Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds | US immigration
More than 252 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador under Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy were subjected to systematic and prolonged torture and abuse during their detention, according to a report released Wednesday.
reportThe report, compiled jointly by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Cristosal, a group that investigates abuses in Central America, says conditions in El Salvador’s sprawling “terrorist continental hub” (Cecot) violate the UN’s standard minimum rules on the treatment of prisoners. The report cites “inhumane prison conditions, including long-term incommunicado detention, malnutrition” and other shortcomings.
The groups accuse the Trump administration of willful complicity in the suffering suffered by people deported in March and April after being flown to El Salvador, insisting that the administration ordered the deportation of these people despite being fully aware that they would be mistreated and even face threats to their lives.
Although they acknowledge the likelihood is low, they are calling for an “independent investigation” by the US justice department. They also demand that the Trump administration stop deporting third-country citizens to El Salvador.
They say the US’s turning a blind eye to what is portrayed as a systematic pattern of torture and human rights violations evokes comparisons to the scandal at Bahdat’s Abu Ghraib facility during the “war on terror”.
“We conclude that the Trump administration is complicit in the systematic torture and enforced disappearances of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador,” said Juanita Goebertus, HRW’s Americas director.
previous quote state department reports Noting the harsh prison conditions in El Salvador, he added: “The administration was aware that they were sending people to a place where they could be tortured and face risks to their lives.”
Trump administration paid off to the Salvadoran regime The report states that President Nayyib Bukele, who describes himself as “the coolest dictator in the world”, was paid $4.7 million to cover detention expenses.
Noah Bullock, chief executive of Cristosal, which recently had to suspend its operations in El Salvador, accused the Trump administration of “mass.”[ing] “The Salvadoran prison system was used to prop up a scene of cruelty.”
“They wanted to show brutality and send a message,” he said. “But I don’t know if they knew how far it could go and how terrible the horror of torture was.”
The 81-page report paints a harrowing picture of the conditions faced by Venezuelans, many of whom are seeking asylum from the authoritarian regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and roughly half of whom have no criminal record, despite official accusations that the deportees are “terrorist” members of the Tren de Aragua, an organized crime gang. Only 3% of people in the U.S. were convicted of a violent crime, according to the report.
“Detainees were subjected to repeated beatings and other forms of ill-treatment, including some cases of sexual violence,” the report said.
“Many of these violations constitute torture under international human rights law.
“People held in Cecot said they were beaten from the moment they arrived in El Salvador and throughout their detention.
“These beatings and other abuses appear to be part of a practice designed to subjugate, humiliate and discipline detainees by subjecting them to severe physical and psychological pain. Officers also appear to have acted in the belief that their superiors supported or tolerated these abusive acts.”
According to a former inmate identified in the report as Gonzalo Y, the facility’s warden was unfriendly to new arrivals after being deported from the United States. “You’ve come to hell,” he told them, a phrase used as the title of the report.
The report, based on more than 200 interviews and “forensic” verification of interviewees’ statements, details beatings inflicted for minor infractions such as speaking too loudly, showering at the wrong time and even seeking medical treatment.
Some inmates described being beaten following a visit by the International Committee of the Red Cross and, in another case, a visit by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. published his own video He was standing in front of a prison cell packed with deportees.
According to Goebertus, the beatings following Noem’s visit occurred after prisoners shouted demands to be released on the grounds that they were not criminals or terrorists. Goebertus said Noem’s high-profile visit proves the administration’s awareness of the abuses occurring at Cecot.
“By Kristi Noem’s direct visit and recording of this video, the U.S. government is clearly complicit in the very serious and systematic torture that Venezuelans face,” he said.
He noted that three inmates were also sexually abused; A man said he was forced to have oral sex with a guard. The report stated that sexual assaults are more common but are not reported due to social stigma.
men He was released in July As part of a deal with the Maduro regime that included the release of 10 Americans and U.S. residents held in Venezuela.
Bullock said the treatment of Venezuelans reflects a “broader pattern in Salvadoran prisons” where 90,000 Salvadorans have been arbitrarily detained, disappeared and systematically tortured in the past three years.
“According to our research, it caused the deaths of at least 420 people, but we think it was much more,” he said.
“There is ample and very credible evidence in the prisons of El Salvador that the government of El Salvador itself is capable of committing crimes against humanity, and that is the prison system with which the United States has contracted to eliminate immigrants.”
