‘Ceil of the Living Dead’: Venezuelans recall 125 days of U.S. immigration in the infamous El Salvador prison

Arturo Suárez struggles to find out that the worst moment in the prison he boasts in prison was the “Watchmen’s Cemetery.”

The day when prisoners were angry at being beaten by the guards, did they threaten to hang with their sheets? “The only weapon we have is our own life,” recalled the former Venezuelan detainee.

Is it when the prisoner staged a “strike”, cutting his arms with broken pipes and wiping the bed with a crimson despair message? “SOS!” they wrote.

Or was Rock’s bottom at the age of 34, with prison officials stranded in Central America claiming he would only leave the body bag?

Suárez, a reggae musician known for his stage name Suarezvzlais one of 252 Venezuelans They find themselves trapped inside the notorious “Secot” terrorism restriction center in El Salvador, and they are trapped in Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade.

Suarez and other detainees were released on July 18 after 125 days behind in prison Prisoner exchange agreement between Washington and Caracas. Since flying to Venezuelan House, they have begun to open to their own torture, a rare and disturbing glimpse of President Naibu Bukel’s authoritarian crackdown in El Salvador and Trump’s authoritarian crackdown on immigration movements.

Suarez said the conditions inside the highest security prison were so terrible that he and other prisoners believed to have committed suicide. “My daughters are really rare, she needs me. But we made up our minds. We decided to end this nightmare,” he said, although the prisoner retreated from the brink.

Another detainee, Neiyerver Rengel, 27, described his panic as guards claimed he might have been there for 90 years. “I felt destroyed, destroyed,” said the Venezuelan barber. Captured in OwenTexas.

Trump officials called Venezuelans, many of whom had no criminal background, “outrageous monsters” and “terrorists” but largely failed to produce evidence, many seemingly targeted Become a Venezuela and tattoos.

Norman Eisen, Executive Chairman of the Democratic Defender Foundation Prosecuted the U.S. government for $1.3 millionthe “kidnapping” known as the Venezuelan is a stain on his country’s reputation. “It’s shocking and shameful, and every patriotic American should be disgusted by it,” Eisen said.

Suárez’s journey to one of the world’s toughest prisons began in Santiago, the singer moved there after fleeing Venezuela’s economic collapse in 2016.

One day early last year, before deciding to move to the United States, Suarez looked at Viral YouTube videos About the “Mega Pronstor” of the influential Mexican Luisito Comunica.

Bourker officials invite Comunica to shoot Cecot inside Cecot, part of a propaganda effort to promote opposition to the offensive 2% The country’s adult population has been jailed since 2022. Suárez, a fan of El Salvador’s social media proficiency, was caught at the time. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could travel to visit Secott a affordable trip?” he recalled his joke on his wife. The couple barely knew that Suárez would soon be walling in Cecot’s cage-like cell, sleeping on a metal bunk bed.

After entering the United States in September 2024, Suarez worked as a odd job in North Carolina. In February three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, He was detained Deportation was conducted by an agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and in mid-March, its destination was not revealed. When the plane landed, its passengers – instructed to close their blinds – did not know where they were. A penny fell off when a detainee disobeyed orders and found the flag of El Salvador outside. “That’s what we understand…where we’re going – to Secott,” he said.

Suarez will verbally abuse and beat the transsexuals in the subsequent hours as disoriented prisoners are raised into a bus and take them to Cecot’s eighth cell.

Suarez said the men were forced to shaved their heads and the warden told: “Welcome to hell! Welcome to the cemetery of the Living Dead! You will leave it here!”

As he was dragged out of the bus, the far-sighted Suarez said he asked the guard for help because his glasses fell off: “He told me to shut up and punch me [in the face] Break my glasses. ”

“What am I doing in Secott?” Suarez recalled thinking. “I’m not a terrorist. I’ve never killed anyone. I make music.”

Rengel is almost the same for his arrival: “The police start saying we’re going to die El Salvador – We probably spent 90 years there. ”

Noah Bullock, head of Cristosal, a human rights group for El El Salvador, said activists have heard similar claims from other prisoners in other El Salvador prisons, suggesting that this horror tactic is not only an act of “bad Apple prison guards.” “Obviously, prison system leaders have a culture to instill guards in a culture that works in this way, [into] Use dehumanization and physical abuse in a systematic way. ”

Suarez said Venezuelans were awakened at 4 a.m. in the next 16 weeks, moved between cells with 10 to 19 people and suffered ruthless physical and psychological abuse campaigns. “There is no life there,” he said. “The only good thing they do for us is to give us a Bible. We seek solace in God, which is why no one takes his own life.”

The musician tried to cheer up by writing optimistic songs like Cell 31, which describes the message of God. “Please be patient, my son. Your blessing will come soon,” its lyrics say.

The song became the national anthem of prison, Suarez said prisoners were on a day in March, when the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, visits Cecot Posing through its packaging cells. “We are not terrorists! We are not criminals! Help!” the Venezuelan yelled. But their pleas were ignored, and their emotions grew desperate, as prisoners were deprived of contact with relatives, lawyers and even the Sun. “There is a little bit we have no motivation and no strength,” Lengel said.

Only in mid-June, when prisoners are given shampoo, razors and soap and measure clothes, there is a silver lining. “They obviously want to hide what’s going on in the world,” Suarez said. A month later, these people were free.

Suarez said he was now determined to speak out and he returned safely to his hometown of Caracas. The musician said: “The truth has to be…heard all over the world. “Now, I realize it’s just a complete farce because how do you negotiate with human life?” How to use humans as bargaining chips? ” Suarez said.

A spokesman for the El Salvador government did not answer questions about the prisoner’s allegations. Last week, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, dismissed the prisoner’s abuse claim as a “false sob story.”

Suarez hopes to never get involved in El Salvador or the United States again, but he says he forgives the kidnapper. “I hope they can forgive themselves,” he added. “And realizing that while they may escape human justice, they will never be able to escape divine justice.”