When Jerce Reyes Barrios first received to el Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), he tried to maintain monitor of how a lot time had handed. He reminded himself that nothing was ceaselessly. Even trapped with out cost inside a Salvadoran jail notorious for brutal circumstances and indefinite detention, he believed he would, sometime, someway, go dwelling.
However as days become weeks, after which months, the time handed extra slowly. In between routine beatings from guards, he learn the Bible, the one ebook permitted to detainees. He requested God to provide him as a lot endurance as Job, whose religion is examined by a sequence of horrible disasters. Ultimately, Reyes Barrios stopped counting the times.
“The only thing I can say is human rights don’t exist there,” Reyes Barrios instructed HuffPost on Tuesday. There have been “beatings all the time,” he mentioned. “If you didn’t eat, they would hit you. If you took a shower when it wasn’t time, they would beat you. If you spoke roughly to them, they would beat you.”
Reyes Barrios is one among 252 Venezuelans who migrated to the U.S., wound up in immigration detention, and had been flown by the Trump administration in March to CECOT for indefinite detention with out cost, underneath a multimillion-dollar deal between the U.S. and Salvadoran governments. A lot of the males had no felony historical past, however U.S. officers claimed, with scant proof, that they had been linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Immigration insurance policies aren’t simply politics — they’re private. At HuffPost, we discover the human tales behind the headlines, reporting on how immigration legal guidelines influence actual individuals and communities. Assist this very important protection by becoming a member of our membership program as we speak.
Reyes Barrios, a 36-year-old skilled soccer participant and coach, was accused of gang affiliation on the foundation of seemingly not more than a Actual Madrid-inspired tattoo and a “rock-and-roll” hand sign that immigration officers discovered on social media. Being banished to some of the infamous prisons on this planet over a tattoo and customary hand gesture encapsulated the cruelty and arbitrariness of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, and made Reyes Barrios one of many extra well-known individuals detained at CECOT.
On July 18, his one hundred and twenty fifth day at CECOT, Reyes Barrios and the opposite Venezuelan detainees had been transferred again to Venezuela as a part of a prisoner swap. The previous CECOT detainees had been held incommunicado, with no entry to family members or legal professionals. The one details about circumstances at CECOT got here from glimpses of propaganda movies filmed contained in the jail and previous reporting from human rights teams and journalists who’ve documented allegations of torture at CECOT. Now free, the previous CECOT detainees are talking out concerning the abuse they endured from the U.S. and Salvadoran governments — whereas navigating an advanced sequence of security issues.
“Both the physical and mental abuse doled out by the officers made me think sometimes that I would never leave that place,” Reyes Barrios mentioned.
‘Welcome To Hell On Earth’
Reyes Barrios left for the U.S. final 12 months on April 1, touring hundreds of miles by land to succeed in the southern border. He hoped to seek out work in America to help his two younger daughters and his father, who has glaucoma.
“It was all overland, risking my life,” he mentioned.
Reyes Barrios adopted all the principles. He signed up for an appointment on the CBP One app, a Biden-era platform that allowed individuals to schedule appointments on the U.S. border to pursue asylum. However at his appointment on Sept. 1, throughout President Joe Biden’s tenure, he was taken into immigration custody. He was shocked he was detained. “I didn’t have any priors, no problems with anybody, and I tried to enter legally into the United States,” he mentioned.
A staffer within the non-public detention facility the place he was detained requested about his tattoos and whether or not he had any gunshot or knife wounds. He has about 20 tattoos, most of which honor his relations. One, a picture of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball, reminds him of his favourite soccer staff, Actual Madrid. His solely scar is from when he had appendicitis, he instructed the interviewer.
“I told him, ‘I’ve never been incarcerated,’” he recalled. “He said, ‘That’s what we’re going to investigate.’ And I said, ‘That’s your right to investigate.’”
However it’s not clear how a lot investigation occurred. Shortly after the interview, Reyes Barrios’ blue jail clothes was changed with orange clothes, and he was positioned in most safety. He was requested to signal a letter linking him to Tren de Aragua, which he refused to do.
Individuals in immigration court docket are usually not assured authorized illustration, and Reyes Barrios was anticipated to navigate the complicated course of on his personal.
Linette Tobin, a personal immigration legal professional who takes asylum instances by the county of San Diego, got here throughout Reyes Barrios’ case in November. After studying over his consumption data, she thought he had a powerful asylum declare and provided to tackle his case. “I thought, ‘This is a slam dunk,’” she mentioned in an interview.
“She really fell out of heaven for me,” Reyes Barrios mentioned.
After submitting Venezuelan paperwork exhibiting he had no felony file, in addition to letters of employment, a declaration from the tattoo artist who drew the picture of the crown atop the ball, and paperwork explaining the which means of the tattoo and the “rock-and-roll” hand gesture, Reyes Barrios was ultimately launched from most custody and into common inhabitants.
