They were deported to El Salvador's megaprison. What happened inside?

0:01When Roger Molina arrived home in Venezuela, it was captured on camera by friends and family. The moment is euphoric. A cascade of family members squeeze him tight. He's in tears. The video that they posted online doesn't have any sound, except for a song called Volver a Casa. It's by the Venezuelan singer Mario Cáceres, and it translates to, to return home.

0:37This song has become an unofficial anthem for families like Roger's. Families whose loved ones were suddenly deported and then imprisoned.

0:49Just days before this video was filmed, Roger was in jail in El Salvador, at the notorious mega-prison called Seacot. It was allegedly built for El Salvador's worst criminals. But in March, as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, Roger and more than 250 other deportees were sent to CICOT. The majority of them were Venezuelan. And many, like Roger, had no criminal records. Since this prison opened in El Salvador, we've had very little information about what actually goes on inside. and until now has been really a black box since very few people have left the prison and even fewer have spoken publicly about the treatment inside.

1:36Samantha Schmidt is a bureau chief for The Post covering South America. She and several of our colleagues wanted to know what happened inside of Seacott. So they started speaking to more than a dozen Venezuelan deportees who were released. They have now gotten the fullest picture yet into this prison, including from Roger.

2:01Here Roger is saying, I found myself at the entrance of the SECOT. Back in March, he had no idea he was even being sent to El Salvador, and suddenly he found himself at the entrance.

2:21The director started speaking to us and said, Welcome to Seco. You are here as condemned people. The only way that you will leave is inside a black bag.

2:41From the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Elahay Izadi. It's Tuesday, September 2nd. Today, we follow Roger's journey into the world's most notorious prison. Sam shares her exclusive reporting, and we learn more about why the Trump administration sent people like Roger there to begin with, and then how he and others got out. And just a heads up, there are some graphic details about what happened inside of the prison. So please take care how and with whom you listen.

3:27Sam, I want to hear all about your reporting on this and what you've learned about this prison from people who were there. I call it Cicot. If you are a Spanish speaker, you probably call it Cicot. But first, I want to hear more about Roger. One of the cases that I've been following from the beginning is the story of Roger Molina. And now that Roger has been released, our colleague Elena Carpio in Venezuela went and spoke with him at his home in Venezuela after his release. She interviewed him on his front porch outside. And neighbors would come by and say hello and welcome him back.

4:14Roger Molina is a 29-year-old. He loves soccer. He was actually an aspiring professional soccer player. And his journey to the U.S. goes back years now. He had fled Venezuela and was living in Colombia. And in his last months in Colombia, where he was living with his girlfriend, he was working as a food delivery driver. And, you know, living in a country where more than two million Venezuelans have moved. For years, Venezuelans have been living under an autocratic government, President Nicolás Maduro. and many of them have left in the aftermath of a severe economic crisis in the country, but also because of repression, particularly in recent years.

5:04Thousands have been arrested, many political opponents have been arrested, and we've seen a mass exodus, one of the largest in the world, and many of them have, in recent years, gone to the United States. So, you know, many of his fellow Venezuelans had migrated to the U.S., crossing the Darien Gap, crossing through a very treacherous journey. And that's the gap between Colombia and Panama, yeah? Yeah. A lot of people really crossed by foot from South America all the way to the U.S. He was not one of those migrants. Last year, or about a year before he went to the U.S., he started applying for something called the Safe Mobility Initiative, which is a program through the State Department that would basically pick a very select group of people to resettle in the United States as refugees.

5:54And he applied for this alongside his girlfriend. And ultimately, after a long vetting process, he and his girlfriend were selected to travel to the U.S. and live there as refugees. And this took months of vetting. And finally, they were given plane tickets. They were given a date and told they could travel to the U.S. and start their lives there as refugees. It is a sort of top-tier group of migrants who are welcomed into the United States because of their fears in their home country. So what happened to Roger when he got this notice that, hey, you were conditionally accepted into this program for refugees?

6:38What happened next? They were ecstatic.

6:46He's saying this was the American dream. This was an opportunity they never thought they would have, that they were overjoyed to be given and to build their lives there together as a couple, him and his girlfriend, Daniela. It was a blessing for them. They had plans. I actually have a photo of them taking a photo on their way out of their apartment in Bogota with their suitcase. They were so excited. and they flew to Texas and thought everything was fine and actually had been put up in a hotel by the airport and gone through final vetting before they left Colombia alongside other refugees who were resettling in the U.S.

7:24And it wasn't until he got to the airport in Texas that he started being questioned, in part because of his tattoos.

7:35Roger told us that at the Houston airport, an immigration agent took him to a room and started asking him about the Tren de Aragua. And he said, you're from Aragua, right? So do you know anyone from Tren de Aragua? Because he's from the state of Aragua in Venezuela.

