US Edition‘It pains our souls’: Venezuelans react to first video of relatives in Salvadoran prison after Matt Gaetz TV report
- More than 100 Venezuelan migrants sent back from the U.S. In March 2025 are currently detained at El Salvador’s high-security Centre for Terrorism Confinement, according to video footage made public following Matt Gaetz’s visit to the facility on May 9.
- The deportations occurred under President Trump's immigration enforcement, invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to fast-track suspected Tren de Aragua gang members, though families deny the criminal allegations.
- The prison is isolated, built to hold 40,000 inmates, and houses suspected gang members under harsh conditions, with detainees lacking access to phones, attorneys, or legal recourse to challenge detention.
- U.N. Human rights chief Volker Turk warned that this raises serious concerns for rights fundamental to U.S. And international law, urging El Salvador to grant inspection access and noting detainees were uninformed of their deportations.
- The situation implies ongoing human rights risks as over 245 other Venezuelans' fates remain unclear, prompting calls for transparency and legal oversight amid mass deportations exceeding 140,000 people earlier in 2025.
43 Articles
43 Articles
‘It pains our souls’: Venezuelans react to first video of relatives in Salvadoran prison after Matt Gaetz TV report
Sitting on a couch in her home in Maracay, Venezuela, Mirelis Cacique López watches her son Francisco Javier García Cacique on her cell phone in the first video released of a group of Venezuelans sent by the United States to El Salvador’s maximum-security prison Cecot.
"Our souls hurt": Relatives of Venezuelans in Cecot react to the first video released of those detained in El Salvador.
By Ana Melgar, CNN en Español Sitting on an armchair in her home in Maracay, Aragua state, Mirelis Cacique López sees on her cell phone her son, Francisco Javier García Cacique, in the first video released by the group of Venezuelans sent by the United States and detained in the maximum security prison in El Salvador called the Center for Confining Terrorism (Cecot). “Among the boys I recognized my son,” Mirelis said in a video sent to CNN. “We …
United Nations: Venezuelans in El Salvador May Be Subjects of Forced Disappearance
Neither the US nor the Salvadoran authorities have released official lists of the Venezuelans held at the detention center. This Tuesday, the United Nations Human Rights Office expressed its concern about the situation of a group of Venezuelan migrants who, after being deported from the United States to El Salvador, remain in a situation of “complete uncertainty” regarding their whereabouts and conditions. The concern was expressed by the intern…
They Wanted a Better Future in the US. Now They Are Jailed in El Salvador
The last time Miriam Aguilera spoke with her 27-year-old son, Gustavo, was March 14. He told her he would be deported to Venezuela the next day. He called her from a detention center in Texas, where he had been held since February. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained him at his home in Lewisville, outside of Dallas-Fort Worth, where he lived with his Venezuelan partner and their now 10-month-old baby, who was born in t…
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