A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said that it had been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are locked up.
The lawyers are seeking “proof of life,” but say they have come up against a wall of silence from President Nayib Bukele’s administration and the Central American nation’s justice system.
Grupo Ortega filed a habeas corpus petition with the Supreme Court on March 24 seeking an end to what it calls the “illegal detention” of the Venezuelans, but is still waiting for a ruling.
“They are treating them like common criminals,” lawyer Salvador Rios said, after the migrants were shown dressed in prison clothing, shackled and with shaved heads.
“This is torture,” both physical and psychological, Rios said in an interview with AFP.
The lawyers delivered a letter in early May to Bukele, a key ally of Trump, requesting authorization to visit the Venezuelans, but so far without success.
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UN human rights chief Volker Turk said this week that the situation “raises serious concerns regarding a wide array of rights that are fundamental to both US and international law.”
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Isael Guerrero, another lawyer with Grupo Ortega, described the detentions as “completely illegal” because the Venezuelans “are not being legally prosecuted in any court” in El Salvador.
The firm’s head, Jaime Ortega, said they are “100 percent migrants.”
“Not a single one of them is being prosecuted” in the United States for their alleged membership of the Tren de Aragua gang, he said.
The fate of the Venezuelans now depends entirely on Bukele, as “the expulsion completely nullifies US jurisdiction,” Ortega said.
In April, Bukele offered to trade the 252 Venezuelans for an equal number of political prisoners held by President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
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