7:59And Roger says, just because I'm from Aragua doesn't mean I know someone from the Tren de Aragua gang. What is that? Trin del Agua is now a notorious Venezuelan gang that has spread throughout South America, and the Trump administration has really used as justification to deport large numbers of Venezuelans this year. And in many cases, we know that people are profiled based on their tattoos, despite often not having much other evidence of gang membership. And did Roger, do we know whether he had any evidence of belonging to this gang? He vehemently denies it. And we have documents from his vetting process to become a refugee showing that he was accepted and he had been vetted by federal law enforcement, by U.S.

8:53Citizenship Services, by the State Department. And all of that would have taken into account any previous criminal history. there is no indication to us that Roger was a member or is a member of Trenadagua. So ever since he was detained at the Houston airport in January, in the last days of the Biden administration, he was detained in immigration facilities in the U.S. His girlfriend was actually sent back to Colombia, and he was eventually under the impression he might be deported to Venezuela. But that is not what happened. Suddenly on March 15th, he found himself on a plane to an unknown destination that ended up being El Salvador.

9:38The Trump administration deported more than 200 Venezuelan migrants from the U.S. to El Salvador. President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a seldom used wartime provision, saying the Venezuelans were members of a crime syndicate linked to the government in Caracas. It was on that day, on March 15th, that the Trump administration rushed to send three flights with more than 260 migrants, including 23 Salvadorans, to El Salvador. The U.S. will pay the country$6 million to hold around 300 gang members in its notorious prison. Many of them had no deportation orders. And we would later learn that many of them would not have criminal records either.

10:27So the migrants were being sent to El Salvador, where there is this notorious prison, SICOT. Sam, what is the origin of this prison in El Salvador? So President Nayib Bukele opened this prison in 2023, and he unveiled it as this terrifying fortress that was supposed to house the worst of the worst criminals in El Salvador, as part of his crackdown on the gangs that had made this country one of the most dangerous in the region. and his government has very proudly declared this the largest prison in the Americas. Located near the Salvadoran capital, the massive 160-hectare compound is guarded by a security force numbering more than 800.

11:15Arrests can be made without a warrant and detainees no longer have a right to a lawyer. And it has the capacity, they say, for 40 ,000 prisoners. That's a huge amount of people. Yes. Up until now, what has been this prison's reputation? It has been seen as the place where the worst gang members are sent. And we know very little about the conditions inside, in part because most of the prisoners inside don't have access to any communication with the outside world. They don't get access to lawyers. Human rights activists and human rights defenders have often sounded alarms about the lack of information about this prison.

12:01And many of them have not gone through a trial. Isn't it also true that there have just been mass arrests in El Salvador? And there's also a lot of questions about who this prison population is and whether a lot of innocent people have been swept up in all this. Yes. Since 2022, Bukele has ruled basically by emergency decree and has had total power to arrest anyone he suspects of being a gang member. And more than 85 ,000 people have been arrested ever since, which is a huge portion of the population in this small Central American country. And Bukele's policies have been incredibly popular among Salvadorans because the country has seen a massive decrease in crime and violence.

12:50People can actually walk on the streets again in places where they wouldn't have dared. But we know that many people have been arrested based on identifiers such as tattoos. And we have, in many cases, little evidence of gang membership. And so the lack of due process has drawn considerable concern from human rights advocates. What did Roger tell you and your colleagues about just even the journey to get to Seacott? I mean, it sounded terrifying because all of these Venezuelans get put on these planes. They have no idea where they're going. In one case, one man who kept insisting on asking for information on where they were going, his mouth was taped and he was basically strapped to a chair on the back of the plane.

13:41They couldn't open the window shades. They were threatened. and told that they would face consequences if they did. And they were shackled as well, shackled at their wrists, waists, and ankles. Many of them assumed they were going to Venezuela. And over the course of the flight, they start to realize that is not the case. At one point, they land in a country that they later find out was Honduras because they were given Domino's pizza and the Domino's said Honduras on the box. But they were there briefly and then landed in El Salvador. And some of the migrants we spoke to, you know, were brave enough to open up the windows.

14:19And one of them saw the Salvadoran flag waving in the distance. And apparently on one of the flights, a female deportee who could understand English on a document she was given, read for the passengers that they would be detained for at least a year in El Salvador. And that was when migrants started panicking and refusing to get off the plane.

14:47Roger's saying that we started getting beaten right away. It's just beatings and beatings. As we're getting forced off the plane, I tried to ask an officer, please, I don't understand what I'm doing here.

15:04He was told to shut up.

15:10He starts pleading with them, I haven't committed any crime. Please let me talk to someone. I don't understand what I'm doing here. Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine the panic he's experiencing in this moment because in one moment, he has all this documentation and is told, yes, come. We've cleared you to come to the United States. And then almost like in a blink of an eye, he's all of a sudden in this like, sounds like horrifying experience. What did he and others you spoke to tell you about what this prison was like once they were inside? So the Venezuelans were all housed in cells that have the capacity for up to 80 Salvadoran inmates.

