A Venezuelan man who says he was mistakenly identified as a gang member and then deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador has sued the U.S. government for at least $1.3 million in damages, alleging a series of rights violations and unlawful conduct by U.S. officials.
The complainant, Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, a barber who previously lived in Irving, Texas, filed the suit on Tuesday in federal court in Washington. His complaint lists claims including false imprisonment and negligence and asserts that U.S. immigration officers detained and deported him despite a federal court order.
According to the lawsuit, Rengel was detained in March 2025 while on his way to work after immigration officers identified him as a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The complaint says the officers offered tattoos as the only basis for that identification.
"This case reveals an illegal and morally bereft plan of action at the highest levels of our government to defy a federal court, strip a man of his rights, and hand him over to a foreign government for torture to prove a political point," said Norm Eisen, a lawyer for Rengel. "Adrián Rengel spent four months in abhorrent, inhumane conditions because senior officials chose to flout the rule of law."
The lawsuit states that Rengel was among 252 Venezuelans deported last year to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison. Rengel alleges that during his roughly four-month confinement he was subjected by Salvadoran officials to physical and psychological abuse, as well as humiliation and degradation.
He was released from the Salvadoran facility in July 2025 and returned to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap between the United States and Venezuela, the complaint says. The filing also notes that Rengel previously filed a formal administrative complaint against the U.S. government last year, a required step before bringing the federal lawsuit.
The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement responding to the lawsuit, reiterated the agency's position that Rengel entered the United States illegally from Venezuela in 2023 and that he is an associate of Tren de Aragua. The agency characterized him as "a public safety threat."
The complaint appears to be the first suit seeking damages from the United States by someone deported to that particular Salvadoran prison, according to the filing. It contends that senior U.S. officials knowingly violated legal protections and transferred Rengel in contravention of a federal court order.
Rengel's legal team contends the actions were not only unlawful but part of a deliberate policy choice by senior officials. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages of no less than $1.3 million for the harms Rengel says he suffered while detained and after deportation.
The case draws attention to accountability questions arising from the U.S. government's policy choices and actions in the course of immigration enforcement and deportation operations. The lawsuit frames the issue as one of legal compliance and individual rights, while the Department of Homeland Security frames it as a public safety and immigration-enforcement matter.
Context and procedural notes
- The complaint was filed in federal court in Washington.
- Rengel alleges he was detained in March 2025 and held for four months in El Salvador before being returned to Venezuela in July 2025.
- He previously submitted a formal administrative complaint against the U.S., which the filing describes as a necessary precursor to this lawsuit.