a threat to criminalize and lay siege to a nation
In recent years, the name “Tren de Aragua” has been elevated by US authorities and media to the rank of hemispheric threat. It is presented as a far-reaching criminal organization that has allegedly infiltrated multiple countries and is directly associated with Venezuelan migration. However, there is no evidence to support the existence of this organization in the terms in which it is described.
The proliferation of this narrative is driven by a system of media and agencies that revolve around the US State Department, such as Insight Crime and the OCCRP project, composed of media outlets such as CNN, Telemundo, and other large conglomerates.
The gang’s alleged international expansion has not been proven in any judicial forum nor supported by serious independent investigations. The reports that claim it operates in countries across the region are based on fragile evidence, media repetitions, photographs taken out of context, or unverified testimonies. In contrast, when the Venezuelan state intervened in the Tocorón prison in 2023 and dismantled the criminal organization at its operational core, no official analysis was updated in the US, nor was the discursive treatment of the issue modified.
This shows that the objective is to construct a narrative. By presenting the Tren de Aragua as a Venezuelan mega-gang operating throughout the continent, a threat is manufactured that would allow harsh treatment of Venezuelan migrants, justify extrajudicial detentions, and project Venezuelans as a generalized threat.
The use of this narrative of criminalization is part of a broader strategy against Venezuela. It is about inserting the discourse of “migrant danger” into the political pressure package against Venezuela, connecting the migration of Venezuelan citizens with the narrative of a failed and criminal state.
Reports such as those of the Cato Institute show that, under the Trump 2.0 administration, the migratory phenomenon is being manipulated as a tool for geopolitical control, through a narrative constructed to justify the siege against Venezuela. This discursive operation sustains sanctions, isolation, and pressure measures aimed at destabilizing the country, operating mechanisms of hybrid war in multiple sectors, including Venezuelan migration—no longer collaterally, but as a target.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SL
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
