A US federal judge’s order that some of the Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a notorious prison in El Salvador must be allowed to return to the United States to fight their cases has been greeted with hope and a sense of vindication – but also fear – by one of the deportees.
US district judge James Boasberg ruled on Thursday in Washington DC that the Trump administration should facilitate the return of deportees who are currently in countries outside Venezuela, saying they must be given the opportunity to seek the due process they were denied after being illegally expelled from the US last March.
Boasberg added that the US government should cover the travel costs of those who wish to come to the US to argue their immigration cases.
Luis Muñoz Pinto, 27, is one of the men affected and he spoke exclusively to the Guardian on Thursday by telephone from Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, where he has lived since being released from detention in El Salvador.
“I would like to go back to the US to defend myself in court and prove that I am not a member of the Tren de Aragua [gang] – but what happens if they detain me and I have to live through another nightmare?” Muñoz Pinto said.
He has no criminal record in any country. He was an engineering student in Venezuela and fled in 2024 after being beaten by police while protesting against the dictatorship there, first to Colombia and then north. He had an appointment in the US to request asylum under the Biden administration but instead was arrested and accused of being a member of the dangerous Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua because he had some tattoos, despite no evidence being presented of actual gang connections.
The judge acknowledged that if any of the men return to the US to argue in court, it was his understanding that “they will be detained upon their arrival”.
Muñoz Pinto said: “Do you have any idea what my family went through after finding out I was sent to that prison in El Salvador? I went from chasing a dream to work and support my family to being humiliated by guards beating me in the face and my entire body.”
On the night of Saturday 15 March last year, the Trump administration abruptly deported more than 250 Venezuelan men to El Salvador, defying a court block and orders that any such flights should turn around.
Images then emerged of the men shackled held bent over by baton-wielding Salvadoran police, before their heads were shaved and they were imprisoned at the notorious Cecot mega-prison. Former detainees said they were told they would die there, and had no outside communications with lawyers or family. Then last July they were returned to Venezuela in a US-brokered prisoner swap.
Boasberg on Thursday told the Trump administration to prioritize the deportees currently living in third countries but also explain “the feasibility of returning plaintiffs still in Venezuela”, while US-Venezuela relations remain vexed.
A White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, blasted Boasberg’s ruling, saying in a statement it was “an absurd, unlawful ruling from a far-left judicial activist trying to undermine the president’s lawful authority to carry out deportations”.
She added: “Americans elected President Trump based on his promise to deport criminal illegal aliens and Make America Safe Again. Boasberg has no right to stop the will of the American people, and this will not be the final say on the matter.”
Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU attorney in the case, said he was aware of only a small group of the deportees living outside Venezuela.
Boasberg’s order in principle applies to the 137 men deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act invoked by Donald Trump, when the US president made an unprecedented claim that the US was being “invaded” by gang members allegedly with ties to the Venezuelan state. The others sent to Cecot last year were deported under regular US immigration law and are not covered by the current case.
“It is worth emphasizing that this situation would never have arisen had the government simply afforded plaintiffs their constitutional rights before initially deporting them,” Boasberg said on Thursday.
However, he added that the number of men who may seek to return to the US “would be likely very small if not zero”.
Muñoz Pinto is torn.
“I know Trump deported me to Cecot and I’m not over that nightmare yet, but the US is still the land of opportunities,” he said.
He was deported under the Alien Enemies Act, he said, a fact which the Guardian verified via sources familiar with the case, who were not authorized to speak openly on the matter.
Before Boasberg’s latest order, the ACLU had argued in court that the men should have the right to either return to the US or have a remote hearing to challenge their deportation.
In January, lawyers for the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, argued in a court filing that bringing the 137 men back into the US “would risk material damage to the US foreign policy interests in Venezuela”.
Even remote hearings, lawyers for Rubio added, “also present a serious risk of intentional interference by anti-American elements in Venezuela that would undermine the interests of justice”.
Human rights investigators found that Cecot guards dished out beatings, torture, denial of food and alleged sexual assault. Lawyers for some of the Venezuelans said they endured “state-sanctioned torture”.
El Salvador’s government does not make efforts to publicly rebut allegations of violence and deprivation amounting to torture. The president, Nayib Bukele, responded sarcastically to allegations of cruelty at Cecot made by Hillary Clinton last year. Some online influencers are invited in to make videos of the harsh conditions.
Before Boasberg’s latest ruling, Muñoz Pinto had also spoken to the Guardian in person, in Bogotá, in his first non-TV interview. He was briefly featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes show, aired in the US last month.
Muñoz Pinto recounted that on arrival at Cecot: “Three guards threw me to the ground and kicked me in the face so badly that it caused me a nosebleed and all my gums bled too.”
He added: “I started to cry because I didn’t know what to do, I had tried to be a good man since I was little, I had gone to college, I had tried to help my parents, who are still sick in Venezuela, and I was then in the worst prison on the entire planet and I had not committed a crime.”
Old friends in Colombia helped him find work delivering food across Bogotá, arguing it was a better opportunity to support his family financially than he could get in Venezuela.
Muñoz Pinto said: “This court decision is devastating because I want to go back [to the US], yes, but why do they want me detained again? How many months this time? I am not sure if I can do it again.”
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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