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- Nicolás Maduro’s capture was used to frame the US deportation campaign. The report opens by noting that Venezuela’s former president was being held in a federal jail in New York awaiting trial. The White House presented his capture as a victory against narco-terrorists allegedly responsible for flooding American streets with drugs.
- Venezuela’s political repression created a massive refugee crisis. More than a decade of repression under the Maduro regime forced approximately 8 million Venezuelans to flee the country, nearly 1 million of whom went to the United States.
- The Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans to a country with which they had no connection. During its major immigration crackdown, the administration sent Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, designated many as members of a violent gang and terrorists, and invoked the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to accelerate their deportation.
- The United States sent 252 Venezuelan men to El Salvador’s CECOT prison between March and April. The transfers took place between March and April of the previous year. CECOT is a notorious maximum-security facility designed to hold suspected gang members.
- The deportees initially believed they were being returned to Venezuela. When their planes landed, they encountered hundreds of Salvadoran police officers waiting on the tarmac. Shackled, they were paraded in front of cameras, placed on buses and transported to CECOT.
- Prison officials immediately threatened the new arrivals. One detainee recalled the prison director telling them they would never see daylight or nighttime again, followed by the words: "Welcome to hell. I'll make sure you never leave." The men believed they were effectively already dead.
- Luis Muñoz Pinto was deported despite having no criminal record. He had been a college student in repressive Venezuela and hoped to seek asylum in the United States in 2024. He waited in Mexico for a scheduled appointment with US Customs and Border Protection in California.
- US immigration officials classified Muñoz Pinto as a danger to society. During his immigration interview, officers told him he represented a danger despite his having no criminal record or even a traffic ticket. He was detained and spent six months in US custody awaiting a decision on his asylum application before being deported to El Salvador.
- The arrival process at CECOT involved immediate physical abuse. Muñoz Pinto said detainees had their hands and feet tied, were forced onto their knees and had their heads shaved. He described blood everywhere, people screaming, crying, vomiting and urinating on themselves.
- Muñoz Pinto described being beaten by four prison guards. He said guards attacked detainees with their fists and batons, knocked their faces against walls and beat him until he bled and reached the point of agony. One beating broke his tooth.
- CECOT was built in 2022 as a central part of President Nayib Bukele's anti-gang campaign. The enormous prison was designed to accommodate 40,000 inmates. Its harsh conditions and reputation became a source of pride for Bukele's government, which regularly allowed social media influencers to tour the facility.
- CECOT's living conditions were deliberately harsh. Influencer footage showed cramped cells containing metal bunks stacked four levels high, without mattresses or sheets. Inmates reportedly had no access to the outdoors and no contact with relatives.
- International observers had already raised concerns about CECOT's treatment of prisoners. They warned that the prison violated United Nations minimum standards for the treatment of inmates. A US State Department report issued two years earlier, during the Biden administration, had also identified torture and life-threatening prison conditions in El Salvador.
- Donald Trump publicly praised El Salvador's prison system despite the earlier human-rights warnings. During a White House meeting with President Bukele, Trump described the facilities as great and strong, adding that the authorities did not play games.
- The United States paid El Salvador $4.7 million to imprison the Venezuelan deportees. The payment arrangement was struck in March and covered the detention of Venezuelan migrants at CECOT.
- The US government portrayed the deportees as exceptionally dangerous criminals. Officials described them as monsters, rapists, murderers, kidnappers, sexual assaulters and predators who had no right to remain in the United States and needed to be held accountable.
- Human Rights Watch challenged the administration's portrayal of the men. Juan Pappier, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch, argued that the deportees were migrants and that the US government had effectively made an example of them by sending them somewhere they were likely to be tortured. He said the purpose was to discourage other migrants throughout Latin America from attempting to enter the United States.
- Human Rights Watch documented systematic torture and abuse at CECOT. Its 81-page report, released in November, concluded that Venezuelan deportees experienced systematic torture and other serious violations. The investigation found that nearly half of the men sent by the United States had no criminal history and that only eight had been convicted of violent or potentially violent offences.
- Human Rights Watch independently checked the men's criminal backgrounds. Pappier explained that investigators cross-referenced federal databases, criminal databases covering all 50 US states, and records from Venezuela and other countries where the men had lived. The US information came from data supplied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
- Only approximately 3% of the deportees had been sentenced for violent or potentially violent crimes. Human Rights Watch's analysis found that just eight of the 252 men had such convictions, substantially challenging the administration's description of the entire group as dangerous gang members.
