Venezuelan Man Deported to CECOT Prison Sues U.S. for $1.3 Million

Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel has become the first known ex-prisoner to sue the United States for damages stemming from the mass deportation to El Salvador's CECOT prison, filing a federal lawsuit seeking at least $1.3 million in compensation. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asks the court to award damages for what his lawyers say was false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

ICE detained Rengel on March 13, 2025, on his 27th birthday, in the parking lot of his apartment in Irving, Texas. After traversing the Darién Gap and several Latin American countries, Rengel had used a Biden administration program for asylum-seekers, called CBP One, to enter the U.S. in 2023 at an official entry point, with the government's permission. His lawyers said he had no criminal history beyond a minor misdemeanor, that he was deported despite having an active immigration case and lacking a deportation order, and that Justice Department records show he had an immigration court hearing scheduled for April 2028.

The Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little to no due process, to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador, arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. According to the claim, "Federal officials lied to Rengel, telling him he was being sent to his country of origin, Venezuela." Cameras filmed the 250-plus Venezuelan men being disembarked and bussed to the CECOT prison, where their heads were shaved and they were forced to march, handcuffed and heads bowed, into cells.

Rengel, 28, described the months he spent at the prison as "total hell." The lawsuit states: "For four months, Plaintiff languished in CECOT, during which time he was beaten by guards, subjected to inhumane and overcrowded conditions as well as extreme psychological trauma, denied adequate medical care, and held without contact with his family or any legal counsel." The New York Times reported that Rengel's administrative claim described being held with nearly 20 other Venezuelan detainees in a cell roughly 10 feet square, cleaned only once a week, with no access to medication and no ability to exercise or contact relatives or lawyers. When he complained about gastritis, he was given only water. To pass the time, inmates made dice out of soap and tortillas and used toilet paper to play Parqués.

Rengel alleges he was struck sometimes with batons, sometimes with bare fists, including at least one occasion where he was moved to an area of the prison that had no cameras. Prison guards told him he would be there for 90 years. "There came a point when I thought about hanging myself with the sheet they gave us," Rengel told CBS News in Spanish.

In July 2025, Rengel was part of a prisoner exchange that saw all of the deported Venezuelan men released from CECOT and sent back to their home country, in exchange for the freedom of alleged political detainees and 10 Americans imprisoned in Venezuela. He has since remained with his mother, "terrified" of the prospect of returning to the U.S., according to his lawyers.

The League of United Latin American Citizens and Democracy Defenders Fund helped Rengel file the lawsuit, which follows an administrative complaint filed on his behalf with the Department of Homeland Security in July 2025. Juan Proaño, LULAC's CEO, stated: "What happened to Adrián Rengel is government-sanctioned torture." A report by researchers at Human Rights Watch found the CECOT prisoners endured months of physical and psychological abuse, including some cases of sexual assault, and determined that their time in CECOT amounted to "arbitrary detention" and "torture" under international law.

The government has not backed down. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the Trump administration "will not allow foreign terrorist enemies to operate in our country and endanger Americans," adding: "Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel entered our country illegally in 2023 from Venezuela and is an associate of Tren de Aragua... a vicious gang that rapes, maims, and murders for sport." The Associated Press reported that DHS did not specify how it reached the "confirmed associate" designation and called Rengel's claims a fake "sob story."

The U.S. deported some of the men with little to no due process under the Alien Enemies Act, accusing them of being violent criminals and members of Tren de Aragua; the legality of the administration's use of those wartime powers continues to be litigated in federal court. Judge Boasberg recently ruled that the United States had "constructive custody" of the Venezuelans during their incarceration in CECOT, a finding that Rengel's lawyers now cite directly in the complaint as evidence that Washington bore legal responsibility for what happened inside that prison.