ATLANTA — After nine months of detention in a South Georgia immigrant jail, a Venezuelan father of two hoped to finally be deported to his homeland. Instead, he was flown to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, entering what his lawyers described as a “legal black hole.”

Edicson David Quintero Chacón is one of 238 Venezuelan migrants who were sent to El Salvador from U.S. immigration detention, most of them under an 18th century wartime act that allows the government to swiftly deport citizens of an invading nation. According to the Trump administration, Quintero and his countrymen are all members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which it says is engaging in “mass illegal migration to the United States” tantamount to a destabilizing “invasion.”

U.S. officials have not shared any evidence against the detainees.

According to his lawyers, Quintero, 28, is a skilled carpenter and lawyer who has been working to help support his family since he was 12 years old. His time outside detention in the U.S. was brief and spent in North Carolina, where a relative lives. In a court filing, Quintero’s attorneys say he has never been charged with or convicted of a crime in any country.

In media interviews, some relatives of other detainees have also disputed the gang allegations, saying the men who were flown to El Salvador in mid-March simply had tattoos.

Over the weekend, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting another group of more than 50 Venezuelan migrants under the wartime law, called the Alien Enemies Act, presumably also to El Salvador.

In March, during a first hearing in federal court to weigh the administration’s use of that law, which was previously invoked just three times in U.S. history, a judge had ordered Donald Trump officials to halt the deportation flight. But his instructions were not followed. The judge in question is now considering opening a contempt investigation against Trump administration officials.

In a 36-page habeas petition challenging the legality of Quintero’s detention, his attorneys note that, when he was detained in South Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center, he had stated that he “was not fighting (his) case anymore,” and that he “just wanted to go home.”

Quintero “is confined incommunicado in a prison widely regarded to be a site of inhumane conditions and torture,” says the petition, which was filed in the Columbus Division of Georgia’s Middle District. “Mr. Quintero was ordered removed to Venezuela by an immigration judge, and he stated a willingness to submit to deportation to Venezuela. Instead of effectuating his deportation to Venezuela, (federal officials) are paying for Mr. Quintero’s torture in El Salvador with U.S. taxpayer dollars in flagrant violation of the United States Constitution.”

In a press release, the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group, described Quintero’s situation as “a living nightmare.”

In the release, an unidentified relative of Quintero’s shared the following statement: “My family and I can’t sleep or eat because we’re thinking about Edicson. He’s a loving person, responsible and hardworking. I often wonder if he’s eaten yet, what he’s eaten, or how he’s feeling. This is affecting me emotionally and physically and I can’t rest. Edicson was terrified of remaining stuck in immigration detention in the U.S. or Guantánamo, but imprisonment at CECOT is worse than anything we could have imagined.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not return a request for comment.

After a visit to the Salvadoran jail, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tied the administration’s controversial use of the facility to its push for immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization to self-deport, which is happening more frequently in Georgia.

“President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW,” she wrote in a social media caption accompanying photos of the visit.

“If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadoran prison.”

Prolonged detention in Georgia, then transfer to El Salvador

Quintero illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in April 21, 2024 according to the habeas petition. After surrendering to border officials, he was processed and released into the country. Once he traveled to North Carolina, he regularly attended check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to his attorneys. At the third ICE check-in, in mid-June, he was taken into custody and transferred to Stewart, in South Georgia, the attorneys said.

On Sept. 11, 2024, an immigration judge ordered Quintero removed to Venezuela, citing only the fact of his being in the U.S. without authorization. But Venezuela was not accepting deportation flights, and the months in Georgia’s detention facility dragged on.

The Venezuelan government of authoritarian ruler Nicolás Maduro agreed to accept flights following Trump’s return to the White House earlier this year, but quickly reversed course. Deportation flights to the South American nation resumed again in late March.

On Feb. 10, 2025, Quintero filed a first habeas petition challenging his prolonged detention in Stewart, noting he wished to go home. Roughly a month later, he was placed on a flight to El Salvador. Quintero’s lawyers have not been in contact with him since, they say.

In the petition, the attorneys note that Quintero was likely stripped, shackled and shaved shortly after landing. Human Rights Watch, which investigates human rights abuses globally, says it is “not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison,” known as the Center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT.

Detainees at CECOT likely have to contend with “torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate health care and food,” the nonprofit said.

El Salvador’s justice minister once said that the only way out of CECOT is in a coffin.

“If Mr. Quintero continues to be treated like others imprisoned at CECOT, (the government’s) decision to transfer him there will amount to an effective life sentence — and possibly a death sentence,” his habeas petition says. “Mr. Quintero’s continuing detention — now approaching a year — is lawless.”

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