- 60 Minutes independently reviewed available ICE data and confirmed Human Rights Watch's findings. The records showed that 70 men had pending criminal charges in the United States. Those charges could include immigration violations, but their precise nature could not be established.
- The Department of Homeland Security withheld the complete criminal records of the 252 deportees. Despite repeated requests, DHS refused to release a full list of their names and criminal histories. This prevented independent verification of the administration's broader allegations that the men were gang members and dangerous criminals.
- The Trump administration made rapid deportations a central part of its immigration overhaul. The report noted that the administration treated anyone crossing the US border illegally as a criminal. Illegal border crossings had fallen to historic lows, while immigration attorneys questioned whether flawed criteria were being used to justify deportations.
- US immigration officers used a points-based system to identify suspected Tren de Aragua members. A person accumulating eight points could be designated a gang member and considered deportable. Tattoos that officers suspected were gang-related earned four points.
- Gang experts questioned the reliability of tattoos as evidence of Venezuelan gang membership. Unlike Central American gangs such as MS-13, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua does not use tattoos as a membership-signalling system. Criminologists therefore considered tattoos an unreliable method of identifying its members.
- One Venezuelan detainee said an immigration officer treated his nationality as evidence of gang membership. He explained that his tattoos had nothing to do with criminal groups and denied belonging to any gang. According to his account, the officer responded: "But you are Venezuelan."
- William Lazada Sánchez was another Venezuelan deported to CECOT. He said prison guards also treated Venezuelans with tattoos as gang members and subjected detainees to months of abuse, including prolonged stress positions and physical punishment.
- Lazada Sánchez described being forced to remain on his knees for 24 hours. A guard was assigned to watch the prisoners to ensure they did not move. Anyone unable to maintain the position risked being taken to a punishment cell known as "the island."
- The island was an extremely dark and isolated punishment cell. Lazada Sánchez described it as a small room without light or ventilation, where prisoners could not see their own hands. Guards allegedly beat detainees every half hour, struck the door with batons to terrorise them and sometimes left prisoners locked inside for days.
- Prisoners described repeated beatings lasting hours. Lazada Sánchez said guards took men to the punishment area, beat them for extended periods and left them confined there for days. He described the torture as never-ending.
- Detainees alleged sexual assaults by prison guards. One described guards grabbing prisoners' genitals with their hands rather than using batons. He said this happened to multiple detainees and, in his account, to most of them.
- The men said their physical condition deteriorated during imprisonment. They described weakening progressively while prison lights remained on around the clock, making sleep difficult. They also alleged that food and medicine were frequently withheld.
- Detainees said they were forced to drink contaminated water. According to their accounts, the water available for drinking was the same water used for bathing and toilets. Prisoners with serious injuries said medical personnel told them that drinking water would help them recover, despite the water being extremely dirty.
- One detainee described the prison authorities as benefiting from prisoners' deteriorating health. He said the more sick and injured the men became, the better it was for their captors. This was his personal allegation about the treatment they received.
- DHS Secretary Kristi Noem visited CECOT in late March. Her visit took place approximately 10 days after the first group of US deportees arrived. The detainees said she never spoke to them and that they saw only the cameras accompanying her.
- Noem publicly praised the US-El Salvador arrangement during her prison visit. In a recorded video, she thanked El Salvador and its president for partnering with the United States to bring alleged terrorists to the country, incarcerate them and impose consequences.
- The prisoners shown behind Noem in her video were not Venezuelan deportees. Human Rights Watch identified the heavily tattooed men as Salvadorans, probably individuals accused of gang leadership who had potentially spent many years in prison. Their presence could therefore give viewers a misleading impression of the identities of the Venezuelan detainees.
- UC Berkeley Human Rights Center students helped establish the identities of the men shown in Noem's video. They examined visible tattoos, including MS, 13 and ES markings, which were associated with Salvadoran gangs rather than Venezuelan gang membership. Their analysis supported Human Rights Watch's conclusion that the men were not Venezuelan deportees.
- Berkeley students conducted weeks of open-source investigation to verify the deportees' accounts. Working with Human Rights Watch, they used advanced digital investigation techniques and strict international standards for collecting evidence that could potentially be used in court.
- Satellite imagery helped investigators identify where the Venezuelans were held. The Berkeley team mapped the prison and identified the particular building in which the deportees were detained, connecting the men's accounts to a physical location.
- Social media influencer footage helped corroborate descriptions of the island punishment cells. One influencer had filmed an isolation cell inside CECOT. Its characteristics matched the detainees' descriptions of the dark punishment room, including the absence of anything prisoners could use to sleep or rest.
