Systematic torture, enforced disappearances and inhumane conditions were reported by 252 Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador’s mega-prison, according to a new investigation by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, a Central American human rights organization.

Former detainees described daily beatings, sexual abuse, and starvation inside the ultra-secure Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT, which many of the migrants called “hell.” Most were accused—without trial—of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and were held incommunicado for months, despite having no criminal record.

“The Trump administration paid El Salvador millions of dollars to arbitrarily detain Venezuelans, who were then subjected almost daily to brutal beatings by Salvadoran security forces,” said Juanita Goebertus, director of the Americas Division at Human Rights Watch in a press release. “The Trump administration has been complicit in torture, enforced disappearances, and other serious human rights violations, and it should stop sending people to El Salvador or any other country where they face the risk of being tortured.”

Prisoners reported overcrowded cells, poor ventilation, inadequate food, lack of medical care and prolonged solitary confinement. Every former detainee interviewed by the nonprofit organizations said he endured repeated physical and psychological abuse.

Some of those deported had fled persecution by the regime of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, which has forced nearly eight million people to flee the country. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal noted that some of the CECOT detainees who were later returned to Venezuela reported visits from government intelligence agents attempting to coerce statements about their treatment in the United States.

On July 18, following a prisoner exchange, Venezuela released 10 jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents in return for the repatriation of more than 250 Venezuelan migrants who had been transferred from the U.S. to El Salvador months earlier under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Between March and September 2025, Human Rights Watch interviewed 150 people—including relatives, friends, employers, and lawyers of detainees in Venezuela, Colombia, and the U.S.—as well as 40 former detainees released from CECOT. Based on their accounts, the organizations documented 130 confirmed cases of Venezuelans transferred to the prison. Cristosal provided legal support to relatives of 76 detainees, filing habeas corpus petitions before El Salvador’s Supreme Court.

Human Rights Watch and Cristosal concluded that roughly half of those Venezuelans sent to CECOT had no criminal convictions, and only three percent had been convicted in the U.S. of a violent or potentially violent crime. Additional background checks revealed that many had not been convicted of any offense in Venezuela or other Latin American countries where they had lived.

Family members and attorneys said at least 62 Venezuelans were deported to El Salvador while their asylum cases in the United States were still pending, despite having passed an initial “credible fear” assessment entitling them to a full asylum hearing. Three others said they had entered the U.S. through the government’s Safe Mobility Offices program—implemented in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala—to offer legal pathways for eligible migrants and refugees.

The Miami Herald reported on March 27 about a 24-year-old Venezuelan father living in Tampa, who had an active asylum claim, who was deported to El Salvador after Homeland Security officials said he “may be a Tren de Aragua associate,” referring to the Venezuelan gang.

Frengel Reyes Mota, a 24-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker, enjoyed playing with his dog, Sacha. He was deported to El Salvador’s mega prison despite having no criminal record in Venezuela or the U.S., records show.

The human-rights groups’ findings also align with a March 21 Herald report documenting the case of a Venezuelan man who had been granted refugee status through the Safe Mobility Offices program in Colombia but was nonetheless deported to El Salvador. He was detained after flying into Houston from Colombia with his girlfriend after authorities noticed his tattoos. Despite having legal authorization to enter the United States and no criminal record, immigration officials concluded that his tattoos were sufficient to suspect he might be linked to the Tren de Aragua gang.

According to the report by the nonprofit organizations, an expert on the Tren de Aragua said in a sworn declaration that tattoos and hand gestures are not “reliable” or “credible” indicators of gang affiliation. The Herald previously reported that experts on the Venezuelan gang have found no evidence that tattoos or visible markings are used by the group to identify members. They said the gang—which originated in a notorious Venezuelan prison—does not use visible symbols, and that profiling individuals based on tattoos is likely to result in serious miscarriages of justice.

Investigators corroborated detainee testimonies through forensic analyses by the Independent Forensic Expert Group and open-source research by the Human Rights Center’s Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.

The report highlights the involvement of the U.S. government, noting that the Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and other mechanisms to deport Venezuelans under alleged gang or “terrorist” affiliations, while Salvadoran officials failed to provide oversight or accountability. The investigation also found that the U.S. government paid at least US $4.7 million to El Salvador in connection with detaining the migrants at CECOT.

Human Rights Watch and Cristosal called on the U.S. government to halt all deportations to El Salvador, disclose related bilateral agreements, rescind the March 2025 proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, suspend funding to Salvadoran security forces, and allow deported Venezuelans to resume asylum proceedings or receive Temporary Protected Status.

The organizations also urged Salvadoran authorities to investigate abuses, hold officials accountable, end incommunicado detention, improve prison conditions, and permit oversight access. Venezuelan authorities were called on to protect returnees from reprisals and provide medical, psychological and legal support.

The investigation placed the abuses within El Salvador’s broader prison system under President Nayib Bukele, whose tenure has been marked by mass incarcerations, limited transparency and recurring human rights violations. The human rights groups conclude that the torture and mistreatment at CECOT were not isolated incidents but part of a systematic pattern that raise grave concerns about the rule of law, migrant protections and U.S. complicity in transfers to facilities with little or no oversight.

“The United States government has not engaged in acts of systematic torture on this scale since Abu Ghraib and the network of secret prisons during the war on terror,” said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal. “For a government to make people disappear while subjecting them to torture undermines the principles that have historically made the United States a nation of laws.”

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