Trump disappeared to hell on earth. His story of what happened is chilling.

When Jerce Reyes Barrios first arrived at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), he tried to monitor how long it had spent. He remembered himself that was nothing forever. Even caught in charge within an infamous saving prison due to brutal conditions and indefinite detention, he believed that one day, somehow, he would go home.

But as the days became weeks, and then months, time spent more slowly. Among the routine powers of the guards, the Bible read, the only book allowed to the detainees. He asked God to give him as much patience as Job, whose faith is proven through a series of horrible disasters. Finally, Reyes Barrios stopped counting the days.

“The only thing I can say is that human rights do not exist there,” Reyes Barrios told News themezone on Tuesday. There were “beats all the time,” he said. “If you did not eat, they would hit you. If you showers when it wasn’t the time, they would hit you. If you said more or less, they would hit you.”

Reyes Barrios is one of the 252 Venezuelans who emigrated to the United States, ended in immigration arrest, and was transferred by the Trump administration in March to CECOT for indefinite detention without charge, Under a billionaire agreement Among the governments of the United States and El Salvadore. Most men had no criminal recordbut American officials affirmed, with little evidence, that they were linked to the Venezuelan gang of Aragua.

Reyes Barrios, a 36 -year -old professional football player and coach, was accused of affiliation to gangs about the base Apparently no more than a tattoo inspired by Madrid and a manual “rock and roll” signal that immigration officials found on social networks. Being banished to one of the most notorious prisons in the world for a tattoo and a common hand gesture encapsulated the cruelty and arbitrariness of the Trump administration immigration agenda, and made Reyes Barrios one of the most Well known People arrested in CECOT.

On July 18, his 125th in Cecot, Reyes Barrios and the other Venezuelan detainees were transferred back to Venezuela As part of an exchange of prisoners. Cecot’s old detainees had been incommunicado, without access to loved ones or lawyers. The only information about CECOT conditions came from glimpse propaganda Videos archive within the prison and the past informing Human Rights Groups and journalists who have documented accusations of torture in CECOT. Now free, CECOT’s old detainees are talk On the abuse suffered from the US governments and Salvadorans, while navigating a complicated series of security considerations.

“Both physical and mental abuse distributed by the officers made me think sometimes I would never leave that place,” said Reyes Barrios.

‘Welcome to hell on earth’

Reyes Barrios went to the United States last year on April 1, traveling thousands of miles per land to reach the southern border. He hoped to find work in the United States to support his two young daughters and his father, who has glaucoma.

“Everything went by land, risking my life,” he said.

Reyes Barrios followed all the rules. He enrolled for an appointment at the CBP One application, a Biden era platform that allowed people to program appointments on the United States border to follow asylum. But in his appointment on September 1, during the mandate of President Joe Biden, he was taken into immigration custody. He was surprised that he was arrested. “I had no history, I had no problems with anyone, and tried to legally enter the United States,” he said.

A staff member at the Private Detention Center where he was arrested asked about his tattoos and if he had a knife shot or wound. He has about 20 tattoos, most of whom honor their family members. One, an image of a crown sitting on a football ball, reminds his favorite football team, Real Madrid. His only scar is when he had appendicitis, he told the interviewer.

“I said: ‘I’ve never been imprisoned,” he recalled. “He said: ‘That is what we are going to investigate.’ And I said: ‘That is your right to investigate’.”

But it is not clear how much research it happened. Shortly after the interview, the blue prison clothes of Reyes Barrios was replaced by orange garments, and was placed in maximum security. He was asked to sign a letter that linked him to Aragua’s Train, which he refused to do.

People in the Immigration Court are not guaranteed from legal representation, and Reyes Barrios was expected to sail on their own.

Linette Tobin, a private immigration lawyer who takes cases of asylum through San Diego County, found the case of Reyes Barrios in November. After reading his admission information, he thought he had a strong asylum claim and offered to assume his case. “I thought, ‘This is a slam dump,” he said in an interview.

“She really fell from heaven for me,” said Reyes Barrios.

After presenting Venezuelan documents that show that he had no criminal record, as well as jobs, a statement by the tattoo artist who drew the image of the crown on the ball, and documents that explain the meaning of the tattoo and the gesture of hands “rocky”, Reyes Barrios was finally released from the maximum custody and in the general population.

The final audience in its case as a asylum was scheduled for April 17. “We were fully prepared. Everything had appeared to the Court. Everything was ready,” Tobin told News themezone.