- Videos of the prison's armory provided additional physical corroboration. Investigators identified batons matching the weapons detainees said guards used against them. They also observed footage demonstrating painful body positions imposed on prisoners.
- A prison warden's public interview independently confirmed that the lights remained on 24 hours a day. When asked about the lighting system, the warden explicitly confirmed continuous illumination. His comments about the prison's heat and conditions suggested an institutional attitude that treated discomfort and suffering as points of pride.
- The prison's lighting and temperature conditions raised further concerns under international standards. Using extreme temperatures or continuous light to disorient prisoners is prohibited under United Nations standards for prisoner treatment.
- The Berkeley investigation demonstrated how apparently small details can strengthen human-rights allegations. Alexa Koenig, director of Berkeley's Investigations Lab, explained that combining detainee testimony with physical and digital evidence creates a stronger foundation for accountability, whether in public opinion or a court of law.
- Koenig said the investigation helped establish that many detainee accounts were credible. The team's work showed how independent verification of individual details, including prison architecture, lighting, weapons and punishment practices, could support allegations that might otherwise be difficult to substantiate.
- The US and Salvadoran governments declined to answer questions about the prison allegations. DHS refused an on-camera interview and referred 60 Minutes to El Salvador. The Salvadoran government did not respond to the programme's requests.
- The 252 Venezuelan prisoners were released in July after approximately four months in CECOT. They were sent back to Caracas as part of an exchange for 10 Americans who had been imprisoned in Venezuela.
- The Trump administration expanded its use of third-country deportation arrangements. It negotiated additional agreements, some worth millions of dollars, to send US deportees to countries with which they had no connection, including war-torn South Sudan and Uganda.
- South Sudan and Uganda have documented histories of prisoner torture. Their inclusion in the US deportation arrangements raised concerns about sending migrants to countries where serious human-rights abuses had already been reported.
- DHS continued refusing to disclose the complete records of the 252 Venezuelans. Even after repeated requests from 60 Minutes, the department would not provide their full criminal backgrounds or the intelligence underlying the gang designations.
- DHS defended its refusal by invoking national security. In a statement received during the week before the broadcast, the department said it trusted its law-enforcement intelligence and would not release intelligence reports simply because someone accused of gang membership denied being a member. It argued that doing so would undermine national security.
- The available ICE records showed that 33 of the 252 men had US criminal convictions. Of those 33, only eight had been convicted of violent or potentially violent crimes. Another 70 had pending charges, but DHS had not disclosed their nature.
- Neither of the two men interviewed by 60 Minutes had been convicted of a crime in the United States. This directly contrasted with the administration's public portrayal of the deportees as dangerous criminals and terrorists.
- DHS supplied 60 Minutes with a photograph of Lazada Sánchez's arm showing a swastika tattoo. The department sent the image nine days before the broadcast. The programme compared it with footage from its November interview, when his arm appeared different.
- Lazada Sánchez said he acquired the swastika tattoo at age 15 without understanding its meaning. He said he later regretted the offensive tattoo and had it altered shortly before the United States deported him to CECOT.
- Five gang experts said the swastika and another tattoo reading 666 did not establish a connection to Tren de Aragua. Their assessment challenged the suggestion that these particular tattoos demonstrated Venezuelan gang membership.
- The White House defended Trump's deportation policy. In its statement to 60 Minutes, it said the president remained committed to fulfilling his promises to Americans by removing dangerous criminal and terrorist illegal aliens. The programme said the administration's full statements were available online.
- DHS attempted to distance itself from responsibility for the alleged prison abuses by arguing that the men were outside US jurisdiction in El Salvador. The department referred questions about their treatment to the Salvadoran government.
- A federal judge rejected the administration's position that the United States had completely relinquished control over the deportees. The previous month, the judge ruled that the United States had maintained what is legally known as constructive custody over Venezuelans transferred to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act.
- The federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide the deportees with due process. The ruling addressed the procedural protections the men had been denied when the government rapidly deported them under the Alien Enemies Act.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that bringing the deportees back for hearings could damage US foreign policy interests. In a declaration submitted to the court, Rubio said that returning the men to the United States for hearings, or conducting remote hearings, would risk "material damage" to US foreign policy interests in Venezuela.
- The case raised a direct conflict between immigration enforcement, national security claims and judicial due-process requirements. The administration maintained that the men were dangerous gang members and that releasing intelligence could compromise national security, while the available criminal records showed relatively few violent convictions and a federal judge determined that the United States retained constructive custody and owed the deportees due process.