The recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the NGO Cristosal, titled “You Have Arrived in Hell”: Torture and Other Abuses Against Venezuelans in El Salvador´s Mega Prison”, documents systematic and serious human rights violations suffered by 252 Venezuelans deported by the United States to El Salvador during March and April 2025. The information gathered reveals a painful paradox: these citizens, fleeing a complex humanitarian emergency or political persecution, lack genuine advocates, both from the Venezuelan government and the opposition.
According to the report, the deportees suffered appalling conditions: “The nightmare began the moment they took me off the plane,” recounted Gonzalo Y., a 26-year-old man, who was beaten by agents when he demanded they not force his head down due to a spinal problem. Upon arrival at CECOT, the detainees were forced to kneel while their heads were shaved. Some were beaten with batons, even when they fell to their knees. The prison director warned them that they had “arrived in hell,” a phrase that reflected not only the physical horror they would soon encounter, but also their welcome to a world without rules, where dehumanization reigns.
During their detention, the Venezuelans were held incommunicado for approximately four months, without access to adequate medical care, with poor nutrition, deplorable hygiene conditions, and a lack of recreational and educational activities. Furthermore, they suffered almost daily beatings and, in some cases, sexual violence. HRW and Cristosal concluded that these abuses were not isolated incidents, but rather a systematic pattern imposed by the Salvadoran security forces, with the participation of high-ranking officers.
The report highlights that many of those detained lacked prior convictions and even criminal records: the review by HRW and Cristosal reveals that numerous deportees had not been convicted of crimes in the US, Venezuela, or any other Latin American country, making their labeling as “terrorists” or “members of the Tren de Aragua” manifestly arbitrary. According to information from the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of 226 cases analyzed, only 8 (3.1%) had been convicted of a violent or potentially violent crime. Furthermore, the United States violated the principle of non-refoulement by sending these individuals to a country where the clear risk of torture, or at least inhumane conditions in prison, was sufficiently documented.
According to the report, some former detainees have denounced that Venezuelan intelligence services monitored them upon their return and forced them to record videos to portray the “treatment they received” abroad. In other words, for Maduro, it hasn’t been enough to force them to leave—some due to direct persecution—deny them consular assistance, criminalize them, and manipulate their tragedies to mask the internal crisis; now he closely monitors and threatens them to fuel his political narrative.
Faced with such horror, clear and firm messages from political leaders should be appropriate. However, beyond the noise generated by the government for its own benefit, what emerges from the main opposition is a void: the migrants are treated as collateral damage of its geopolitical agenda, with no consideration for their most basic rights. From the Maduro government’s perspective, there is no credible gesture beyond diplomatic opportunism. The repatriation of the former detainees has been presented as an “exchange,” but it has not been accompanied by protection or guarantees for their safety and freedom. On the contrary, there are reports of harassment and coercion by the intelligence services, indicating that the government is using the repatriation to strengthen its control over dissent, far from any genuine attempt to defend its citizens.
From the Maduro government’s perspective, there is no credible gesture beyond diplomatic opportunism. The repatriation of former detainees has been presented as an “exchange,” but it has not been accompanied by protection or guarantees for their safety and freedom. On the contrary, there are reports of harassment and coercion by intelligence services, indicating that the government is using the repatriation to strengthen its control over dissent, far from any genuine attempt to defend its citizens.
From the opposition side, María Corina Machado—who presents herself as a democratic political alternative—also seems to lack a concrete agenda for protecting migrants. The opposition maintains a discourse of criticism against the regime, denounces the crisis, and promises of change, but little has been revealed about a strategy to benefit the most vulnerable Venezuelans abroad: mass migration is often seen as a symptom of a crisis rather than as a subject of rights. If the most vulnerable migrants—those most deprived, persecuted by Maduro, and without support networks—lack support from both the government and the opposition, it reinforces the idea that Venezuelan migration is being used as a bargaining chip depending on the political objective, such as strengthening an alliance—as yet unstated—with the United States.
It is necessary to reclaim dignity unconditionally. The situation documented in the report is paradigmatic of the structural vulnerability of Venezuelan migrants. They were not only victims of atrocious abuses, but also of political abandonment that revictimizes them and leaves them exposed to the most violent tendencies of the Venezuelan regime.
The opposition leadership that emerged from the July 28th mandate could make migration a central pillar of its platform, with policies of international cooperation and protection, social reintegration, and strategies to prevent Venezuelans from being used as pawns in internal or international conflicts. The Venezuelan state, for its part, has the obligation to guarantee all of the above and also ensure that returnees are not persecuted or coerced, guaranteeing full respect for their rights in Venezuela.
Venezuelan migrants are not bargaining chips or collateral damage. They are people who embody the most visible face of an unprecedented crisis. The Venezuelans who suffered torture at the CECOT, or those without TPS surviving in the United States under the risk of deportation, are not statistics: they are human beings whose suffering exposes a complex humanitarian emergency, a failure of international and, above all, national solidarity. That they have “reached hell” or that they live in insecurity should not be merely a heartbreaking testimony, but an urgent call for democratic states to continue providing them with guarantees while those responsible for this tragedy are held accountable.