But for March, Reyes Barrios began to express concern, Tobin said. He had listened to rumors that he and other Venezuelans could be sent to the military advance of the United States in Guantanamo Bay, a place that he knew nothing, except that he is in Cuba.

On March 15, President Donald Trump invoked The Alien Enemies Law, a war authority used for the last time in World War II, to quickly eliminate the defendants of Aragua’s train from the United States that day, administration officials charged Reyes neighborhoods and hundreds of other Venezuelan immigration detainees, handcuffed, in plans to El Salvador, Challenging a federal judge who ordered the government to stop the flights. That judge, Washington, DC, District Judge James Boasberg, in April, found cause to Start contempt procedures Against the Administration, although an Appeals Court arrested Those procedures, and last week noted The possibility of performing disciplinary procedures against certain administration lawyers. Monday, the administration He filed a complaint of misconduct against the judge.

At first, “everyone was happy” because they thought they were going to Venezuela, said Reyes Barrios of the people on the plane. It was only once they landed that they realized that they were going to Cecot, a place that Reyes Barrios knew as “one of the most dangerous and strict prisons throughout Central America.”

“I froze for a second, and began to cry,” he said. “I told myself: ‘This cannot be.’ My mind was blank.”

People around the world have seen what happened next, thanks to the propaganda videos of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has described himself as the “best dictator in the world.”

The men were taken out of the flight, mistreated by Salvadoran officials, Afeidas Calvos, driven in a crowded prison and aligned in hooded sitting positions, their heads leaned down and their hand -handed hands behind their backs.

“I froze for a second, and began to cry. I told myself:” This cannot be. “My mind was blank.”

– Jerce Reyes Barrios

The description of Reyes Barrios de las Páls and the abuse in Cecot is aligned with the accounts of other detainees who have shared their stories publicly, even with NBC News, Propublic and The Washington Post. Some have counted other atrocious acts, including Andry Hernández Romero, who alleged that Cecot’s guards touched him and forced him to perform oral sex while he was in solitary confinement.

Bukele’s office did not respond to a request for comments.

After landing in El Salvador, said Reyes Barrios, the American immigration agents who accompanied them on the plane told them that they could voluntarily disembark, or otherwise they would be forced to do so. The passengers in the front ranks of the plane doubted, so both the Salvadoran forces and us “made them hit them and let them go down,” said Reyes Barrios. He came down voluntarily.

Once out of the plane, Salvadoran officials hit the detainees and put fists in their hands and feet, four total sets, at this point, and a fifth set was added to secure them to their bus seats.

“They made us lower our heads, and we spent the whole bus trip that way,” said Reyes Barrios. They rode for about 25 minutes before reaching the notorious prison, where their heads were shaved and were dressed in white prison uniforms.

“They put us on their knees again, they hit us and made us walk about 200 meters to ‘Module 8’, crouched all the time,” he said, referring to the unit where he would spend the next four months.

There, he listened to shouts and saw blood, vomiting and people fainted on the floor, he said.

“They fixed us on the floor, sitting, with our front touching the back of the next person,” he recalled. A prison officer told them: “Welcome to hell on Earth, where you will be sentenced to spend the rest of your lives; where I will make sure you never eat chicken or flesh again.”

The Venezuelan detainees of the United States were retained separately from the thousands of Salvadorans imprisoned by their own government in Cecot. The wing consisted of multiple cells of 20 by 10 meters with a capacity of 80 people, each full of four -story torres, two bathrooms and two water tanks, said Reyes Barrios. “The roof was like a cage, where the police would walk on us,” he added.

The only way to know if it was day or night was because of the food that was served. Sometimes, the detainees took their heads secretly from the front of the cell, where they could see some light rummaging.

Brochure through Getty Images

The time of Reyes Barrios in Cecot was marked by psychological abuse and the “innumerable” powers of the guards, who beat, kicked and used police canes in detainees while their hands were handcuffed behind them, he said.

Once, after he shower at the wrong time, the guards punished Reyes Barrios sending him to “The Island”, a cell of 2 per 1 meter with a cement bed and a bath, he said. He spent about four or five hours there, only in the dark.

The guards also retained clothes sometimes, forced the detainees to undress at their underwear. “For those who behaved more badly, it happened a lot,” said Reyes Barrios.

