The fact that border encounters have plummeted to record lows after reaching record highs during the Biden presidency suggests that the administration’ s efforts are having the effect that Trump intended. After what happened to him, Colmenares said he didn’ t think migrating to the U. S. was safe anymore.
He’ d been a youth soccer coach in Venezuela before setting off for the U. S. He followed the rules and got an appointment to approach the U. S.-Mexico border last October, as had more than 50 of the men. At the appointment, Colmenares said an agent pulled him aside to take pictures of his many tattoos— then detained him. He never set foot in the U. S. as a free man.
“ The country with the Statue of Liberty deprived us of our liberty without any kind of evidence,” he said in an interview two days after he was returned to his family.“ Who is going to go to the border now, knowing that they will grab you and put you in a prison where they will kill you?”
The men we interviewed said the terror they felt in El Salvador began almost immediately upon arrival.
Salvadoran police boarded the planes and began forcing the shackled men off— shoving them, throwing them to the ground, hitting them with their batons. Five said they saw flight attendants crying at the sight.
“ This will teach you not to enter our country illegally,” Colmenares said one ICE official told him in Spanish. He wanted to explain that wasn’ t true in his case but could tell there was no point. He got off the plane and was loaded onto a bus to prison.
Once inside, guards stripped them down to white boxers and sandals. Those who tried to refuse to have their heads shaved were beaten. Blanco said he heard their screams and didn’ t dare resist. Humiliated and enraged, he did as he was told: head down, body limp.
They were loaded up again on the buses and taken to another part of the compound. Blanco said the shackles were so tight that he couldn’ t walk as fast as the guards wanted, so they beat him until he passed out and dragged him the rest of the way. Inside, they dropped him so hard that his head banged on the floor. As he opened his eyes and saw the guards, bright lights and polished concrete floor, he asked:“ God, why am I here? Why?”
The men said beatings by the guards were random, severe and constant. Guards lashed out at them with their fists and batons. They kicked them while wearing heavy work boots and shot them at close range with rubber pellets. One man we spoke to said he suspects he will have a lasting injury from a hard kick to the groin.
Colmenares recalled seeing one man defecate all over himself after a particularly severe beating. Guards laughed at him and left him there for a day, saying that the Venezuelans weren’ t“ real men.”
Just as vicious, the men said, was the psychological abuse. They lost track of the days because they were never allowed outdoors. Blanco said that whenever he asked a guard for the time, they’ d mock him:“ Why do you want to know what time it is? Have somewhere to be? Is someone waiting for you?”
Over and over, the men said, the guards called them criminals and terrorists and sons of bitches who deserved to be locked up. They said the guards told them so often that they were nobodies and that no one, not even their families, cared about them that some started to believe it.
The men said they waged at least two dayslong hunger strikes, skipping the beans, rice and tortillas they were fed most days, to demand an end to the abuses and an explanation for why they were in prison.“ They told us nothing about how the process was going, what was going to happen to us, when we were going to see a judge, when we were going to see an attorney,” Ramos said.
Several of those interviewed said suicide crossed their minds. Ramos said he thought:“ I’ d rather die or kill myself than to keep living through this experience. Being woken up every day at 4 a. m. to be insulted and beaten. For wanting to shower, for asking for something so basic.... Hearing your brothers getting beaten, crying for help.”
Four talked about a man who started cutting himself and writing messages on the walls and sheets with his blood:“ Stop hitting us.”“ We are fathers.”“ We are brothers.”“ We are innocent people.”
Some of them became friends. They made playing cards out of juice boxes and soaked tortillas in water and shaped the cornmeal into dice. They talked about their families and wondered if anyone knew where they were. They prayed.
About three and a half months into their detention, the men said they noticed a change in the guards and in the conditions in the facility. They were beaten less frequently and less severely. They were given ibuprofen, antibiotics and toothbrushes. They were told to shave and shower. And a psychologist came in to evaluate them.
Then, sometime after midnight on July 18, guards began banging their batons on the bars of the men’ s cells.“ Everyone take a shower,” they yelled.
This time, when Blanco asked for the time, a guard gave it to him. It was 1:40 a. m.
Photographers and reporters were allowed into the facility. Blanco wondered whether he was about to be a part of a publicity stunt. He told himself he wouldn’ t give them what they wanted. No smiles for the camera.
Then, a top Salvadoran official walked in.“ You are leaving.”
In a brief phone interview, Félix Ulloa, El Salvador’ s vice president, denied any mistreatment and pointed to videos of the men looking unscathed as they left the prison as proof they were in good shape. He declined to comment on what role, if any, the U. S. had played in what happened to the men while they were in El Salvador. However, ac-
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