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immigration
Report Exposes Torture Endured by Migrants Trump Sent to El Salvador Prison
"The US government has not been linked to acts of systematic torture on this scale since Abu Ghraib."
Nov 12, 2025
"You have arrived in hell."
That's what the director of El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) told 26-year-old Gonzalo Y., one of the 252 Venezuelans deported by US President Donald Trump to the infamous prison in March and April, according to a report released Wednesday.
The report was compiled by US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Cristosal, a regional group that fled El Salvador in July, citing harassment and legal threats from President Nayib Bukele's government. They used the CECOT director's comment to Gonzalo as a title.
"When we arrived at the entrance of CECOT, guards made us kneel so they could shave our heads... One of the officers hit me on the legs with a baton, and I fell to the ground on my knees," Gonzalo said. "The guards beat me many times, in the hallways of the prison module and in the punishment cell... They beat us almost every day."
NEW: The Venezuelan nationals the US government sent to El Salvador in March and April were tortured and subjected to other abuses, including sexual violence.In a new report, HRW and @cristosal.bsky.social provide a comprehensive account of the treatment of these people in El Salvador.
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— Human Rights Watch (@hrw.org) November 12, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Gonzalo is among 40 detainees interviewed for the report. The groups also spoke with 150 individuals with credible knowledge of the conditions, such as lawyers and relatives; consulted international forensic experts; and reviewed "a wide range" of materials, including criminal records, judicial documents in El Salvador and the United States, and photographs of injuries.
While the US and Salvadoran governments claimed that most of the migrants sent to CECOT were part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, HRW and Cristosal found that "many of them had not been convicted of any crimes by federal or state authorities in the United States, nor in Venezuela or other Latin America countries where they had lived."
Up until they were sent to Venezuela as part of a prisoner exchange on July 18, the report states, "the people held in CECOT were subjected to inhumane prison conditions, including prolonged incommunicado detention, inadequate food, denial of basic hygiene and sanitation, limited access to healthcare and medicine, and lack of recreational or educational activities, in violation of several provisions of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the 'Mandela Rules.'"
"We also documented that detainees were subjected to constant beatings and other forms of ill-treatment, including some cases of sexual violence," the publication continues. "Many of these abuses constitute torture under international human rights law."
According to the 81-page report:
Daniel B., for instance, described how officers beat him after he spoke with [ International Committee of the Red Cross] staff members during their visit to CECOT in May. He said guards took him to "the Island," where they beat him with a baton. He said a blow made his nose bleed. "They kept hitting me, in the stomach, and when I tried to breathe, I started to choke on the blood. My cellmates shouted for help, saying they were killing us, but the officers said they just wanted to make us suffer," he said.
Three people held in CECOT told Human Rights Watch and Cristosal that they were subjected to sexual violence. One of them said that guards took him to "the Island," where they beat him. He said four guards sexually abused him and forced him to perform oral sex on one of them. "They played with their batons on my body." People held in CECOT said sexual abuse affected more people, but victims were unlikely to speak about what they had suffered due to stigma.
In a Wednesday statement, Cristosal executive director Noah Bullock drew a comparison to the early stages of the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.
"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," he said. "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."
Although many migrants have been freed from El Salvador's CECOT, "they continue to suffer lasting physical injuries and psychological trauma," the report notes. They also face risks in Venezuela, which "suffers a humanitarian crisis and systematic human rights violations carried out by the administration of Nicolás Maduro."
"Their repatriation to Venezuela violates the principle of nonrefoulement," the document explains. "Additionally, in some cases, members of the Venezuelan intelligence services have appeared at the homes of people who were held in CECOT and forced them to record videos regarding their treatment in the United States."
The CECOT renditions were crimes under both domestic and international law. and some people remain disappeared. www.hrw.org/report/2025/...
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— KatherineHawkins (@krhawkins.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 12:55 PM
The report notably comes as Trump has spent recent months blowing up small boats from Venezuela under the guise of combating drug trafficking—which experts across the globe have condemned as blatantly illegal—and as the White House stokes fears of strikes within the country aimed at forcing regime change.
Stressing that "officials cannot summarily kill people they accuse of smuggling drugs," HRW Washington director Sarah Yager has called on the US military to "immediately halt any plans for future unlawful strikes" on boats in the Caribbean and Congress to "open a prompt and transparent investigation."
With the release of the new report, HRW and Cristosal also issued fresh demands, including an end to the United States' transfer of third-country nationals to El Salvador and for other nations and international bodies, including the United Nations Human Rights Council, to increase scrutiny of the Trump and Bukele governments' human rights violations.
"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," said HRW Americas director Juanita Goebertus. "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."
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'Reign of Terror' in Chicago as Locals Suffer Under 'Secret Police' Sent by Trump
"I am flooded with stories. There are so many I cannot remember them all; cannot keep straight who was gassed, beaten, abducted, or shot."
Nov 10, 2025
Chicago residents are increasingly resisting operations being conducted by federal immigration enforcement operations being conducted in their city, while at the same time warning the rest of the country about the trauma federal agents are inflicting on their communities.
In a lengthy article published in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend, journalist Andrew Carter documented how residents of the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago, which has been the target of multiple raids over the last month, have created a network of neighbors who carry whistles with them at all times so they can alert people when federal agents are in the area.
Baltazar Enriquez, president of the community counsel in Little Village, told Carter that he began walking around wearing a whistle this past June, and he said that since then "it grew like wildfire," and spread to other neighborhoods in the city.
One person who has joined in the resistance to the immigration raids is Lisa Porter, a 53-year-old suburban mother who told Carter that she had never been much of an activist until she found herself horrified by videos of masked agents snatching people off the streets.
