Venezuelans Demand the Release of Migrants Deported to El Salvador
Migrants in the CECOT prison in El Salvador, March 16, 2025. X/ @bechamilton
March 17, 2025 Hour: 9:47 am
Migrants in Salvadoran prisons are separated from their families and lack adequate and timely protections for their defense.
On Sunday, the Venezuelan government and people strongly rejected the deportation of 238 Venezuelans from the United States to El Salvador, where the migrants are subjected to mistreatment and imprisoned under inadequate conditions.
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In this regard, the outlet La Iguana TV recalled that the current stigmatization of migrants in the United States would not exist if it were not for the actions of the Venezuelan far-right opposition, which has dedicated itself to creating narratives falsely linking migrants to the Aragua Train, a criminal organization that was dismantled by Venezuelan authorities some time ago.
“The so-called ‘USAID Train,’ led by extremists Maria Corina Machado, Juan Guaido, and Leopoldo Lopez, is responsible for the abuse suffered by Venezuelan migrants who were sent by the U.S. to El Salvador to be interned in the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT),” the Venezuelan outlet stressed.
On Sunday, videos posted on social media showed Venezuelan migrants being deported to El Salvador under degrading conditions—shackled and subjected to mistreatment as if they were criminals.
Relatives of the Venezuelan migrants demanded that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele investigate each case, as many of the deported individuals do not belong to any criminal gang. The families explained that the group of Venezuelans had voluntarily turned themselves in to U.S. authorities to return to Venezuela because they were experiencing hardships in the United States.
Local humanitarian organizations recalled that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has questioned the conditions of the Salvadoran prison system, as inmates are kept away from their families and lack adequate and timely guarantees for their defense.
Once placed in Salvadoran prisons, the deported migrants have no means to understand what crimes they are being charged with, when they will be processed, or what right to legal defense they are granted.
On Sunday, the government of President Nicolas Maduro categorically rejected the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to apply a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act, which links Venezuelan migrants to the Aragua Train to facilitate their mass expulsion.
The Trump administration sent the Venezuelans to El Salvador despite U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg ordering the immediate suspension of deportations based on the Alien Enemies Act.
Recently, the Venezuelan president denounced that the false narrative about the presence of Aragua Train members in the U.S. was promoted by the far right to stigmatize Venezuelan migration. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello also accused the far-right opposition of running a human trafficking network along the Mexico–U.S. border, turning migration into a source of profit.
teleSUR/ JF
Sources: EFE – La Iguana