The ultimate listening to in his asylum case was set for April 17. “We were completely prepared. Everything had been submitted to the court. Everything was ready,” Tobin beforehand instructed HuffPost.
However by March, Reyes Barrios began expressing concern, Tobin mentioned. He had heard rumors that he and different Venezuelans may get despatched to the U.S. navy outpost at Guantánamo Bay, a spot he knew nothing about, besides that it’s in Cuba.
On March 15, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority final utilized in World Battle II, to quickly take away accused Tren de Aragua members from the U.S. That day, administration officers loaded Reyes Barrios and a whole lot of different Venezuelan immigration detainees, handcuffed, onto planes to El Salvador, defying a federal choose who ordered the federal government to halt the flights. That choose, Washington, D.C., District Choose James Boasberg, in April discovered trigger to provoke contempt proceedings towards the administration ― although an appeals court docket paused these proceedings ― and final week famous the opportunity of pursuing disciplinary proceedings towards sure administration legal professionals. On Monday, the administration filed a misconduct criticism towards the choose.
At first, “everybody was happy” as a result of they thought they had been going to Venezuela, Reyes Barrios mentioned of the individuals on the airplane. It was solely as soon as they landed that they realized they had been going to CECOT, a spot Reyes Barrios knew as “one of the most dangerous and strict prisons in all of Central America.”
“I became frozen for a second, and I started to cry,” he mentioned. “I said to myself, ‘This can’t be.’ My mind went blank.”
Individuals around the globe have seen what occurred subsequent, because of propaganda movies from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has described himself because the “world’s coolest dictator.”
The boys had been hustled off the flight, manhandled by Salvadoran officers, shaved bald, herded right into a crowded jail, and lined up in hunched-over seated positions, their heads bowed and their arms cuffed behind their backs.
“I became frozen for a second, and I started to cry. I said to myself, ‘This can’t be.’ My mind went blank.”
– Jerce Reyes Barrios
Reyes Barrios’ description of beatings and mistreatment at CECOT line up with the accounts of different detainees who’ve shared their tales publicly, together with with NBC Information, ProPublica and The Washington Publish. Some have recounted different heinous acts, together with Andry Hernandez Romero, who has alleged that CECOT guards groped him and compelled him to carry out oral intercourse whereas he was in solitary confinement.
Bukele’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
After touchdown in El Salvador, Reyes Barrios mentioned, the American immigration brokers who accompanied them on the airplane instructed them they might voluntarily disembark, or else they might be pressured to. Passengers within the airplane’s entrance rows hesitated, so each U.S. and Salvadoran forces “beat them and made them get off,” Reyes Barrios mentioned. He received off voluntarily.
As soon as off the airplane, Salvadoran officers hit the detainees and put cuffs on their arms and toes ― 4 complete units, at this level, and a fifth set was added to safe them to their bus seats.
“They made us all put our heads down, and we spent the entire ride on the bus that way,” Reyes Barrios mentioned. They rode for round 25 minutes earlier than arriving on the infamous jail, the place their heads had been shaved they usually had been wearing white jail uniforms.
“They put us on our knees again, they hit us, and they made us walk about 200 meters to ‘Module 8,’ crouching the whole time,” he mentioned, referring to the unit the place he would spend the following 4 months.
There, he heard screams and noticed blood, vomit and other people handed out on the ground, he mentioned.
“They arranged us on the floor, seated, with our foreheads touching the back of the next person,” he recalled. A jail official instructed them, “Welcome to hell on earth, where you’ll be condemned to spend the rest of your lives; where I’m going to make sure that you never eat chicken or meat again.”
The US’ Venezuelan detainees had been held individually from the hundreds of Salvadorans imprisoned by their very own authorities in CECOT. The wing consisted of a number of 20-by-10-meter cells with an 80-person capability, every full of four-story bunk mattress towers, two bathrooms, and two water tanks, Reyes Barrios mentioned. “The roof was like a cage, where the police would walk over top of us,” he added.
The one option to inform whether or not it was day or night time was by the meals being served. Generally, detainees secretly caught their heads out of the entrance of the cell, the place they might see a bit of mild poking by.
Reyes Barrios’ time in CECOT was marked by psychological abuse and “countless” beatings from guards, who hit, kicked, and used police batons on detainees whereas their arms had been cuffed behind their backs, he mentioned.
As soon as, after he showered on the incorrect time, guards punished Reyes Barrios by sending him to “the Island,” a 2-by-1-meter cell with a cement mattress and a rest room, he mentioned. He spent about 4 or 5 hours there, alone within the darkness.
Guards additionally withheld clothes at occasions, forcing detainees to strip all the way down to their underwear. “For those who behaved more poorly, it happened a lot,” Reyes Barrios mentioned.