The detainees were not allowed any external contact, except for two visits from the Committee Inte Rnational of the Red Cross. On the first visit of the ICRC, they spoke with only 50 detainees, not including himself, said Reyes Barrios. The second time, they spoke with each detainee and collected notes to loved ones.

Reyes Barrio has confirmed since then his message came home: “Sister, I’m fine. Take care of my daughters. Tell mom and dad that I will leave here soon.”

In an email, a spokesman for the Mission of the ICRC in El Salvador confirmed that he had visited Venezuelan detainees in Cecot twice, once in May and once in June, and said he had been able to contact the “majority” of their families.

In May, the dishonor Former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz (Florida) toured CECOT as part of a propaganda recording for his show on the New Right News Network One America. For The families of some detaineesthis footage was the only life of life in the months since the Trump administration sent their loved ones to Cecot.

When News themezone showed Reyes Barrio a photo of Gaetz, he remembered to have seen him from afar.

“I thought they were going to get us out, at that time,” he said.

It would be another 70 days before Venezuelan Cecot detainees left the prison.

Life after Cecot

After transferring hundreds of men to Cecot, the lawyers of the Department of National Security moved aggressively to erase the detainees of the immigration court system. Almost half of the Venezuelans sent to Cecot had unresolved immigration cases, and more than 60, including neighborhood kings, had pending asylum claims, propublic reported. But after the United States government disappeared and could not appear in the Court, DHS lawyers presented motions to dismiss, in some cases citing the fact that the individual was no longer in the country.

Immigration judges have granted dozens of these applications, effectively allowing the Government to evade due process protections by disappearing people before having their day in court. Tobin continued to appear in the Court on behalf of Reyes Barrios, even after he disappeared, and convinced the judge to close administratively His case, which stopped the procedures, instead of dismissing it completely.

When asked to comment on the removals and conditions in CECOT, the assistant secretary of the Department of National Security, Tricia McLaughlin, wrote in an email: “Train of Aragua and MS-13 are some of the most violent and cruel terrorist gangs in the land of the planet. Voen, Maim and murder.

McLaughlin did not provide evidence that CECOT detainees were members of a gang or had violent criminal sentences. “Once again, the media are falling to defend the members of the criminal of illegal gangs. We hear too much about gang members and the false stories of sob and not enough about their victims,” he wrote.

On the morning of July 18, Reyes Barrios and the other Venezuelans on Cecot were loaded on a bus. A man approached his bus and went to the detainees: “Boys, here we are,” Reyes Barrios recalled. As soon as they heard their Venezuelan accent, they knew they were going home, he said.

They arrived at a naval base and boarded two planes to Venezuela. When they landed at the Simón Bolívar International Airport near Caracas, government officials were waiting for them in the asphalt. Reyes Barrios knelt down and thanked God. After a medical projection, he was taken to a hotel, where he called his family, who lives far in Machiques de Perijá, in the state of Zulia. He returned home days later and was surprised to find that “almost the entire city” had gathered to welcome him.

“I didn’t know whether to shout, cry or run,” he recalled.

Jerce Reyes Barrios

Two weeks after its launch, CECOT detainees are still adjusted to life at home. After months of abuse in a prison, they feared that they never leave, they have been pushed into the center of attention, which were asked to tell their most traumatic experiences to an international audience. They returned to Venezuela without any of their belongings.

For many, they were released in a country that had previously fled. A former Cecot detainee said The Washington Post, which was told to film a video that thanked the Venezuelan government, and that if they fled again and redempted, they could be accused of betrayal.

There is Continuous litigation In the United States on the legality of the Trump administration invoking the Alien Enemies Law to transfer men to CECOT without due process. The United States Supreme Court has argued that people subject to removal under the AEA must have the opportunity to challenge their elimination. However, the logistics of how it will work for those who have already been eliminated is still being litigated.

“We are going to press for anyone who wants to return to return,” he told News themezone Lee Gell, deputy director of the Immigrant Rights Rights Project of the Union of American Civil Freedoms.

For now, Reyes Barrios is focusing on spending time with his family and adapting to life at home. At first, he could only sleep three hours per night due to his old schedule at Cecot. But gradually, he is finding his rhythm. “At this moment I just want to enjoy my daughters, see them grow,” he said.

When asked if there was anything else that wanted readers to know, Reyes Barrios smiled, and added: “Only that even with everything I have happened, I will always be a Real Madrid fan.”

Ashford King and Dirce Toca provided translation for this story.