Overview

• More than 250 Venezuelan migrants were repatriated from El Salvador and at least 10 U.S. citizens returned from Venezuela in an exchange negotiated by the U.S., El Salvador and Venezuela on July 18.
• The State Department has declined to explain why one of the freed Americans, Dahud Hanid Ortiz, was included despite his 2024 conviction for a triple homicide in Spain.
• Detainees who endured four months at El Salvador’s CECOT prison report beatings, sexual violence and 24-hour confinement as evidence of torture.
• Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel filed a $1.3 million claim against the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act for wrongful deportation and abuse at CECOT.
• Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab has opened an investigation into Salvadoran officials over alleged torture of migrants held under the Trump administration’s deportation order.