On Friday, July 18, Pastor Vladimir López—a Salvadoran inmate serving an 85-year sentence—stood before 252 Venezuelan detainees at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) and told them, “I couldn’t be here on the day of your arrival, but I can joyfully be here on the day of your departure.” They were finally going home.
Arturo Suárez-Trejo, a musician, broke down in tears, as did the pastor. Throughout their captivity, López had read them the Bible, offered countless blessings, and helped them endure the tedium of a prison cell, instilling a belief in inner freedom. He had also saved Arturo from several beatings he would have received for the crime of singing in one of the world’s most feared prisons.
In Cecot, singing was forbidden—a devastating punishment for Arturo, 33, who performs under the name SuarezVzla. He was in the middle of recording his song TXTEO when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a house in Raleigh, North Carolina, and arrested a group of 10 Venezuelans, including him.
On multiple occasions, Cecot guards assaulted Arturo for daring to sing. The only exception was when Pastor López visited Module 8 and asked Arturo to accompany him in singing hymns. One in particular resonated: “Let nothing kill your faith, let nothing make you doubt, because it’s only a short time until you return to your home.”
Arturo etched those lyrics with a bar of soap onto the metal surface of his bunk, where he slept for 125 days without sheets, a pillow, or a mattress, his back against the cold frame and his shoes tucked under his neck for support. The eight men in cell 31 grew so close that they became family, losing all sense of personal privacy.
To pass the time, Arturo exercised or talked with his cellmates. And sometimes, he sang, vowing to himself that he wouldn’t stop, despite the beatings. “The guards hated seeing us sleep during the day,” he recounts by phone, now back home in Caracas. “I spent my time singing. It brightened my life a little and brightened it for the rest of them.”
The detainees rarely left their seven-by-four-meter cell, not even for sunlight, except for two visits from the Red Cross, who documented their bruised and battered bodies. While outside the prison their families desperately demanded confirmation of whether they were alive or dead, inside, time crawled. The prisoners had no clocks or televisions, only the sun to mark the passage of days. “The officers told us the world had forgotten about us,” Arturo says.
The daily routine began at 4 a.m. with a wake-up call, followed by a shower and meals of rice, beans, and tortillas. With those same tortillas, Arturo crafted a heart hardened with toothpaste, carving the names of his wife, Nathali, and daughter, Nahiara, who remain in Chile, where he had moved in 2018 to pursue his music.
His arrest on February 8 now feels like a distant memory. ICE and FBI agents stormed the location of his music video shoot without a warrant. Arturo had entered the United States legally through the port of San Ysidro, California, using the CBP One application. “I’m aware it wasn’t a permanent legal status, but it was a legal entry,” says Arturo, who had been working painting houses and cutting grass.
After his arrest, he was held incommunicado for five days, then transferred to detention centers in Georgia and Texas. On March 15, Arturo boarded a plane he believed was headed for Venezuela. He managed to call his wife to tell her he was finally being deported, a welcome alternative to remaining in ICE custody. He had even requested voluntary departure, but was ignored. Instead, he and the others were accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, with their tattoos cited as proof.
“I never saw a judge or an immigration lawyer, only an ICE officer,” he recalls. “I asked him so many questions that he got overwhelmed, slammed his fist on the table, and said, ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you. Right now, what they want is results.’”
The deportation proceeded despite a judge’s order to halt it. The U.S. administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, labeling the migrants “enemies of the country.” When their plane landed, they were not in Venezuela. “The worst destination they could have given us: El Salvador,” Arturo says. “When we raised the window shades, we saw a sea of soldiers and police, and we saw the flag. I knew then they were taking us to Cecot.”
Initially, the detainees refused to disembark, but they were forced off the plane with beatings. “An officer told me something that shattered me: ‘You’re going to stay here for 90 years.’ I lost all hope.” During the assault, an officer punched him in the face, breaking his glasses. Severely nearsighted, Arturo was left with blurred vision and debilitating migraines for months.
Upon arrival at Cecot, their heads were shaved, and they were stripped and given prison uniforms. They were new inmates in the 116-hectare mega-prison, assigned to Module 8. The four months there were marked by desperation, including a three-day hunger strike and a “blood strike,” where inmates cut themselves and wrote “SOS” and “We are Venezuelans, not terrorists” on the walls with their own blood. The final protest was met with a brutal crackdown. “The regime became five times worse,” Arturo says. “They beat us for talking, for bathing. They beat me just for being born.”
About 15 days before their release, their clothing and shoe sizes were measured, sparking hope. On July 17, they were given razors. The next day, after a final early morning wake-up call, they were led to a bus where a Venezuelan official greeted them: “¿Qué pasó, chamos?” (What’s up, guys?). The group erupted in cheers, knowing their ordeal was ending.
On the evening of July 18, they landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Venezuela, part of a three-way deal in which they were exchanged for 10 Americans detained in the country. The agreement also included the U.S. returning seven separated children to Venezuela, and Caracas releasing 80 political prisoners.
After nearly 48 hours of physical and psychological evaluations by Venezuelan authorities, Arturo was finally reunited with his three brothers. “When I hugged them, I felt at home, I felt safe,” he says.
Back in Caracas, in front of a colorful “Welcome Arturo” sign, he sings “Amor y Control” by Panamanian artist Rubén Blades. “It’s the song they requested most in Cecot,” he says. He has since learned that Blades, also a lawyer, had publicly condemned the “arbitrary manner in which the law is sometimes applied” in his case.
Arturo is glad the world hadn’t forgotten him after all. He is now resting and readjusting, even re-learning how to sleep in a bed with a mattress. “It’s been hard to sleep in a bed. I got used to sleeping on metal.” He cannot bring himself to look at photos or videos from his time in Cecot. “It breaks my soul to see myself, to see them.”
He vows never to return to the United States. “My rights were violated there,” he says. “To President Donald Trump, I say change your hateful rhetoric. See that we migrants are more than a plague; we often leave our countries driven by necessity and to fulfill our dreams. I forgive him, but he should ask God for forgiveness.”
His family has already bought him new glasses. For the first time in months, he can see the world clearly again.
