Man Alleges Unlawful Extradition to Notorious El Salvador Prison, Files $1.3 Million Lawsuit Against Trump Administration

A Venezuelan man who was deported to a well-known prison in El Salvador is pursuing a claim for damages of at least $1.3 million from the United States. This legal action, a tort lawsuit, was initiated in a federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

On March 13, 2025, Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel was apprehended by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as detailed in a 44-page complaint acquired by Law&Crime.

The lawsuit highlights that Rengel’s arrest took place on the morning of his 27th birthday, a date that has since become a poignant reminder of his ordeal.

“While he is grateful to be free from prison and reunited with his daughter, the trauma lingers, haunting his dreams and often bringing him to tears upon waking,” the complaint states. “His birthday, once a joyful occasion, now symbolizes the beginning of his journey to what many call ‘hell,’ casting a shadow over any future celebrations.”

Rengel was part of the initial group of three controversial flights to the El Salvadoran detention facility known as the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT). These flights collectively transported 238 men to CECOT, defying a bench order issued by Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.

Those illegal flights came after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), an obscure 18th-century wartime law.

Trump, for his part, categorized each of those deportees as members of transnational gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) and used the AEA invocation to claim the gang had long been “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.” In turn, the 45th and 47th president claimed summary deportation authority under the AEA statute.

Rengel has consistently maintained “he has never had any affiliation with TdA or any other gang,” the lawsuit notes.

Boasberg and other judges broadly rejected the president’s use of the AEA in connection with the summary flights to El Salvador.

The plaintiff, though illegally deported, and though Boasberg demanded his — and other detainees’ — swift return, spent four months in CECOT until a prisoner exchange in July 2025. While incarcerated there, prison guards subjected him to “physical and psychological abuse, humiliation, and degradation,” according to the lawsuit.

“Plaintiff suffered cruel and unusual punishment while imprisoned in CECOT, including physical and psychological torture, solitary confinement, inhumane living conditions, and deliberate indifference to medical care,” the filing reads. “These conditions and the physical abuse inflicted on Plaintiff were the direct, proximate result of the decisions of federal officials…And they constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

All the while, the U.S. government “retained constructive custody over” Rengel, the four-count lawsuit argues.

The concept of constructive custody is a legal doctrine wherein an entity does not have literal physical custody over a person, or an item, but retains a significant and cognizable level of authority or control.

Rengel claims the U.S. government maintained constructive custody over him because federal officials — from ICE agents to the White House itself — were responsible for his initial detention, flight to El Salvador, and, ultimately, the time he spent in CECOT.

“Federal officials had no lawful discretion to violate the Constitution, to defy a federal court order, to act beyond the bounds of their statutory authority, violate mandatory, non-discretionary legal duties under agency policy or to subject persons in their constructive custody to torture, deliberate medical neglect, and conditions of confinement that shock the conscience,” the lawsuit alleges.

Each of the four claims is brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), a statute which allows individuals to sue over damages caused by the tortious acts of federal employees and, in certain express circumstances, waives immunity for members of law enforcement.

The lawsuit alleges government agents were negligent by sending him to “a known high-risk environment where detainees were subject to extreme violence, psychological abuse and denial of medical care.”

The filing further alleges the U.S. government itself intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon Rengel when officials “directed and implemented an unconstitutional immigration scheme, which included extreme and outrageous conduct such as denying Plaintiff due process, unjustly separating Plaintiff from his family and livelihood, and ultimately severely punishing Plaintiff through physical and psychological means.”

The third claim alleges law enforcement engaged in “abuse of process” under the laws of either Texas or Washington, D.C. — or both — because the planes carrying the Venezuelan men left the small Lone Star State town of Harlingen and because Boasberg exercised jurisdiction over the case from the nation’s capital, respectively.

From the filing at length:

Law enforcement officers executed illegal and improper use of process in furtherance of the Administration’s broader unlawful scheme of retribution and intimidation of Venezuelans and other non-citizens, which resulted in Plaintiff suffering from physical injury, mental anguish, and loss of liberty. Law enforcement officers further abused process and authority by using detention and removal procedures that operated outside permissible immigration law to secretly and deceptively deport Plaintiff outside of his scheduled court hearing, without due process and in violation of a court order.

Finally, the complaint alleges both the government and members of law enforcement subjected Rengel to false imprisonment.

“Law enforcement officers committed false imprisonment by willfully continuing to detain Plaintiff pursuant to an unlawful implementation of the AEA, which denied him due process and violated his constitutional rights, for which the officers had no lawful authority,” the filing goes on. “Law enforcement officers further committed false imprisonment by detaining Plaintiff on a deportation flight to El Salvador despite an existing court order prohibiting his removal, thereby confining him without lawful authority.”

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) announcing the litigation, Rengel’s attorney Norm Eisen described his client’s treatment at the hands of the U.S. government as a “kidnapping.”

“He was abducted & tortured for four months in defiance of a court order,” Eisen said, adding that the plaintiff’s legal team will “hold Trump, [Stephen] Miller, [Kristi] Noem et. al accountable.”