Venezuelan nationals sent to El Salvador by the United States government earlier this year were tortured and subjected to other abuses, including sexual violence.
A new report from Human Rights Watch and Cristosal details how the Trump administration paid El Salvador millions of dollars to arbitrarily detain Venezuelans who were then abused by Salvadoran security forces on a near-daily basis.
The 81-page report provides a comprehensive account of the treatment of these people in El Salvador. In March and April 2025, the US government sent 252 Venezuelans, including dozens of asylum seekers, to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, CECOT) mega prison in El Salvador, despite credible reports of serious human rights abuses in El Salvador’s prisons.
“The US government has not been linked to acts of systematic torture on this scale since Abu Ghraib and the network of clandestine prisons during the war on terror,” said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal. “Disappearing people into the hands of a government that tortures them runs against the very principles that historically made the United States a nation of laws.”
>> Read the report: “You Have Arrived in Hell”
The US government reportedly provided at least US$4.7 million to El Salvador including to cover costs of detaining the men.
Some Venezuelans sent to El Salvador had been seeking asylum in the US after fleeing persecution in Venezuela, which has experienced a humanitarian crisis and systematic rights violations under the Nicolás Maduro administration compelling nearly 8 million people to flee.
The findings are clear: The Trump administration is complicit in torture, enforced disappearance, and other grave violations, and should stop sending people to El Salvador or any other country where they face a risk of torture.
