The Disappeared: Trump’s Mass Deportation Machine and the Shadow Prison in El Salvador
A Knock at the Door, Then Nothing
Imagine waking up one morning to discover that your brother is gone.
Not missing—disappeared.
No phone call. No charges. No lawyer.
And days later, a message appears—he’s been deported to a country he’s never been to, locked in a concrete hell designed for gang leaders and killers.
That’s not a story from Argentina’s Dirty War or Stalin’s gulags.
It happened in the United States—in 2025.
And it’s still happening, as you read this.
This is the story of The Disappeared—238 Venezuelan men secretly deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s most notorious prison, CECOT—a facility condemned by the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch for crimes against human dignity.
Not Criminals—Targets of Vulnerability
They weren’t taken because they were criminals.
They were taken because they were vulnerable—asylum seekers, migrants, dissidents—fleeing persecution, hoping for protection under American law.
Instead, they were swept up under a statute from 1798—the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime relic once used by John Adams to jail immigrants. The Trump administration revived it and reinterpreted it to enable a deportation machine without trial, judge, or oversight.
This wasn’t a crackdown on MS-13.
Most had no criminal records.
Some were flagged only for tattoos—like Jefferson José Laya Freites, deported because of a lion on his forearm. It was assumed to be gang-related. It was actually a tribute to his Christian faith.
Or Arturo Suárez Trejo, a Venezuelan singer living in Houston, legally awaiting an asylum hearing. One morning, ICE agents came to his door.
“He’s being transferred to finish processing,” they told his daughter.
He never came home.
His family later identified him in a prison photo—head shaved, shackled, kneeling in the white uniform of El Salvador’s mega-prison.
Black Saturday: The Collapse of Judicial Authority
This was the reality on March 15, 2025—Black Saturday—the day the Trump administration defied a federal court order and deported a large number of these men to CECOT.
A judge had ruled the deportations unconstitutional and ordered the flights turned around. The planes were in the air. The White House ignored the ruling. They kept going.
It was the day the United States crossed a line no constitutional democracy should ever cross.
CECOT: A Modern Gulag
Because CECOT is not a prison.
It is a modern gulag.
No windows. No sunlight. No visitors. No phone calls.
Prisoners are held in stress positions, denied food, beaten with batons, and stripped of all identity.
They sleep on concrete in crowded cells—100 men to a room. Their heads are shaved. Their movements are choreographed by armed guards.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture condemned CECOT as a site of systematic abuse.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, presents it as a symbol of authoritarian control. But it is also a dumping ground—for prisoners deported by foreign governments looking to disappear them without scrutiny.
And that’s where the United States sent people who had done nothing wrong.
Not back to Venezuela.
But to a third country—with no legal jurisdiction, no treaty obligation, and no accountability.
Photojournalist Philip Holsinger captured their arrival: shackled men, trembling, forced to kneel. An ICE agent was present at the plane. The transfer was coordinated by American officials. Detainees were offloaded rapidly—processed like inventory, not people.
One man clutched a broken rosary. The crucifix had snapped off.
He held it anyway.
This wasn’t deportation.
This was disappearance.
The Legal Definition—and the Human Cost
And the difference matters.
Deportation is a legal process.
Disappearance is a crime against humanity.
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance—signed by the United States in 2000—defines it as:
“The arrest, detention, or abduction of persons by agents of the state… followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.”
That is what happened here.
Families were told nothing.
Some were lied to.
Legal representation was severed.
Communication ceased.
We do know the names of the 238 men.
CBS News published the full list.
Among them:
- Andrys Caraballo, a makeup artist last seen in ICE custody.
- David Larez, a father of three, awaiting asylum processing.
- Luis Molina, a diabetic who needed daily insulin.
- Anyelo José Sarabia González, 19, deported for a rose tattoo.
- Jerce Reyes Barrios, 36, a former Venezuelan soccer player flagged for a rosary and a soccer ball.
We don’t know where most are now—or if they’re still alive.
But we know this violated a federal court order.
This was not a miscommunication.
It was a deliberate act of executive defiance.
Stephen Miller and senior DHS officials orchestrated the flights in secret. Internal documents reviewed by CBS and Axios confirm the operation was timed to outrun judicial oversight.
But at 6:51 p.m. ET, Judge James Boasberg issued a legal injunction.
He ordered that the planes be turned around.
He told DOJ lawyers: “You need to ensure compliance immediately.”
They didn’t comply.
The planes kept flying.
Thus came Black Saturday: the first time in modern U.S. history that a president defied a federal court order—and faced no consequence.
What Happens Next Defines Us
This wasn’t a separation of powers.
It was the collapse of one.
Because courts don’t have armies.
They rely on compliance.
And a ruling that can be ignored isn’t a ruling.
It’s a suggestion.
What followed was silence.
No mass protests. No emergency hearings. No breaking news banners.