Porter said that she's been following the lead of other Chicagoans in trying to warn people in her neighborhood whenever federal agents are in the area. In one particularly memorable instance, Porter said she saw a young man mowing a lawn in her neighborhood and told him to keep an eye out for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) patrols that she'd seen earlier.
"They came and took my dad 10 minutes ago," the young man said in reply.
Kyle Kingsbury, a Chicago-based computer safety researcher, wrote on his personal blog over the weekend about the pervasive sense of fear that has consumed his community ever since immigration officials began ramping up operations earlier this fall.
In his lengthy essay, Kingsbury said that he is constantly receiving messages from neighborhood watch groups alerting him about masked federal agents detaining people while going about their daily lives, including one notorious recent incident where officials dragged a woman out of the local childcare facility where she worked.
"This weight presses on me every day," he explained. "I am flooded with stories. There are so many I cannot remember them all; cannot keep straight who was gassed, beaten, abducted, or shot. I write to leave a record, to stare at the track of the tornado. I write to leave a warning. I write to call for help."
Kingsbury also warned that federal immigration officials, whether in the form of ICE or the US Border Patrol, are acting like an unaccountable secret police force akin to those typically seen in totalitarian states.
"I want you to understand, regardless of your politics, the historical danger of a secret police," he wrote. "What happens when a militia is deployed in our neighborhoods and against our own people. Left unchecked their mandate will grow; the boundaries of acceptable identity and speech will shrink."
Chicago Alderman Mike Rodriguez, who represents Little Village, told Block Club Chicago on Monday that recent Border Patrol operations in the neighborhood have been like a "reign of terror," and he noted that agents once again deployed tear gas while making arrests over the weekend.
Despite angry condemnations from local officials and residents, US Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino appears completely unbowed.
As Block Club Chicago reported, Bovino brought dozens of agents with him on Monday for a photo-op at the famous Cloud Gate sculpture—often called The Bean—in Millennium Park in which they smiled and collectively said "Little Village," in mocking reference to the neighborhood they've been raiding, as photographers snapped pictures.
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Footage Shows Father's Seizure as He Held Toddler During Wife's ‘Harrowing’ ICE Arrest
"This is a sickening example of Trump and ICE's blatant disregard for humanity as they terrorize our families and communities. It is shameful, cruel, and it must end."
Nov 07, 2025
A man whose wife was arrested by federal immigration authorities on Thursday morning in Fitchburg, Massachusetts said Friday that his toddler daughter had been "traumatized" by the chaotic altercation during which he appeared to have a seizure and the agents threatened to take both parents away and turn the child over the state.
Carlos Sebastian Zapata told the Boston Globe that he became unconscious while trying to stop the agents from pulling his wife, Juliana Milena Zapata, away during a traffic stop at about 7:00 am while Zapata and the couple's 1-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Alaia, were taking her to work at Burger King.
Their car was suddenly surrounded by several vehicles and federal agents began banging on their windows.
When Zapata tried to stop the agents from taking his wife away, one officer "pressed on his neck," according to the Globe, and he lost consciousness while Alaia was in his arms.
As a video taken by an eyewitness showed, Zapata said he "had convulsions or something. I don’t know what they did to me, but they were pressing on my neck.”
The video appeared to show the 24-year-old father having a seizure as Alaia cried and horrified onlookers yelled at the immigration agents. Local police ordered the bystanders to stay back.
WARNING: The violence and cruelty is hard to watch, but impossible for families to endure.
This is a sickening example of Trump and ICE's blatant disregard for humanity as they terrorize our families and communities.
It is shameful, cruel, and it must end. pic.twitter.com/ZGNOYtpVMO
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) November 7, 2025
“I wasn’t letting go of my wife because they wanted to take her away,” Zapata told the Globe. When he began having convulsions, he said, "that’s when I let go of my wife."
He said the agents told the couple that they would either arrest Milena Zapata and allow Alaia to stay with her father, or they would arrest both parents and turn the child over to a state agency.
US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called the incident "harrowing" and condemned the masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who had "brutalized" the family, and the Trump administration for its nationwide mass deportation campaign.
"If this video left you feeling scared, I want you to know, so am I," said Markey. "If you're feeling angry, so am I... What we saw in this video is just another example of the violence and terror being perpetrated all across our country. This is not normal. This is what dictators do."
Zapata told the Globe that he and his wife were from Ecuador and entered the country several years ago. They have a pending asylum case and had authorization to work.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said on social media that Milena Zapata was a “violent criminal illegal alien.”
The Globe reported that "according to court records, Milena Zapata was accused of stabbing a woman with scissors in the hand and throwing a trash can at her during a dispute over a relationship she believed the woman had with her husband. She was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon."
Zapata told the Globe that his wife had been attending all her court dates as ordered and that the situation had been "blown out of proportion."
“We came here to work, not to cause harm or anything like that,” Zapata said.
DHS accused Zapata of "faking a seizure," saying he refused medical attention after his wife was arrested.
He told the Globe that Alaia has been distraught since her mother was detained; Milena Zapata is reportedly being held at Cumberland County Jail in Maine.
“She misses her mom a lot, she stays very close to her mom,” Zapata said. “She asks about her mom, she says, ‘Mami, mami, mami’ all the time. I don’t know what to tell her... Sincerely, she is traumatized.”
Community members are planning to hold a vigil in Fitchburg on Saturday, and the mayor's office has offered assistance to the family. The city has received more than 5,000 calls about ICE's treatment of the family.
"The violence and cruelty is hard to watch, but impossible for families to endure," said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) of the video that circulated on social media Friday. "This is a sickening example of Trump and ICE's blatant disregard for humanity as they terrorize our families and communities. It is shameful, cruel, and it must end."
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