A homosexual make-up artist from Venezuela who entered the U.S. legally final yr solely to be deported to El Salvador’s infamous jail for gang members in March says he was sexually assaulted by guards throughout his 125-day keep, in keeping with a harrowing account he shared with The Washington Publish.
Andry Hernández, whose brutal journey by way of the U.S. immigration system has been broadly documented by the media and human rights teams, says that jail officers at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Middle, or CECOT, took him to an isolation cell, the place 4 officers put their golf equipment between his legs and one pressured him to carry out oral intercourse on him.
“It’s a nightmare. I thought it would never end,” Hernández mentioned of his time in CECOT upon returning to Venezuela final month as a part of a world jail swap.
The crime he was being punished for was bathing in an try to chill down.
JOHNNY PARRA by way of Getty Photographs
Hernández, now 32, entered the U.S. legally final yr with an immigration appointment, and a U.S. border agent on the California crossing decided he had credible worry of persecution as a homosexual man dwelling in Venezuela. However he was instantly detained in a migration middle, nonetheless run by the Biden administration, and questioned due to his snake and crown tattoos, which U.S. authorities have linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
That was the one proof they’d towards him, his family and friends informed CNN earlier this yr. He informed them that legal professionals and a decide dealing with his case indicated issues have been progressing favorably for him, and he’d quickly be launched into the U.S., away from the homophobic harassment he was going through whereas working at a government-affiliated TV community.
As an alternative, he grew to become one of many a whole lot of migrants that the Trump administration loaded up onto planes in March and dropped at CECOT, a jail the Salvadoran authorities opened in 2023, the place Trump officers boast they’re sending the “worst of the worst illegal criminals.”
Hernández informed the Publish he pleaded with the guards as he cried out for his mom.
“Why are you shaving my head?” he mentioned he requested them. “I’m a makeup stylist, I’m gay, I’m not a gang member.”
Hernández is considered one of 16 former CECOT inmates who spoke to the Publish about their time in CECOT, the place they have been taken after the U.S. paid Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s authorities $6 million to carry them and different Venezuelans.
In accordance with their accounts, they have been “subjected to repeated beatings that left them bruised, bleeding or injured,” and the “prison staff restricted medical care for detainees suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure or kidney failure.” They have been saved in a crowded room with no home windows, pressured to sleep in metallic bunkbeds, normally with none cushioning. They’d no entry to legal professionals.
CECOT “seemed like it was for animals,” former detainee Julio Fernández Sánchez informed the Publish. “It was designed for people to go crazy or kill themselves.”
Arun Nevader by way of Getty Photographs
One other, Marco Jesús Basulto Salinas, described what he referred to as “the most perverse form of humiliation” from medical employees. “The doctor would watch us get beaten and then ask us ‘How are you feeling?’ with a smile,” he recalled.
He was dwelling within the U.S. with non permanent protected standing, working legally in eating places to ship cash dwelling for his mom’s breast most cancers therapies, when he was taken to CECOT.
Those that spoke to the Publish recalled some detainees trying suicide “by tying sheets around their necks or using rusted pipes to cut their veins.”
Damian Merlo, a U.S.-based lobbyist for Bukele, informed the Publish that their claims are “baseless.” Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Division of Homeland Safety, insisted that the detainees have been members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Need assistance? Go to RAINN’s Nationwide Sexual Assault On-line Hotline or the Nationwide Sexual Violence Useful resource Middle’s web site.