The noise of American life rolled on.
But the families haven’t moved on.
Mateo, Arturo’s 6-year-old son, still places his father’s shoes by the door each night.
His mother hasn’t told him the truth.
Only that Daddy had to leave before sunrise.
María Suárez, Andrys’s mother, wakes each morning not knowing if her son is dead or alive.
She keeps his room untouched.
The makeup brushes are still in the drawer.
Administration officials insist these men were “gang members.”
But no court ever said so.
Even accused criminals have rights.
This was punishment without trial.
Exile without crime.
And now—erasure.
This is how democracies fall:
Outsource cruelty.
Reinterpret law.
Abandon oversight.
Silence the victims.
The gulag was not just a place.
It was a method—a logic of unchecked power and dehumanization.
CECOT is a gulag.
And the United States used it.
This is not partisan.
It’s constitutional.
It’s spiritual.
We are not supposed to disappear people.
Not in secret. Not abroad. Not ever.
There are things that cannot be undone.
But there are things that must be documented, remembered, and resisted.
- Congress must launch emergency oversight hearings.
- The international community must demand access to CECOT.
- A Truth Commission—like South Africa’s—must be formed.
There must be a record.
There must be accountability.
Because when a democracy starts disappearing people,
it is no longer a democracy.
And when its people stop noticing,
it is already gone.
Black Saturday was not the beginning.
It was the moment we crossed the line.
We know the names of the 238 men.
And one day,
history will ask what we did with them.
BIbliography
- Holsinger, Philip. “What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced.” Time, March 21, 2025. https://time.com/7269604/el-salvador-photos-venezuelan-detainees/
- Luciano, Lilia. “Venezuelan migrant deported from U.S. to El Salvador has no criminal record, documents show.” CBS News, March 20, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-migrant-deported-el-salvador-no-criminal-record/
- Bianco, Ali. “The Trump administration has already sent migrants to El Salvador’s prisons, which has faced legal challenges.” Politico, March 21, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/21/trump-foreign-prison-threats-civil-rights-groups-027162
- Hughes, Trevor, Ignacio Calderon, Bart Jansen, and Rick Jervis. “Trump shipped them to El Salvador. Their families say their only crime was a tattoo.” USA Today, March 21, 2025. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/03/21/venezuelan-immigrants-deportations-gang-member-evidence/82570298007/
- Ramirez, Carlos. “Colombian-Venezuelan migrant held in El Salvador has no ties to feared gang, wife says.” Reuters, March 21, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombian-venezuelan-migrant-held-el-salvador-has-no-ties-feared-gang-wife-says-2025-03-20/
- Woodward, Alex. “Trump administration says ‘many’ Venezuelans deported to El Salvador prison have no criminal record.” The Independent, March 19, 2025. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-el-salvador-prison-deported-b2717582.html
- Alvarez, Priscilla, Michael Rios, Norma Galeana, and Ivonne Valdés. “‘He’s been removed’: Families of deported migrants on a desperate hunt for answers.” CNN, March 22, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/21/politics/deported-migrants-families/index.html
- Goodman, Joshua, and Gisela Salomon. “Immigrants disappear from US detainee tracking system after deportation flights.” NBC DFW, March 19, 2025. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/immigrants-disappear-from-us-detainee-tracking-system-after-deportation-flights/3795983/
- Silva, Daniella. “Why experts fear the men who were sent to El Salvador’s megaprison may never make it out.” NBC News, March 20, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/venezuelans-deported-el-salvador-detention-abuses-rcna197125
- Goodman, Amy, and Denis Moynihan. “Trump’s Terror Campaign Against Immigrants, From Detentions to Disappearances.” Democracy Now!, March 20, 2025. https://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/20/trump_s_terror_campaign_against_immigrants
- Montoya-Galvez, Camilo, and Annabelle Hanflig. “Here are the names of the Venezuelans deported by the U.S. to El Salvador.” CBS News, March 20, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuelans-deported-el-salvador-names/
- Kanno-Youngs, Zolan, Tyler Pager, and Hamed Aleaziz. “As Trump Broadens Crackdown, Focus Expands to Legal Immigrants and Tourists.” New York Times, March 21, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-immigration-visa-crackdown.html
- The Editorial Board. “When a Tattoo Means Deportation, Every American Should Be Alarmed.” Houston Chronicle, March 23, 2025. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/alien-enemies-act-trump-deportation-salvador-20232210.php
- Daitzman, Brian. “Black Saturday: The Day the United States Ceased to Be a Constitutional Democracy.” The Intellectualist, March 16, 2025. https://theintellectualist.com/black-saturday-us-constitutional-crisis-2025/
- Caputo, Marc. “Exclusive: How the White House Ignored a Judge’s Order to Turn Back Deportation Flights.” Axios, March 16, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/03/16/trump-white-house-defy-judge-deport-venezuelans
