Although the primary victims of El Salvador’s neo-fascist prison system are the Salvadorans themselves. Hundreds of migrants have been illegally deported by the U.S. to these infamous prisons, currently there are approximately 110,000 prisoners across the country; approximately 85,000 of these prisoners have been arrested since the start of the state of exception, an emergency measure that has been renewed 36 times by the National Assembly since its promulgation in March 2022. 78% of prisoners arrested during the ongoing state of exception have never seen a judge and according to Socorro Jurídico Humanitario (SJH) at least 30,000 are Innocent and eight thousand have been freed. The so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), designed for approximately 40,000 people, currently holds around 84,000 prisoner s. According to the NGO SJH, there are approximately 12,000 missing persons in El Salvador, many of whom are believed to be in this confinement center. Additionally, more than 410 prisoners have died since CECOT opened, some of whom had judicial orders for release. In this context of pervasive human rights violations, the Trump administration has partnered with the president of El Salvador to systematically hunt and then traffic migrants in the United States.
On March 15, the U.S. government, without due process, illegally and unconstitutionally transferred 253 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s notorious anti-terrorist prison, CECOT. These individuals were accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang, yet no evidence was provided. The prisoners were subjected to humiliation and egregious human rights violations.
CECOT, which opened in 2023 and was partially built with U.S. funds, has been transformed into Bukele’s signature mega-prison, a symbol of his crackdown on gangs, alarmingly resembling a Nazi concentration camp.
According to a report by the human rights organization Cristosal, the prisoners at CECOT do not receive enough water, food is very scarce, and they are only allowed one hour outside their cells. They are constantly beaten by their guards and have no access to phone calls, lawyers, or family visits. In short, they are completely isolated. This dire situation has unleashed enormous corruption within that gigantic prison unit, where relatives and friends of inmates pay up to $200 or more to visit their loved ones.
President Maduro strongly condemned the illegality and inhumane conditions of Venezuelan migrants arrested in the United States and hired a law firm to defend his compatriots in El Salvador. This firm was led by Ruth López, chief attorney of the anti-corruption unit of the human rights NGO Cristosal. Just a year ago, the BBC recognized Ruth as one of the 100 most influential women in the world. The renowned lawyer had been in charge of the case of the more than 250 Venezuelans imprisoned at CECOT for less than a month when she was arrested and held incommunicado on May 19.
It’s no secret that Cristosal’s lawyer is an inconvenience to the Bukele regime. She has already filed 15 counts of corruption and illegal acts against the Salvadoran President’s administration since 2021. Attorney Ruth López has been a fervent critic of human rights violations by the Bukele administration, especially since the construction of CECOT.
International Implications and Human Rights Concerns
Washington has been at odds with the Bolivarian revolution since its onset with the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1998. But the enmity intensified in 2015 when the Obama administration issued an executive order declaring a national emergency regarding the “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” posed by the situation in Venezuela. Since then, Bolivar’s homeland has faced more than 1,000 coercive and illegal measures against the Venezuelan people. This has caused incalculable damage to the Venezuelan economy and consequently resulted in a mass exodus of Venezuelans abroad. The Center for Economic and Policy Research found in a 2019 report by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs that the sanctions have inflicted, and continue to inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017—2018. The report details the devastating consequences of U.S. sanctions on the daily lives of ordinary Venezuelans.
In what appears to be a new attack on the Venezuelan people, the Trump administration, without providing evidence, accuses Venezuelan migrants of being terrorists and members of a criminal gang called the Tren de Aragua. It invokes a primitive law called the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which can be used only in times of war and allows the president to detain or deport natives and citizens of an enemy nation. This law has been used only three times in history. Reports from the New York Time, CATO Institute and CNN contradict the Trump administration’s accusations against Venezuelan migrants. Bloomberg notes that nearly 90% of those deported and imprisoned in El Salvador have no criminal records, despite all the Trump administration’s rhetoric against Venezuelan migrants. According to the Washington Post, more than 18 U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that the Venezuelan government isn’t directing an invasion of the United States in conjunction with the Tren de Aragua gang. Ironically, this so-called criminal gang’s existence is highly questionable.
Contradictory Narratives and Political Weaponization of Migration
The demographic shift of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States underscores these broader geopolitical dynamics. In 1980, the number of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States was about 33,000. According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), Venezuelans have been among the fastest-growing U.S. immigrant groups, with the population growing 318 percent between 2010 and 2023. By 2023, there was already a population of more than 770,000 Venezuelans in the United States. This dramatic increase is undoubtedly a profound consequence of the coercive and illegal measures imposed on the Venezuelan people
The goal is not merely to return immigrants, but rather to punish and penalize immigration, a large part of which the United States itself generates through its wars and policies of global domination. The Intercept reports that the U.S. is currently building a network of prisons for immigrants captured by ICE. The Trump administration has begun talks with 19 nations, including Libya, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Moldova, to accept deportees.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s friend, Erik Princ e, the most well-known mercenary and and founder of the Blackwater mercenary group, is currently trying to sell the Trump administration a $25 billion project to privatize the mass deportations of 12 million migrants and the build of a maximum-security prison for undocumented immigrants. Prince has managed to extract millions of dollars in contracts from the CIA and the Pentagon.
Within this Dantesque scenario is a political actor who presented himself as one of the greatest friends of the Venezuelan people.The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who in his previous rhetoric was a great defender of Venezuelan migrants fleeing the “dictatorship,” Marco Rubio, himself is the one who orders the withdrawal of TPS (Temporary Protected Status) from the more than 350,000 Venezuelans already living in the United States. Yet now, Rubio himself is the one who is ordering the withdrawal of TPS (Temporary Protected Status) from the more than 350,000 Venezuelans already living in the United States. This is the largest revocation of immigration status in U.S. history. Without a doubt, the United States is seeking to generate more chaos at a time when the empire faces enormous contradictions between those who want to put as much pressure as possible on Venezuela and those who prefer to reach an agreement with Maduro for fear that the moment they leave Venezuela, China will assume control of Venezuelan oil. If the United States resorted to maximum pressure, Their interests in the region would also be affected, but without any business with the Caribbean country. At a time of great challenges, it is in the United States’ best interest to reach an agreement that will give them rapid access to the world’s largest oil reserves.If the U.S. resorts to maximum pressure on Venezuela, it would cut off Washington’s rapid access to the world’s largest oil reserves.
On Thursday, May 22, in a massive march closing out the election campaign to elect members of the National Assembly, state parliamentarians, and governors, President Nicolás Maduro join marchers who displayed an enormous popular euphoria. Just a few hours after capturing more than 50 mercenaries whose mission was to assassinate the president and sabotage the infrastructure critical to the daily lives of Venezuelans, President Maduro declared that nothing and no one will stop this revolution; there is still no empire that can defeat us.
Let the world know that we are facing a great victory! We are going to a great victory this coming Sunday, May 25! And sooner rather than later, we will rescue our immigrants from the clutches of the empire.
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