cording to court records, the Salvadoran government previously told the United Nations that while it was physically holding the men, they remained under U. S. jurisdiction.
The Trump administration pledged millions of dollars to El Salvador to hold the deportees in CECOT.
Natalia Molano, a spokesperson for the U. S. State Department, said the U. S. is not responsible for the conditions of the men’ s detention in El Salvador. If there are complaints now that the men have returned to Venezuela, she said,“ the United States is not involved in the conversation.”
During his months in CECOT, Ramos said he found solace in the Bible, the only book available. He said he felt particularly drawn to the Book of Job, a wealthy man whom God tested with loss and pain. Despite his losses, Ramos said, Job“ never denied God.” He said Job“ had a lot of faith.”
That’ s how Ramos, a former telephone technician, saw his time in El Salvador: a divine test that he’ d overcome with faith. The seven long months it had taken him to migrate from Venezuela to the United States— which involved walking through the treacherous Darién jungle— seemed easy by comparison.
As soon as his family and neighbors got word that he was on his way home to Guatire, just outside Caracas, they cobbled together $ 20 to help his mother, Lina Ramos, decorate the house and make a meal of chicken and rice with plantains.
Knowing that his mother had marched and fought for his release, that no one had forgotten him and the other men who’ d been detained with him, he said,“ was the best gift we could have gotten.”
But the effects of what he went through still linger. Now, when he tries to read the Bible, he said, he notices his sight is failing in his left eye. He thinks it was caused by a particular beating, one of many, where guards repeatedly hit him on his ears and head after he tried to bathe outside of the designated time. He said he has no money at the moment to see a doctor. He arrived home with nothing but the clothes he was wearing.
He is sure he’ ll work something out, though. He has faith.
Additional reporting by Adriana Loureiro Fernández for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. This article originally appeared at ProPublica and is reprinted according to their guidelines.
74 The Trial Lawyer