15:52We know that the Salvadorans often have even more than 80 and are very crowded in these cells. The Venezuelans had up to about 20, but they are basically these cells where you have stacks of metal bunk beds, essentially, like stacked four levels of bunk beds. Yeah, imagine like shelves, essentially. And they're in these cells where they have two toilets and like a concrete wash basin right in front of the beds. So they're forced to use the bathroom right in front of everyone else. They are rarely allowed to leave these cells. They have to bathe in these same cells. They're surrounded by the stench of their own sewage.

16:32There are lights glaring above 24 hours a day. so they honestly could often not tell whether it was day or night. There was no air conditioning and this is a really, like, at this point, high temperatures during the day in this tropical climate in El Salvador. And at night, it's just excruciatingly cold on these metal bunks with no cushions, no blankets, nothing. And the prison staff tightly controlled access to water, access to food. They would only get it at certain times of day and they were basically handed food through the bars of the prison cell and are basically eating in the same space that they're using the bathroom.

17:16My gosh. And so, Sam, how were these Venezuelans then treated inside of the prison? What did you learn? We spoke with 16 of the Venezuelans that were detained in Siccolt and many of them, all of them really described frequent repeated beatings. And many of them were taken to this place known as La Isla, which is sort of short for aislamiento, which means isolation, but it also means the island. And it was the isolation cell where punishments would occur. And we know of cases where one detainee was beaten unconscious, Another walked out bruised, struggling to walk. Another was vomiting blood. At least one told us that he returned to his cellmates to say he had just been sexually assaulted by guards.

18:12It was this place where they would be held for hours in total darkness in this tiny cell where the only light would come through a small hole in the ceiling. There was basically no ventilation and they would be beaten for hours at times. and you could hear the screams from down the hall.

18:34There were several key moments where the Venezuelans started to protest the conditions, where they couldn't handle it anymore. In one case, they went on a hunger strike for four days. They didn't eat. And here's how Roger recalls that strike.

18:56He's saying that we went on a hunger strike for four days. And we told the prison staff that we wanted access to the press. We wanted to be able to speak with the press. And...

19:20They ripped up some of their sheets and were using toothpaste to write messages on the sheets saying we are not terrorists, we're migrants.

19:36Another case, they managed to use the metal railings on their bunk beds to unlock the chains on the cells. And so a group of the Venezuelans were able to escape and they were met with severe punishment. At another point, they used shards from metal pipes to slice their skin and write messages on their sheets and blood. One of the Venezuelans told us, we wanted them to see we were willing to die. Wow. I also tell you that I sometimes think that the United States do not know about some of the things that happened there. Roger's saying that there were moments I realized, or I thought that maybe the United States had no idea what was going on inside, that maybe the U.S.

20:31didn't realize how much they were beating us and the extent of the abuse inside. While they were going through this, Was there anyone from the outside that they were able to connect with? Actually, there were a few different groups that came to visit Sekot, and one of them was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Detainees told us that when Noem visited, they were actually given better food and thin mattresses for their bunks. Separately, when a group of U.S. politicians toured the prison, detainees with visible injuries were apparently moved to the further cells, as one detainee told us. So it does seem like the conditions were somewhat better during these visits.

21:12We also know the Red Cross came. They actually went twice to Sikot during the Venezuelans' time there. And a delegation met with the men and collected brief spoken messages from them for their families. Things like, I love you, I miss you, I'm thinking of you. And the International Committee of the Red Cross mission actually told me that these messages were vetted by prison staff before they left the prison. So clearly they were, you know, very brief. They were not controversial. But that was the only contact that family members had with their loved ones inside Zicot during the four months that they were there.

21:55After the break, what the U.S. and Salvadoran governments have to say about all this, and how Roger and others eventually made it out. We'll be right back.

22:47So Sam, the treatment that you've described here, that the Venezuelans who were released told you and your colleagues they experienced, sounds objectively horrific. Is it legal for them to have been treated this way? So it's been difficult to pinpoint the responsibility of the U.S. in this. We spoke with some international legal experts about sort of international human rights conventions through the United Nations, for example. And they said that if these accounts are true, the Venezuelan's treatments at Secote may have violated U.N. conventions against torture, to which El Salvador and the U.S.

23:32have signed. And because the U.S. paid Bukele's government$6 million to hold the Venezuelans, they could be implicated in these, depending on the evidence and depending on how much U.S. officials knew about the conditions. But we know that if torture and arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances like this, as well as potentially sexual assault, if that is proved to be systematic and generalized and known to the government, the El Salvador government, those could be crimes against humanity. And we spoke with a member of an international panel that is preparing a report on El Salvador and investigating whether any of these crimes were committed.