David J. Bier
In March, the US government deported—or more accurately, rendered—about 240 Venezuelans from the United States to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison without trials, convictions, or due process. CBS News canceled a 60 Minutes report on the detainees this weekend, stating in part that the story required more reporting.
At the time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) labeled these individuals “the worst of the worst criminals.” But this month, DHS started uploading the names of arrested immigrants whom it now considers “the worst of the worst.” This database now includes nearly 15,000 names, including people convicted of low-level offenses, such as drug possession, traffic infractions, and minor immigration offenses.
Despite being the highest-profile supposedly “worst of the worst” deportees during the Trump administration, none of the CECOT deportees appear in the DHS database. The database includes just 12 individuals who DHS claims are members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that DHS initially accused the CECOT deportees of being members of.
This isn’t surprising. Only 16 percent of CECOT deportees had any US criminal convictions of any kind, based on DHS data obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Deportation Data Project, a collaboration of UC Berkeley Law School and the UCLA School of Law’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy. Moreover, just 4 percent (nine people) had a conviction for a violent crime. Property crimes accounted for only 2 percent of the total. According to Human Rights Watch, which analyzed the same data, DHS’s data left out some Venezuelans sent to CECOT.
The DHS data also confirms my reporting from May, showing that over 50 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador were not illegal immigrants and entered the country legally. DHS lists five deportees as “nonimmigrants,” people with forms of temporary legal status who entered with a visa. It also lists 46 as “applicants for admission,” the term that DHS used for individuals who entered the country legally at a port of entry via the CBP One phone app scheduling system under President Biden. One person’s entry status was just listed as “other.” Among the 51 nonimmigrants and applicants for admission (2 percent), one had a criminal conviction. According to ProPublica, Albert Primoschitz González entered legally and was convicted of driving without a valid license in 2025.
When we compare the Venezuelans sent to CECOT with other removals, we find that Venezuelans were half as likely to have received a conviction both for violent crimes (4 percent versus 8 percent) or for any crime overall (16 percent versus 35 percent). In other words, the CECOT deportees appear to be less prone to crime than the average deportee.
According to DHS data, 53 percent of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT had no criminal conviction or criminal charge. There are no details provided concerning the 76 with pending charges, but many charges are dropped, dismissed, or result in acquittal. Regardless, it hardly satisfies concerns about due process to imprison someone for a pending but unproven charge.
Several news outlets have investigated whether DHS might miss foreign crimes but have found few additional convictions. ProPublica, for instance, identified 20 foreign “arrests or convictions,” and 11 involved violent crimes. It is unclear whether any of these people are the same as those with US criminal convictions. CBS News found 22 percent with a criminal record in the United States or abroad. The New York Times identified 13 percent with a serious criminal charge or conviction here or abroad.
As I have previously explained, tattoos—not criminal records—formed the primary evidence for DHS to label these men “gang members.”
Among the supposedly damning tattoos from the legal immigrants were several roses, multiple clocks, crowns over the names of family members, playing cards used to cover up an ugly scar from a childhood accident, a song lyric from a reggaeton artist from Puerto Rico, the Real Madrid logo on a professional soccer player, and a reference to the video game Call of Duty on a teenager. Here are gay makeup artist Andry Hernandez Romero’s tattoos. He entered legally:
The New York Times, Human Rights Watch, and 60 Minutes all found compelling, corroborated, independent testimony and evidence of torture of the Venezuelans sent to CECOT. “The prison director told us, ‘You have arrived in hell.’ In CECOT, guards and riot police beat and abused the Venezuelans constantly,” one detainee told Human Rights Watch investigators. The New York Times interviewed 40 detainees who “described being beaten, sexually assaulted by guards, and driven to the brink of suicide.” The canceled and now leaked 60 Minutes report notes that the CECOT prison director even appears to brag about abuse.
The United States should have allowed most of these immigrants to reside and work in the country legally. They could have been economic assets to the United States, and it serves no legitimate purpose to send them back to, at best, horrific conditions in Venezuela and, at worst, more persecution. But even those who disagree with their right to stay should be able to agree that the United States should not participate in extrajudicial imprisonment and torture.