A human SOS written within the dirt might be its makers’ last cry for help before they’re shipped to an El Salvador prison so brutal it has sparked unverified conspiracy theories of death camps and torture.
Inmates get no visits, no daylight, and little prospect of release, once locked in 70-person cells at the utmost security CECOT prison, branded ‘Guantanámo on steroids’.
Built to accommodate alleged members and associates of Salvadoran gangs, it has now turn into central to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Greater than 200 people have already been deported there from the US, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national granted protected status within the US in 2019.
He was seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and accused of playing a ‘distinguished role in MS-13’ after picking up his son in Maryland.
The accusation wasn’t true, and the US has since admitted it illegally deported him.
However the Trump administration has said it will possibly’t get him back, and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele won’t return him.
‘Oopsie… Too late’, Bukele wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
That’s a fate feared by 31 men who assembled themselves in the form of S.O.S. within the yard of Bluebonnet detention centre in Texas on Monday. It was captured by a drone flown by Reuters news agency.
Dozens of Venezuelan detainees there have been this month accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump has claimed is carrying out ‘irregular warfare’ and ‘hostile actions’ within the US.
Seven of their families have denied these claims of gang membership.
Amongst them is Jeferson Escalona, 19, who was a police officer in Venezuela. He believes US authorities saw pictures of him making hand signs common in Venezuela after they seized his phone.
It wouldn’t be the primary time US officials have seen gang signs where there aren’t any. British man Pete Belton, 44, was shocked to seek out an image of his clockface tattoo, showing the time his daughter was born, in a document used to discover gang members.
‘I fear for my life here’, said Escalona, who was denied his request to voluntarily return to Venezuela.
‘They’re making false accusations about me. I don’t belong to any gang.’
Trump has revived a 1798 law – last used to detain 120,000 Japanese people without trial during World War Two – to hurry up deportations of alleged gang members.
A whole bunch of hundreds of Venezuelans have fled to the US lately, escaping economic collapse and an authoritarian crackdown by President Nicolas Maduro.
But Trump has branded this an ‘invasion’. His use of the Alien Enemies Act allows him to bypass immigration courts, despite a number of the detainees having dates set.
Diover Millan, a 24-year-old construction employee with no criminal record, has an asylum hearing on May 1.
‘If he gets removed under the Alien Enemies Act, then that court date doesn’t exist, he’ll never have that court date’, a US official explained in a recording heard by Reuters earlier last week.
This lack of opportunity to appeal their case, or have the accusations tested, is alarming for those fearing deportation to CECOT.
Within the recording, one said: ‘If I don’t have a criminal record within the three countries wherein I even have lived in, how are they going to send me to El Salvador?’
The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked their deportations.
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