HRW Report: Venezuelan Migrants in El Salvador Face Torture

Human rights groups report that U.S. deportations in early 2025 sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants into a system of torture at El Salvador’s CECOT mega prison, alleging near-daily beatings, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances. In a joint report released this week, Human Rights Watch and Cristosal detailed how around 252 people deported under the Trump administration were taken straight from the airport to the maximum-security complex.

According to multiple testimonies, guards greeted deportees with statements such as “You have arrived in hell” and began beating them as soon as they stepped off the plane. Many of the deportees reportedly had pending asylum claims in the United States.

How the deportations were carried out

• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reportedly used the Alien Enemies Act to expel these Venezuelan migrants.
• Rights groups say this move stripped detainees of due process and sometimes labeled people as gang members without evidence.
• Deportees were allegedly not given a chance to contest the allegations before removal.
• The removals occurred in early 2025 and involved coordination between U.S. and Salvadoran authorities.

The groups contend the deportations delivered people into a prison “internationally known for extreme isolation, mass detentions, and alleged abuses.”

For readers seeking the legal text, the Alien Enemies Act is published by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Office of the Law Revision Counsel and can be found here: 50 U.S.C. § 21 (Alien Enemies Act).

Allegations from former detainees

Former detainees described a consistent pattern of immediate and ongoing mistreatment:

• Forced kneeling on hard surfaces and heads shaved on arrival.
• Guards told detainees they would “never leave alive” and suggested their families had abandoned them.
• Constant beatings with batons, kicks, and punches, often during routine cell searches.
• Punishments for minor infractions (e.g., showering at the wrong time, speaking loudly).
• Reports of fractured bones and untreated injuries.
• Accounts of sexual violence and threats used to break detainees’ will.
• Access to medical care and contact with families cut off for weeks.

Conditions amounting to psychological torture

The report describes practices that rights groups say constitute psychological torture:

• Lights left on day and night.
• Loud music played to prevent sleep.
• Long stretches of enforced silence as punishment.
• Use of rubber bullets fired at close range inside locked cells when prisoners protested or organized strikes.
• Reports that some men were taken away and never seen again—raising fears of enforced disappearance.

Survivors linked these practices to lasting trauma, with several describing severe psychological distress and ongoing fear.

Legal and human-rights conclusions

Human Rights Watch and Cristosal concluded the abuses were systematic, not isolated incidents. Their findings argue:

• Salvadoran authorities engaged in torture, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearance, in violation of international law.
• The U.S. government, by deporting people despite credible risk of harm, breached the principle of non-refoulement (which bars returning people to countries where they face torture or other serious harm).
• Rights advocates emphasized that the pattern of abuse at CECOT was widely known prior to early 2025, and that U.S. officials should have recognized the risk.

Political and legal fallout

• Senator Peter Welch condemned the deportations and called for an immediate halt to sending migrants to El Salvador until torture and abuses cease.
• The use of the wartime-era Alien Enemies Act to short-circuit traditional immigration procedures drew intense scrutiny and criticism.
• Rights groups stressed that several deportees had pending asylum claims and should have been protected from removal until those claims were adjudicated.

VisaVerge.com notes that, if the findings are sustained, both governments could face legal challenges tied to the prohibition against torture and the duty not to return people to harm. Advocates urged:

• Immediate safeguards for deportees.
• Access for independent monitors to CECOT.
• Pathways for deportees to seek protection and remedies.

El Salvador’s stated position and report’s assessment

• President Nayib Bukele has defended CECOT as central to his campaign against gangs.
• The report acknowledges the Salvadoran government’s stated goal of public safety but argues that the mass abuse of detainees—including Venezuelan migrants with no proven gang ties—falls outside any lawful security strategy.
• Former detainees said routine searches turned violent without warning and that complaining about hunger, pain, or illness triggered further punishment.
• Detainees reported being mocked for being foreign and told that nobody would help them.

Human impact and continuing uncertainty

• Families across the region are searching for relatives who vanished after removal flights.
• Communication bans allegedly left many deportees incommunicado for long periods, and some were transferred within the prison system without notice.
• One former detainee described being told “our families didn’t want us anymore,” which he said contributed to severe psychological pressure and instances of self-starvation.
• Researchers reported consistent accounts across multiple interviews, corroborated in part by medical reports showing untreated fractures.

What advocates are calling for next

• A halt to deportations to El Salvador until independent observers can verify conditions at CECOT and confirm that torture and enforced disappearance are no longer occurring.
• Investigations into how the early-2025 deportations were approved.
• Assurances that asylum seekers will not be removed without due process and that individuals at risk will be protected.

“People who asked for protection were flown into danger,” the report’s authors wrote, framing the stakes in stark terms.

Stakes and potential consequences

The report argues that if the allegations stand, the legal and moral consequences will extend beyond these cases. The situation could become a test of how the United States and El Salvador handle:

• Claims of torture tied to detention at the CECOT mega prison,
• The treatment of Venezuelan migrants, and
• Compliance with international obligations such as non-refoulement and prohibitions on torture.

For now, testimony from deportees paints a stark picture of a system that punished people for minor acts—speaking too loudly, showering at the wrong time—with batons, boots, and threats intended to break them. Rights groups urge swift action: independent monitoring, legal review, and immediate safeguards for those at risk.