The lawyer Jaime Ortega, hired by Venezuela to represent 35 migrants who would be imprisoned in the CECOT, ensures that this situation “will test the democratic institutionality of El Salvador”
RFI in Spanish | Melissa Bar
On March 15, a group of 238 Venezuelans arrested in migratory facilities were deported by the United States to El Salvador, where they were sent to the center of the confinement of terrorism (CECOT), a mega jail built by Nayib Bukele.
Donald Trump’s administration justified shipments by invoking the foreign enemies law, and pointed out that these migrants belonged to the Aragua Train Criminal band, declared a month earlier as a terrorist organization.
Although an American court ordered deportations to be paralyzed through the use of foreign enemies law, the US has continued to send migrants to El Salvador. Relatives of Venezuelans have gone to various instances to get help and allow them to have contact with them.
Jaime Ortega is a Salvadoran lawyer from the firm buffet Grupo Ortega. It has been hired by Venezuela to represent 35 migrants who would be imprisoned in the CECOT. He ensures that this situation «will test the democratic institutionality of El Salvador. We trust that we are still within a democratic system, because the institutions are there ».
-Have you been able to get in touch with your customers since she was hired to represent some 35 Venezuelans who would be detained in the CECOT?
—The detention center has its own norms and its protocol with restricted rules, since it is a confinement center for terrorism. Reason why we have submitted relevant requests to the Attorney General’s Office for the Defense of Human Rights to ask them to accompany them. The Constitution of the Republic of the Salvador establishes that it must be the holder of said institution that watches for its rights. We have not had any response.
We have also requested the general director of Criminal Centers to make a channel to communicate with our representatives and enforce the right to assist a lawyer, since they are keeping detention in a maximum security center. So far we have not received any response. We consider that the institutions are taking the relevant analyzes and will resolve it once Easter holidays take place.
-What could you know about detention conditions? Have you been able to confirm that those people are in that prison?
– Official information, none, since the case has a reservation by the institutions. Unofficially, yes, according to the list that is handled, which was filtered by CBS and whose source of was the FBI portal. They were recognized by their relatives in the media of the videos and the photographs that passed on the web.
These people have not committed any crime in our country, in El Salvador. Therefore, we must consider in good faith that they are with a different treatment to the prison treatment that the rest of the inmates have, in a separate sector.
*Also read: relatives of deportees to El Salvador ask Maduro: What answers do we have?
It is speculated that it is located in sector 8 and at least assisted by a medical clinic found in that sector. That its diet and accommodation is being carried out in a different way to the prison treatment that governs that detention center.
-What does it allow you to assume that they would be in a wing other than that of the other inmates?
– They are in a maximum security detention center, but they have not committed any crime here in the country, much less in the United States of America. Washington has not had at least the delicacy of sending us even if it is a conviction of one of these young people detained in the CECOT that establishes that they have been tried and convicted in the United States for belonging to some criminal group. We have nothing like thatno official document.
What we have of Washington is that more than 150 of these people had an irregular immigration situation in the United States. Therefore, we consider that, if they are in the quality of migrants, because a maximum security penitentiary regime should not be applied, but must be a different treatment to the treatment of a convict. That is what we speculate on the basis of the same regulations that attend these criminal centers.
-Han presented a habeas corpus so that the Supreme Court of Justice allows the release of these people. What does the Salvadoran legal framework contemplate in this case that is unpublished?
– We considerate that habeas corpus was the main treatment for the Honorable Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice to determine that these people should not be a moment in that place, because they have not committed any crime within the Republic of the Savior and that it is not established that they have committed crimes in other countries.
In addition to Habeas Corpus, we are also considering the situation of raising a demand for unconstitutionality of this alleged agreement, agreement or treaty – that does not exist – between the United States and El Salvador. We consider Activate United Nations mechanisms and public international law.
We are going to move a territorial asylum for these people with the embassy of a government that Asiles them, so that they are in an orderly and systematically repatriated way towards their country of origin, Venezuela.
-The Venezuelan government that hired him to defend these people, described that kidnapping imprisonment. Is it possible in this case to speak of kidnapping? How do you expect Salvadoran justice to appropriate the case to be able to invalidate arrests?
–The Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Chamber have jurisdiction. The United States has stated that this person has been expelled and sent the problem to El Salvador. As is the case for the Salvadoran Kilmar Ábrego GarcíaThe United States no longer has jurisdiction.
It is a situation that, according to the history of our country, was only established in the time of slavery, when they were dealing with slaves and were marketed. This, unfortunately, this situation in our country establishes a legal setback.
In that same condition are the 238 Venezuelans. To us 35 Venezuelan families have granted us power, but we also seek by the whole. Somehow the Salvadoran State institutions must resolve.
-How is the calendar? How much can the judicial body take to settle on this case?
– There is not a certain term. The Constitutional Chamber is doing the relevant analyzes and is going to take enough time to feed and feed on this unpublished situation.
And when we exhaust the national instances, it already enables us also for international situations.
-Do you think that the judicial body in El Salvador will have sufficient independence before the Executive to give reason to the right that protects these migrants?
–Here the democratic institutionality of El Salvador will be tested. We trust that we are still within a democratic system, because the institutions there are. There we will see how they identify.
*Journalism in Venezuela is exercised in a hostile environment for the press with dozens of legal instruments arranged for the punishment of the word, especially the laws “against hatred”, “against fascism” and “against blockade.” This content is being published taking into account the threats and limits that, consequently, have been imposed on the dissemination of information from within the country.
