Families, human rights lawyer visit El Salvador, seek to visit imprisoned Venezuelans

Miami Herald

a day ago

As a kid in rural Venezuela, Widmer Agelviz Sanguino would be awakened in the middle of the night by the screeches of nearby owls. Those frightful sounds left a lasting impression. So, when he became older, he got a tattoo on one of his arms: an owl, a clock, and a bouquet of roses.
The owl and the clock were symbols of overcoming personal fears, while the roses were a homage to his paternal grandmother, who had a beautiful rose garden, his aunt Lisbeth Sanguino told the Miami Herald. 'He wanted to record on his skin his victory over his fears and his love for his paternal grandmother,' she said.
Now, those symbols of personal victory have become a fearsome nightmare of their own. The tattoos were used by U.S. officials to link him to the violent gang Tren de Aragua. Agelviz Sanguino is one of more than 230 Venezuelans sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, subjected to expedited deportations without being given a chance to argue their cases in court.
As part of a small mission of family members who accompanied a Venezuelan human rights lawyer to demand their loved ones' release from the Salvadoran prison this week, Lisbeth Sanguino said that while the tattoos have been claimed to be associated with Tren de Aragua, the truth is that her nephew has no gang affiliation and has never been involved in any type of crime.
His case, she argued, is yet another example of the cavalier way in which those sent to El Salvador were selected—without any real evidence that they had done anything wrong other than trying to seek refuge in the United States.
Invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the Trump administration deported the group of Venezuelans in March, accusing them of being criminals or members of the feared Tren de Aragua gang. They were sent to El Salvador and incarcerated at the CECOT maximum-security prison.
In a brief telephone interview, human rights advocate and lawyer Walter Márquez said the Venezuelans sent to El Salvador have fallen into a kind of black hole, leaving family members without news of their whereabouts or the conditions they are in.
'El Salvador is serving as a human warehouse for these Venezuelans, who have fallen victim to an attempt to criminalize them as members of the Tren de Aragua solely because of the tattoos they might have—without a prior judicial conviction in the United States establishing that they are criminals,' Márquez said.
'This is a grave act of injustice being committed against individuals just because they have a tattoo,' said Márquez, who heads the Venezuelan human rights NGO El Amparo Internacional. 'We respect El Salvador's domestic laws to combat gangs, but we Venezuelans are not gang members; we are hard working people fleeing a political crisis and a dictatorship in our country.'
Márquez, who led the mission, said that they visited El Salvador to document and denounce the situation of a group of Venezuelan citizens who, he claims, were illegally deported from the United States and are currently imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the country's maximum-security prison.
During his visit, Márquez submitted a formal request to the Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman's Office (PDDH), seeking permission to visit the detainees, assess their health conditions, communicate with them, and obtain information about any legal proceedings they may be facing.
'We came to El Salvador to submit this request and document the situation of the Venezuelans who were deported from the United States and are now imprisoned in El Salvador,' Márquez said. 'We made the requests verbally and later confirmed them in writing. But they take their time. If necessary, we'll come back. For now, at least, we've filed the request. It's up to the Salvadoran State to respond,' he added.
Márquez noted that several of the detainees were still involved in ongoing proceedings before U.S. immigration courts at the time of their deportation. In some cases, he claims, there were explicit court orders for their deportation to Venezuela, but they were instead sent to El Salvador—a move he described as a violation of due process.
'We are not only advocating for all those affected, but we have specifically filed a request on behalf of nine Venezuelans whom we represent legally,' he explained.
Additionally, Márquez reported that on Thursday his delegation submitted a formal request to the Apostolic Nunciature in El Salvador, asking for the intervention of Pope Leo and citing the pontiff's commitment to migrant rights. 'He has said that Jesus was a migrant, and that's why we believe the Holy See can play an important role in this case,' he said.
As of now, neither the government of El Salvador nor the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office has issued a public statement regarding Márquez's request.
Márquez said the retention of the deported Venezuelans in the maximum security prision is unjust and illegal given that none of them have broken any laws in El Salvador or even in the United States, aside from having an irregular immigration status.
He added that they would seek to 'exhaust all domestic remedies under El Salvador's law' and expressed hope that 'due process will be respected'; otherwise, they could 'resort to international bodies.'
Since at least 2023, U.S. officials began targeting Venezuelans with tattoos, alleging their affiliation with Tren de Aragua based on the unsubstantiated assumption that the gang identifies itself through tattoos, according to court records.
Upon taking office on January 20, the Trump administration initiated a broad campaign of deportations and immigrant targeting. This included classifying Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organization and utilizing the Alien Enemies Act to expel alleged members from the U.S.
However, experts contend that this approach is flawed because, unlike other Latin American gangs, members of Tren de Aragua—which originated in a notorious prison in Venezuela's Aragua state—do not typically use tattoos for identification.
Trump's crackdown on suspected gang members comes amid reports that the Nicolás Maduro regime has been actively enabling Tren de Aragua's expansion. The gang, now Venezuela's most powerful transnational criminal organization, is allegedly being used in a campaign to destabilize neighboring countries and the United States.
A January 2025 FBI memo describes a coordinated strategy by the Venezuelan regime to release violent criminals, facilitate their migration abroad, and deploy them as unofficial enforcers—not only across Latin America, but increasingly in U.S. cities.
The memo was submitted by the Trump administration on Thursday to a federal judge in Texas, who is overseeing one of a growing number of lawsuits challenging the government's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members to El Salvador's notorious mega-prison.