Venezuelan migrant files claim over deportation to notorious CECOT prison

A Venezuelan migrant who was deported from the U.S. to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison in March filed an administrative claim Thursday over what he says was his wrongful removal from the U.S. without due process.

Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel is one of more than 250 Venezuelan nationals who were released to their home country from CECOT in a prisoner swap last week after they were removed from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act.

Rengel's claim, filed with the Office of the General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, came on the same day that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered a status report on the men as the judge seeks to determine if their due process rights were violated when they were removed from the U.S.

Rengel, who is the first of the Venezuelan former detainees to file such a claim, seeks $1.3 million in damages.

"Federal officials lied to Rengel, telling him he was being sent to his country of origin, Venezuela," the claim states. "Instead, for more than four months, Rengel languished in El Salvador -- which is not his country of origin and a place where he has no ties -- where he suffered physical, verbal, and psychological abuse."

In their claim, Rengel's lawyers said that Rengel entered the U.S. in 2021 after appearing for his prescheduled CBP One appointment. He was released, according to the claim, and scheduled to appear for a hearing in 2028. Rengel also applied for Temporary Protected Status in December 2024, which was still being processed when he was detained in March.

"ICE detained Rengel on Thursday, March 13, 2025, on his 27th birthday, in the parking lot of his apartment in Irving, Texas," his attorneys said in the claim. "Rengel presented documentation to the agents reflecting his entry at a Port of Entry, his temporary status, and his scheduled appointment in 2028."

"The agents rejected the documentation," his lawyers said.

Two days after Rengel was detained and placed in a detention center, he was told that he was being deported to his home country of Venezuela, the claim said.

"It was not until the plane landed that Rengel realized that he was not in Venezuela but in San Salvador -- and that ICE had lied to him about his destination," his lawyers said in the claim.

According to the claim, Rengel asserts that U.S. government employees committed negligence, false arrest, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"Rengel sustained psychological and emotional injuries, the proximate cause of which was the government's breach of its duty owed to Rengel," his lawyers said. "As a result of White House, DHS, ICE, DOJ, and State Department officials' negligent and unlawful acts, Rengel suffered a loss of his liberty, removal from the United States, and months-long detention at the notoriously inhumane CECOT, all of which has caused substantial and continuing emotional distress."

In response to Rengel's claim, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the Trump administration "will not allow foreign terrorist enemies to operate in our country and endanger Americans."

"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," McLaughlin said. "This illegal alien was deemed a public safety threat as a confirmed associate of the Tren de Aragua gang and processed for removal from the U.S."

Judge Boasberg, during a hearing Thursday, ordered attorneys for the former detainees and the government to submit status reports on whether all the former CECOT detainees have been released from detention in Venezuela, as well as their willingness to return to the U.S. and any challenges they may want to bring on their deportation to El Salvador.

Boasberg ordered the first status report by Aug. 7, with additional reports every two weeks thereafter.

"My sense is that there may be some who will think it's too dangerous to come back here and risk being sent to CECOT again," Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU, told the judge. "But as Your Honor knows, the individuals that were removed under the [AEA] were taken out of immigration proceedings where they were applying for asylum."

Gelernt said the ACLU has not been in contact with the deportees since their arrival in Venezuela, but said the organization intends to reach them all "immediately."

Judge Boasberg also said he plans to follow up on the whistleblower complaint filed last month by former Justice Department official Erez Reuveni, who alleges that Trump administration officials suggested defying orders from courts in order to enforce the administration's immigration policies.

The judge said Reuveni's allegations "to the extent they prove accurate, have only strengthened the case for contempt" against the administration.

In March 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 by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States.

An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged shortly afterward that "many" of the men deported on March 15 lacked criminal records in the United States -- but said that "the lack of specific information about each individual" actually "demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile."

At Thursday's hearing, an attorney for the Justice Department said the government is prepared to comply with a court order to facilitate the return of the Venezuelans to the U.S.

When asked by Boasberg if the government would be willing to return the Venezuelans if the Supreme Court finds the Alien Enemies Act proclamation invalid, the DOJ attorney said the CECOT deportees would have to "bring different claims."

"We'd have to see what those claims look like, and I don't have an analysis on my fingertips of what that would look like absent the AEA," the DOJ lawyer said.