By REGINA GARCIA CANO, Related Press
LOBATERA, Venezuela (AP) — Carlos Uzcátegui tightly hugged his sobbing spouse and stepdaughter on Wednesday because the morning fog in western Venezuela lifted. The household’s first embrace in additional than a 12 months lastly satisfied him that his nightmare inside a jail in El Salvador was over.
Uzcátegui was among the many migrants being reunited with family members after 4 months in jail in El Salvador, the place the U.S. authorities transferred them — accusing them of being members of a international gang within the U.S. illegally — in one in all its boldest strikes to crack down on immigration.
“Day-after-day, we requested God for the blessing of releasing us from there in order that we could possibly be right here with household, with my family members,” Uzcátegui, 33, mentioned. “Day-after-day, I awoke trying on the bars, wishing I wasn’t there.”
“They beat us, they kicked us. I even have fairly a couple of bruises on my abdomen,” he added earlier than later exhibiting a mildly bruised left stomach.
The migrants, a few of whom characterised the jail as “hell,” have been freed Friday in a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Venezuelan governments, however the latter sequestered them upon arrival to their nation.
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and different officers have mentioned lots of the immigrants have been bodily and psychologically tortured throughout their detention in El Salvador, airing on state tv movies of a few of the males describing the alleged abuse, together with rape, extreme beatings and pellet-gun wounds. The narratives are harking back to the abuses that Maduro’s authorities has lengthy been accused of committing towards its actual or perceived, jailed opponents.
As the boys reached their properties, they and their kin shared deeply emotional moments during which unhappy tears and completely satisfied tears rolled down their cheeks on the similar time.
Uzcátegui’s spouse, Gabriela Mora, 30, held onto their dwelling’s fence and sobbed as she noticed the navy car carrying him method after a 30-plus-hour bus trip to their mining group nestled in Venezuela’s Andean mountains. She had arrange presents and decorations of their lounge, together with a star-shaped metallic blue balloon with a “Glad Father’s Day” greeting that his stepdaughter had saved because the June vacation.
‘We met quite a lot of harmless folks’
The 252 males led to El Salvador on March 16 after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to pay $6 million to the Central American nation to home them in a mega-prison, the place human rights teams have documented a whole lot of deaths and instances of torture. Trump accused the boys of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua road gang, which originated in Venezuela.
The administration didn’t present proof to again up the accusation. Nevertheless, a number of not too long ago deported migrants have mentioned U.S. authorities wrongly judged their tattoos and used them as an excuse to deport them.
Inside Minister Diosdado Cabello on Friday mentioned solely seven of the boys had pending instances in Venezuela, including that every one the deportees would endure medical exams and background checks earlier than they may go dwelling.
Arturo Suárez, whose reggaeton songs surfaced on social media after he was despatched to El Salvador, arrived at his household’s working-class dwelling within the capital, Caracas, on Tuesday. His sister hugged him after he exited a car of Venezuela’s intelligence service.
“It’s hell. We met quite a lot of harmless folks,” Suárez instructed reporters, referring to the jail he was held in. “To all those that mistreated us, to all those that negotiated with our lives and our freedom, I’ve one factor to say, and scripture says it properly: Vengeance and justice is mine, and you’ll give an account to God Father.”
The Related Press couldn’t confirm the abuse allegations that Suárez and different migrants narrated within the movies aired by state media.
Lawyer Basic Tarek William Saab on Monday mentioned he had opened an investigation towards El Salvador President Nayib Bukele based mostly on the deportees’ allegations. Bukele’s workplace didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Appointment to hunt asylum
The lads left El Salvador as a part of a prisoner trade with the U.S., which acquired 10 residents and everlasting residents whom Maduro’s authorities had jailed over accusations of plotting to destabilize Venezuela.
Mora mentioned her husband migrated after the coal mine he had lengthy labored at halved his pay and their road meals store went out of enterprise in 2023. Uzcátegui left Lobatera in March 2024 with an acquaintance’s promise to assist him discover a development job in Orlando.
On his means north, Uzcátegui crossed the punishing Darien Hole that separates Colombia and Panama, and by mid-April he had reached Mexico Metropolis. There, he labored at a public market’s seafood stall till early December, when he was lastly granted an appointment by way of a U.S. authorities smartphone app to hunt asylum at a border crossing.
However Uzcátegui by no means walked free within the U.S., the place authorities regarded his tattoos with suspicion, Mora mentioned. He was despatched to a detention heart in Texas till he and different Venezuelans have been placed on the airplanes that landed in El Salvador. Nonetheless, she mentioned she doesn’t remorse supporting her husband’s choice emigrate.
“It’s the nation’s scenario that forces one to make these selections,” she mentioned. “If (financial) circumstances right here have been favorable…, it wouldn’t have been vital for him to go away to have the ability to repair the home or to offer my daughter with a greater training.”
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