Just weeks after undergoing a rare and life-threatening surgery, 33-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker Wladimir Vera Villamizar was deported from the U.S. to one of the world’s most notorious prisons in El Salvador—and his family hasn’t heard from him since.
Vera, a welder from western Venezuela, had been in fragile health after recovering from a severe tuberculosis infection that left extensive damage to his right lung. In January, while under U.S. immigration monitoring, his condition worsened and he was rushed to the hospital, where doctors performed a full right pneumonectomy—removing one of his lungs.
“It was a miracle he survived the operation,” said his mother, Mariela Villamizar, speaking from Venezuela. “But the recovery was difficult. He needed time and care—not prison.”
Yet only two weeks after surgery, and just days after President Donald Trump assumed office, Vera was detained again. By March, his name appeared on a leaked list of over 200 Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador’s massive Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a supermax facility known for strict isolation and inhumane conditions. The deportations followed Trump’s emergency order invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime-era law allowing the government to bypass certain legal protections for non-citizens.
Mariela last spoke to her son on March 13. Since then, she has heard nothing.
“I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if he’s being treated. I don’t even know if they have doctors in there,” she said. “He’s completely disappeared.”
CECOT holds inmates in total isolation, cutting them off from lawyers, family, and medical advocates. This secrecy leaves Vera’s health status—just months after a critical surgery—completely unknown.
In a statement to NBC News, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin alleged that Vera admitted to spending seven years in a Venezuelan prison for murder and claimed he was affiliated with Tren de Aragua, a violent gang. His mother denies the gang affiliation and insists her son’s conviction was based on a false accusation.
Legal experts argue Vera’s past, whether true or not, should not strip him of basic legal protections or humane treatment.
“A prior conviction cannot erase someone’s due process rights—or justify sending them to a place where they could die,” said Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The government claims Vera was “in good health” at the time of his deportation, but medical experts strongly disagree that such a statement can be responsibly made so soon after a lung removal. Doctors say recovery from a pneumonectomy requires months of close monitoring, medication, and a sterile environment—none of which are likely in a prison setting.
“It’s a major surgery—one of the biggest we do. If a patient starts coughing again, we get concerned immediately,” said Dr. Kiran Lagisetty, a thoracic surgeon at the University of Michigan. Vera’s family said his cough had returned just before his deportation.
The case is part of a growing pattern. Nonprofit group Together and Free, which assists families of the men deported to CECOT, says Vera is one of several medically vulnerable detainees sent to El Salvador. The organization has documented cases involving asthma, diabetes, muscular dystrophy, and other chronic illnesses among the deportees.
“These families are terrified,” said Michelle Brané, the group’s executive director. “They know their loved ones are sick, and they know they’re in a place with little to no medical care. The U.S. government sent them there—knowing the risks.”
Despite repeated inquiries, the Department of Homeland Security refuses to confirm whether Vera is even in CECOT. The State Department referred all questions back to DHS.
For Vera’s family, the silence is devastating.
“This isn’t justice. This is cruelty,” Mariela said. “We’re just asking to know if he’s alive, and if someone is taking care of him.”
