Torture at CECOT: Venezuelan Men Freed from Salvadoran Mega-Prison Describe Brutal Beatings, Humiliation

A new investigation reveals the months of physical and mental abuse Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration endured inside a Salvadoran prison. The men describe beatings, medical neglect and unhygienic conditions in CECOT, where a prison director reportedly told them, Welcome to Hell, where you enter alive and leave dead." Of the 238 Venezuelan men who were held in El Salvador, at least 197 had not been convicted of any crime. The administration itself knew, even when they were portraying them as the violent criminals that deserved to be sent to a prison in a country that was not their own, potentially indefinitely - they actually knew that the vast majority did not have convictions in the U.S.," says Perla Trevizo, a reporter with the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit that worked on the investigation with a team of Venezuelan journalists.