The detainees had been allowed no outdoors contact, save for 2 visits from the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross. In ICRC’s first go to, they spoke to solely 50 detainees, not together with himself, Reyes Barrios mentioned. The second time, they spoke to every detainee and picked up notes to family members.
Reyes Barrio has since confirmed his message reached dwelling: “Sister, I’m doing ok. Take good care of my daughters. Tell mom and dad I will be out of here soon.”
In an e mail, a spokesperson for the ICRC’s mission in El Salvador confirmed it had visited the Venezuelan detainees in CECOT twice, as soon as in Could and as soon as in June, and mentioned it had been capable of contact “most” of their households.
In Could, the disgraced former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) toured CECOT as a part of a propagandistic taping for his present on the far-right One America Information Community. For some detainees’ households, this footage was the one proof-of-life they’d seen within the months because the Trump administration despatched their family members to CECOT.
When HuffPost confirmed Reyes Barrio an image of Gaetz, he recalled having seen him from afar.
“I thought they were going to come get us out, at that time,” he mentioned.
It will be one other 70 days earlier than the Venezuelan CECOT detainees left the jail.
Life After CECOT
After shifting a whole lot of males to CECOT, Division of Homeland Safety legal professionals aggressively moved to erase the detainees from the immigration court docket system. Nearly half of the Venezuelans despatched to CECOT had unresolved immigration instances, and greater than 60, together with Reyes Barrios, had pending asylum claims, ProPublica reported. However after the U.S. authorities disappeared them they usually had been unable to indicate up in court docket, DHS legal professionals filed motions to dismiss — in some instances citing the truth that the person was not within the nation.
Immigration judges have granted dozens of those requests, successfully permitting the federal government to evade due course of protections by disappearing individuals earlier than they’ve their day in court docket. Tobin stored exhibiting up in court docket on Reyes Barrios’ behalf, even after he disappeared, and satisfied the choose to administratively shut his case — which paused proceedings — moderately than dismissing it altogether.
Requested to touch upon the removals and circumstances at CECOT, Division of Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an e mail, “Tren de Aragua and MS-13 are some of the most violent and ruthless terrorist gangs on planet earth. They rape, maim, and murder for sport. President Trump and Secretary Noem will not allow criminal gangs to terrorize American citizens.”
McLaughlin didn’t present proof of the previous CECOT detainees being members of both gang or having violent felony convictions. “Once again the media is falling all over themselves to defend criminal illegal gang members. We hear far too much about gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims,” she wrote.
On the morning of July 18, Reyes Barrios and the opposite Venezuelans in CECOT had been loaded onto a bus. A person boarded their bus and addressed the detainees: “Muchachos, here we are,” Reyes Barrios recalled him saying. As quickly as they heard his Venezuelan accent, they knew they had been going dwelling, he mentioned.
They arrived at a naval base and boarded two planes to Venezuela. Once they landed on the Simón Bolivar Worldwide Airport close to Caracas, authorities officers had been ready for them on the tarmac. Reyes Barrios kneeled and thanked God. After a medical screening, he was dropped at a resort, the place he referred to as his household, who reside distant in Machiques de Perijá, within the state of Zulia. He returned dwelling days later and was shocked to seek out “almost the whole town” had assembled to welcome him.
“I didn’t know whether to shout, cry, or run,” he recalled.
Two weeks after their launch, the previous CECOT detainees are nonetheless adjusting to life again dwelling. After months of abuse in a jail they feared they could by no means depart, they’ve been thrust into the highlight, requested to recount their most traumatic experiences to a global viewers. They returned to Venezuela with none of their belongings.
For a lot of, they had been freed into a rustic they’d beforehand fled. One former CECOT detainee instructed The Washington Publish that they had been instructed to movie a video thanking the Venezuelan authorities — and that in the event that they fled once more and had been re-deported, they could possibly be charged with treason.
There’s ongoing litigation within the U.S. over the legality of the Trump administration invoking the Alien Enemies Act to switch the boys to CECOT with out due course of. The U.S. Supreme Court docket has held that individuals topic to elimination underneath the AEA should have a possibility to problem their elimination. Nevertheless, the logistics of how that may work for many who have already been eliminated remains to be being litigated.
“We’re going to be pushing for anyone who wants to come back to be able to come back,” Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Mission, instructed HuffPost.
For now, Reyes Barrios is specializing in spending time together with his household and adjusting to life again dwelling. At first, he might solely sleep three hours an evening due to his former schedule at CECOT. However progressively, he’s discovering his rhythm. “Right now I just want to enjoy being around my daughters, watching them grow,” he mentioned.
Requested if there was the rest he needed readers to know, Reyes Barrios smiled, including, “Just that even with everything I’ve gone through, I’ll always be a fan of Real Madrid.”
Ashford King and Dirce Toca supplied translation for this story.
