– The Washington Times
El Salvador’s prisons may be notorious for their harsh approach to law and order, but they aren’t bad enough to justify someone gaining asylum or similar protections in the U.S., a federal appeals court ruled this week.
Jose Fuentes-Pineda, a former member of the 18th Street gang, had said he faced certain torture if sent back to El Salvador because that country’s government takes such a punitive approach to gang members.
But the immigration courts disagreed, saying it was possible but “too speculative” to say he would face torture, and the country’s prison system, while rough, wasn’t designed to inflict torture, even though that may sometimes happen incidentally.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday agreed, dismissing Mr. Fuentes-Pineda’s appeal.
“Isolated instances of torture in prison do not establish a clear probability Fuentes-Pineda himself will be tortured,” wrote Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee to the appeals court.
The ruling came the same day that a Venezuelan migrant deported last year to El Salvador filed a lawsuit arguing, among other things, that his incarceration at El Salvador’s terrorism prison, CECOT, was a violation of his rights.
Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel was among the migrants shipped out on March 15, 2025, in Mr. Trump’s first use of the 1798 law allowing speedy deportations for people deemed to be enemies of America.
Mr. Rengel said he faced “physical and psychological abuse, humiliation, and degradation” at the prison.
In Mr. Fuentes-Pineda’s case, he was a member of the 18th Street gang but said he was allowed to drop out when he became a Christian.
He argued that past gang membership would make him a target for El Salvador, which takes a hard line on gangs.
He had sought to block his deportation under what’s known as the Convention Against Torture, an international agreement that prohibits nations from returning someone to a nation where he faces a real danger of torture.
The 5th Circuit, siding with the immigration court judges, said the majority of gang members detained in El Salvador don’t face torture and so there’s no automatic reason to assume Mr. Fuentes-Pineda would.
Mr. Fuentes-Pineda was deported to El Salvador in January 2025, but the 5th Circuit said the case remained ripe because his deportation still carries a decade-long bar to admissibility to the U.S.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
