Rights groups sue to free Venezuelans deported from the US and held in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — 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.

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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