Rights groups sue to free Venezuelans deported from the US and held in
El Salvador
[May 10, 2025]
By MARCOS ALEMÁN and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — International human rights
organizations on Friday filed a lawsuit with the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights asking that the commission order El
Salvador’s government to release Venezuelans deported from the United
States and held in a maximum-security prison.
In March, the U.S. government deported more than 200 Venezuelan
immigrants alleged to have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to El
Salvador, paying the Salvadoran government to imprison them.
Since then, they have had no access to lawyers or ability to communicate
with their families. Neither the U.S. nor Salvadoran governments have
said how the men could eventually regain their freedom.
“These individuals have been stripped from their families and subject to
a state-sponsored enforced disappearance regime, effectively, completely
against the law,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global
Strategic Litigation Council, which helped bring the suit.
One of them is Euder José Torres.
Tattoos flagged
In September, Torres boarded a Houston-bound flight in Quito, Ecuador
with his 21-year-old stepson after successfully completing a monthslong
screening process that included health exams and criminal history
checks.
The 41-year-old Venezuelan and the young man he had raised since early
childhood had been approved for family reunification through the U.N.’s
International Organization for Migration and were headed to the U.S. to
join his long-time partner and his stepson’s brother.
But at the airport in Houston, immigration agents saw a tattoo of a
compass on the stepson’s forearm with the initials of his mother, father
and brother in place of the cardinal directions. They said it signaled
him as a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The next day he
was on a flight back to Ecuador.
But Torres didn’t have an Ecuadorian visa, so agents placed him in
immigration detention in Texas. He had tattoos too, the name of his
saint Elegua in script on one forearm – he is a practitioner of
Santeria, a fusion of African religions and Catholicism – and skull on
the other.
Torres sought U.S. asylum and passed his credible fear interview, but at
an immigration hearing in January the government lawyer told the judge,
without providing evidence, he too was a member of Tren de Aragua. The
judge issued a deportation order, according to his longtime partner, who
requested anonymity due to fears of retaliation despite her legal status
in the U.S.
In March, Torres found himself among more than 200 Venezuelans sent to a
maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
His partner questions how the U.S. government could send him to a prison
there without any evidence that he had broken the law or has a criminal
record.
Lack of due process
El Salvador has been living under a state of emergency for more than
three years, which has suspended some fundamental rights and given the
administration of President Nayib Bukele extraordinary powers. More than
85,000 Salvadorans have been arrested over the period for alleged ties
to the country’s once-powerful street gangs.
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Prisoners look out of their cell as Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El
Salvador, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The improvement in El Salvador’s security has won Bukele widespread
domestic support and some admirers in the region who seek to imitate
his success. But the lack of due process and numerous arbitrary
arrests have drawn international condemnation. Bukele has dismissed
those critics as defenders of criminals.
A spokesperson for Bukele's office declined to comment Friday.
With the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump taking a hard
line on immigration and portraying migrants broadly as criminals,
neither government has been swayed by legal maneuvers in their own
country to seek the men’s release or return to the U.S.
A judge in Washington this week said he would order the U.S.
government to provide more information about its prison deal with El
Salvador as he moved closer to requiring the government to return
the men to the U.S.
The human rights organizations hope that the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights will accept this emergency petition. The
commission is an arm of the regional Organization of American
States. The groups presented the case on behalf of the families of
18 of the men sent to El Salvador, who provided sworn statements
about their cases.
Some of the men had pending asylum applications in the U.S., while
others had been vetted and approved for refugee resettlement by the
U.S. government, still others had temporary protected status
allowing them to work in the U.S., according to the lawsuit.
Bukele has said he has the room to hold the men and the payments
from the U.S. will help cover the costs of his new prison.
Legal maneuvers unsuccessful
While both the Venezuelan government and nongovernmental
organizations have filed habeas corpus petitions — essentially
compelling the government to prove someone’s detention was justified
— in El Salvador’s courts, none have advanced.
The groups are asking the human right commission to order
precautionary measures, basically an emergency action to prevent
irreparable harm. Among them are the ability to communicate with
their families, access to legal counsel and return to the United
States. The commission would seek a response from El Salvador’s
government before making a decision, but is expected to move
quickly.
The other organizations involved in the lawsuit are the Boston
University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic, the
Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and Robert F. Kennedy Human
Rights.
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