A Venezuelan man sent to El Salvador's notoriously brutal CECOT prison filed a $1.3 million lawsuit against the Trump administration Tuesday.
Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel was detained in Texas on March 13, 2025 — his birthday — removed from the U.S. and flown to CECOT with dozens of other immigrants on now-infamous flights.
Leon Rengel's relatives did not know where he was for weeks, and they told NBC News they got different answers from authorities when they tried to find him. NBC News confirmed he had been sent to CECOT and informed his brother who had been searching for him.
In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Leon Rengel, 28, alleged loss of liberty, physical injury, severe emotional stress and lasting psychological trauma as a result of his detention, removal and imprisonment in CECOT.
“For four months, Plaintiff languished in CECOT, during which time he was beaten by guards, subjected to inhumane and overcrowded conditions as well as extreme psychological trauma, denied adequate medical care, and held without contact with his family or any legal counsel,” the lawsuit says.
He was released July 18 and sent back to Venezuela along with more than 250 other Venezuelan immigrants as part of a prisoner swap agreement between the U.S. and Venezuela, the lawsuit says.
CECOT is an El Salvador mega-prison where human rights groups have documented severe abuse and extreme conditions. The Trump administration reached a $6 million deal with El Salvador to accept people removed from the U.S., largely people from Venezuela.
Hundreds of immigrants, many who were granted permission by the legal government to enter the U.S., have been taken out of the country after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act last March. At the time, the administration alleged the immigrants sent to CECOT were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Some of the deportations were captured on video and in images showing men in underwear or prison garb, shackled and bent over at their waists. Some families learned their loved ones were among those sent to CECOT through those images.
Many family members have disputed the gang member allegations, including Leon Rengel's brother. The suit said that ICE officers told Leon Rengel his tattoos indicated his gang membership but that Leon Rengel "has never had any affiliation with TdA or any other gang."
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Leon Rengel entered the country illegally and that he is a member of the gang, without providing evidence.
“We are confident in our law enforcement’s intelligence, and we aren’t going to share intelligence reports and undermine national security every time a gang member denies he is one. That would be insane,” the DHS statement said.
“There IS due process for these terrorists who all have final deportation orders. Further, we have a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process under the US Constitution.”
The lawsuit says Leon Rengel entered the U.S. on June 12, 2023, arriving at an El Paso, Texas, port of entry after he showed up for an appointment made through the CBP One program during the Biden administration. He underwent screenings and provided biometrics, the suit says. He was awaiting a 2028 immigration court hearing when he was arrested in Irving, Texas, on his way to work, according to the lawsuit.
The Trump administration declared the program that allowed Venezuelans and other immigrants to apply for entry into the U.S. using the CBP One app to be illegal. The program was instituted by former President Joe Biden to manage an influx of immigrant border arrivals.
The suit alleges that ICE officers ignored Leon Rengel's documentation confirming his ongoing case and that he had a pending application for Temporary Protected Status.
As he sat shackled and cuffed on a plane in Harlingen, Texas, Leon Rengel believed he would be going back to Venezuela because that is what officers told him, the lawsuit says.
But he became concerned when windows were covered on the plane and the detainees were told not to look out, it says.
When the flight landed in El Salvador, some detainees protested and refused to get off the plane, the suit says. Salvadoran officers went two at a time, striking detainees and carrying them off the plane, it says. Leon Rengel saw some detainees being thrown down stairways, according to the lawsuit.
“Whether or not invocation of the AEA was lawful, the Administration designed and implemented unlawful enforcement mechanisms in order to accelerate the wrongful detention and removal of Venezuelan immigrants like Plaintiff based on their national origin,” the lawsuit says in part, using an initialism to refer to the Alien Enemies Act.
The suit says it was done to “systematically deny that class of people due process and judicial review, and — ultimately — to broadcast a narrative of maximum punishment through its unprecedented arrangement with El Salvador.”
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
