(Adnkronos) – One of the Venezuelan immigrants deported in March to the Cecot super prison in El Salvador has sued the Trump administration, demanding 1.3 million in compensation. In the lawsuit, filed with the District Court for the District of Columbia, 28-year-old Leon Rengel reported loss of liberty, physical harm, severe emotional distress, and psychological trauma as a result of his arrest, deportation, and detention in the notorious prison.
“For four months, the plaintiff was confined in Cecot, and during this period he was beaten by guards, subjected to inhumane overcrowded conditions and severe psychological trauma, with adequate medical assistance denied, without the possibility of having contact with family and legal assistance,” the lawsuit states. For weeks, family members were unable to find out where Rengel was, always receiving different information from American authorities. It was eventually Nbcnews that confirmed he had been deported to El Salvador, thus informing his family.
Rengel was then released on July 18 from the mega-prison, which has been the subject of complaints by human rights organizations for abuses and detention conditions, and along with 250 other immigrants, he was repatriated to Venezuela. The Trump administration had justified the chained deportations of Rengel and hundreds of other migrants with the accusation of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The lawsuit denies that Rengel was ever affiliated with the gang, an accusation that ICE based solely on the young man’s tattoos, who had entered the US in June 2023, applying to one of the Biden administration’s asylum request programs.
