The mother of one of the Venezuelans deported from the US to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison has recalled the moment she spotted him on TV – she was expecting him to return home the day before
A mum has opened up about the harrowing moment she spotted her son in footage from El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison while watching the TV, just one day after he was meant to return home.
More than 200 Venezuelans were deported from the US to a supermax prison in El Salvador. The US and El Salvador governments alleged the detainees to be members of the Tren de Aragua or MS-13 gangs, although are yet to provide any details of their alleged criminality. They are being held in the infamous CECOT prison where inmates are shackled together with their heads shaved.
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Myrelis Casique López spoke to her son Francisco José García Casique last Saturday morning. He told her he was being deported back to Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, having been detained for being in the US illegally.
However he never appeared at home on Saturday. And on Sunday his mum spotted him on the TV, his hands and feet shackled. He was in CECOT – more than 1,400 miles away from home.
US immigration officials said the 238 prisoners were verified as gang members before being sent to El Salvador. “Our job is to send the terrorists out before anyone else gets raped or murdered,” Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said. It came after the Trump administration designated several South American drug gangs as terrorist organisations.
But Ms Casique claims her son is innocent. She told the BBC: “He doesn’t belong to any criminal gang, either in the US or in Venezuela… he’s not a criminal. What he’s been is a barber.”
Ms Casique believes her son’s tattoos – the very same tattoos that allowed her to identify him in the images from CECOT – led to his detention and deportation. Other detainees’ families have made similar claims.
The mother of Mervin Yamarte, 29, also identified her son in the footage from CECOT. She told the BBC: “I threw myself on the floor, saying that God couldn’t do this to my son… He’s a good, noble young man. There’s a mistake.” She explained he was working in a tortilla factory in Dallas before his detention.
CECOT is the centrepiece of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s push to pacify his once violent country through tough police measures and limits on basic rights. Tens of thousands of prisoners are locked up there on bare metal bunks which don’t have mattresses. Cells have two toilets and a basin which are open with no privacy. There are no windows, and inmates are watched by guards from holes in the mesh ceiling.
Inmates are made to wear white t-shirts and shorts, and have their heads shaved every five days. They are not given cutlery for eating. Prisoners also don’t have any recreational space and only leave their cells for court hearings or if they are being put in solitary confinement.