The families of Venezuelans locked in the Megacárcel de Bukele turn two weeks without contact with them

Two weeks in suspense carry the families of the 237 Venezuelan migrants who were transferred by the United States to the terrorism confinement center (CECOT) in El Salvador, the maximum security prison created by President Nayib Bukele to enclose gang members. They have not known of them since the day several of them talked with their families to inform that they would be deported on a flight to Venezuela and then appeared in the Central American country. The new shipment on Monday of 17 other migrants to CECOT lit the alarms.

By the country of Spain

The Venezuelan government has undertaken a defense crusade of those deported to El Salvador. Public acts, signatures and marches have been organized to reject the violations of due process and the human rights to which they have been submitted. A law firm was also hired in El Salvador for their defense. This weekend, Nicolás Maduro said he had spoken with the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, to ask them to act in favor of the more than 200 “kidnapped” migrants in El Salvador.

«The two were asked for proceedings as high authorities of the United Nations System for the Government of El Salvador to respond judicially and deliver the list of kidnapped migrant Venezuelans,» said the Chavista president.

In Maracaibo, Alirio Belloso’s family accumulates days of anguish. In the United States, his brother hopes that this week the judicial blockages that some Thursday have undertaken to stop the order of Donald Trump reach a result. Alirio, 30, crossed the river that separates the United States from Mexico in November 2023, the Federal Police was delivered to him without any deportation order. Alirio followed his way to Utah where he worked driving for Uber. In January, five days after Trump arrived at the White House, they stopped him in a raid and there began another trip.

Since they arrested Alirio, their relatives were able to follow their status and location through the code of their file on the ICE website. From Utah he was transferred to Nevada, from there to Washington, where he appeared before a judge who ordered deportation and certified that he had no criminal records in the United States, although tattoos with the names of his daughter and mother. Then he was transferred to Laredo, Texas. Now it is in El Salvador. «After that day his record in ICE was zero.»

They saw him in the videos released by President Bukele with a shaved head. But since then they have lost all contact or possibility of monitoring. «He went to the United States for the reason that they all leave. He had no job. His brother is there and helped him with the trip,» says Nataly, who also has a migration story to Peru and a return. In Maracaibo, Alirio has his 8 -year -old daughter who asks when he can call him already the one who answers him that, for now, he cannot speak.

Maduro’s government has resumed the unstable conversations with the United States for deportened shipments. This Sunday came another 175 Venezuelans, this time in an American commercial plane, of the Eastern Airlines line. Unlike the other flights managed by Venezuela, after the landing of the ship, the Minister of Interior, Diosdado Cabello, did not go on to welcome them in the cabin. The official said that 54 people arrived less than those who expected and finally sent a citizen claimed by Venezuelan justice, but does not belong to the Aragua train. While Trump says that Maduro has sent members of the Aragua train to invade his country, in Venezuela they assure that none of those deported has a link with the band and that this organization was totally dismantled when military forces intervened the Tocorón prison in 2023, although its leaders escaped before.

In total, 918 people have arrived in Venezuela deported from the United States. Another 553 migrants have returned from Mexico and it is not clear if they were on American soil.

Mercedes Yamares, who has fired all his children in recent years, trusts the negotiation that Maduro’s government can do by his son Mervin. «The government is helping me with Mervin who sent him to El Salvador and also with that of my daughter who was suffering in Mexico. They told us that they will do all possible negotiations. We are hopeful that something will be achieved.» His 19 -year -old daughter, he left last October to try to cross the United States and meet his three brothers, but never obtained the appointment to start the process. He landed a couple of weeks ago in Maiquetía, in a conviosa plane sent by Venezuela to Mexico City in which 311 Venezuelans returned.

Since he saw Mervin in the videos in the Cecot, Mercedes has not known more about him. His other two children who are in the United States now want to return, but fear being deported to a third country, as they did with Mervin, after they arrested him last week in a raid in his residence in Dallas. «You know what it is to have my children in this situation. They left opportunities, because they had no job. It was the first time they left the country,» says Mercedes. Until a few weeks ago, Mervin worked at night at a tortilla factory and played football in a team he had organized in his community. Soon he would get his Social Security card. «His plan was to return this year. He didn’t want to be there anymore, because that was not any American dream,» says his mother.