Venezuela: 252 CECOT Migrants Cleared of ‘Tren de Aragua’ Gang Association

Caracas, August 6, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello confirmed following an investigation that the 252 Venezuelan men forcibly removed from the United States and held for four months in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison were found to have no ties to the so-called Tren de Aragua gang.

“Out of 252 [repatriated migrants], only 20 have criminal records, with just seven involved in serious crimes, and none of them were linked to Tren de Aragua,” Cabello stated during a press conference on Monday. 

Cabello explained that those with criminal records were placed at the disposition of the courts, while the remaining migrants were reunited with their families upon their return to Venezuela on July 18. Their repatriation followed direct negotiations between Caracas and Washington, which included the release of 10 US nationals and residents held in Venezuela.

The Salvadoran government of Nayib Bukele never disclosed the names of the 252 Venezuelan detainees, nor did it allow lawyers or family members to contact them during their imprisonment. Previously, Caracas had only been able to identify around 200 of the men when their families recognised them in videos of their arrival in El Salvador in mid-March.

The Venezuelan government’s assessment that none of the migrants were affiliated with Tren de Aragua is consistent with the results of independent investigations, which found that most of the 252 men had no criminal record in Venezuela or the US. These reports revealed that they had been profiled as gang members based solely on tattoos and social media posts, which experts have insisted are not reliable indicators of gang affiliation.

In March, the Donald Trump administration invoked the controversial 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expel the 252 Venezuelan men without due process, claiming they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US in February. 

President Trump called the migrants “violent savages” sent by the Nicolás Maduro government to “invade” the US. The White House provided no evidence and faced multiple legal challenges over the express deportations that denied the Venezuelan nationals an opportunity to contest accusations of gang ties.

An investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune revealed that no matches were found between the names of a group of 238 Venezuelans held in CECOT and a list of over 1,400 alleged Venezuelan gang members compiled from a January 2024 Interpol database, Venezuelan police records, and data provided by police in Peru, Chile and Colombia.

The investigation also found that at least 197 of the men had not been convicted of crimes in the US, while 118 were removed from the US while in the middle of immigration proceedings. 

“It shows that the [Trump] administration knew, even when they were portraying them as violent criminals that deserved to be sent to a prison in a country that was not their own, they knew that the vast majority did not have convictions in the US,” Perla Trevizo, a reporter who worked on the investigation, told Democracy Now on Monday.

Caracas has condemned the widespread criminalization of Venezuelan migrants and asserted that Tren de Aragua was dismantled in 2023 following an intervention at its Tocorón prison base. A declassified US intelligence memo likewise confirmed that US officials had no evidence of the gang’s presence in the US or of any links to the Maduro administration.

Neither the US nor El Salvador has acknowledged evidence showing the gang allegations lacked credibility nor the human rights violations perpetrated against the 252 Venezuelans. It is reported that the Trump administration promised President Bukele’s government nearly USD $6 million to imprison the deported men for a year.

Several migrants who were rescued from CECOT denounced systematic physical and psychological torture, including frequent beatings, sexual abuse, rotten food, no access to clean water, and medical neglect.

Last week, 27-year-old Venezuelan Neiyerver Adrian León Rengel filed an administrative complaint against the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), accusing US federal agents of wrongly labeling him a gang member and deporting him to a prison in a third country without due process.

León Rengel, who returned to Venezuela in July with the other 251 men, is seeking $1.3 million in damages, citing “physical, verbal and psychological abuse” suffered during his four months of wrongful detention at CECOT.

The young Venezuelan entered the United States in June 2023 via the CBP One app, with an appointment scheduled before an immigration judge in 2028. However, he was arrested on March 13 in Irving, Texas, and accused of gang membership based on his tattoos.

The White House has six months to respond to the complaint before a lawsuit can proceed.

Following the imposition of severe US sanctions in 2017, many working-class Venezuelans have migrated to the US, undertaking an arduous journey on foot across seven countries. The Trump administration has labelled them as “criminals” in order to speed up deportations. 

In February, Trump sent over 100 Venezuelans to the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba before the Maduro government secured their repatriation.

Around 9,000 Venezuelans have been deported from the US this year, with Caracas’ “Return to the Homeland” program facilitating their return.

Edited by José Luis Granados Ceja in Mexico City, Mexico.