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Dear John,
All Americans should be horrified by what the Trump administration is doing: sending people to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison CECOT. They're taken—without warning or due process—and forced to endure deplorable conditions, beatings, and torture in a foreign prison.
This is what’s happened to Edicson David Quintero Chacón, a 28-year-old father of two from Venezuela who is currently imprisoned at CECOT.
Mr. Quintero turned himself in to U.S. immigration authorities when he arrived at the southern border last year. During a regular check-in with ICE, the agency detained him while his immigration case was still pending.
After spending eight grueling months in ICE detention, Mr. Quintero couldn’t take it anymore and gave up on fighting his immigration case. He filed a lawsuit asking for his release, since deportation to Venezuela wasn’t possible at the time. His simple plea: “I just want to go home.”
But instead of answering that lawsuit, the government sent him to CECOT. He remains locked up, incommunicado, with more than 200 other Venezuelans the U.S. government is paying to imprison there.
We won’t let this stand. Today, alongside our partners at the National Immigration Project and the Center for Constitutional Rights, we filed an amended habeas corpus petition demanding that the U.S. government take all reasonable steps to secure Mr. Quintero’s release.
The Trump administration has made a deal with a foreign government, led by a self-proclaimed dictator, to detain people at a notoriously inhumane prison. This is a blatant attempt to divest U.S. courts of their ability to review the administration's actions.
Mr. Quintero’s continued detention is both illegal and cruel. But we refuse to give up. Thank you for standing with us. We will continue to update you about Mr. Quintero’s case.
If you’d like to support this case, consider making a gift to the Council today.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Cassler
Senior Litigation Attorney
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