Edicson David Quintero Chacón filed an amended petition for writ of habeas corpus on April 16, 2025, challenging the legality of his detention at the infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (“CECOT”) in El Salvador. Mr. Quintero is one of more than two hundred people the U.S. government has been paying to confine, incommunicado, at El Salvador’s notorious megamax prison known for widespread human rights abuses and torture. His amended petition seeks a court order requiring the U.S. government to release him from CECOT.

Mr. Quintero is a 28-year-old Venezuelan native. He is a loving husband, a father of two, and a skilled carpenter and fisherman. Mr. Quintero first came to the U.S. in April 2024. Although immigration officials initially released him, they later took him into custody during a routine ICE check-in. An immigration judge ultimately ordered that Mr. Quintero be deported to Venezuela. Nonetheless, Mr. Quintero remained caged in ICE detention for eight months due to deteriorating U.S.-Venezuela relations and the lack of deportation flights to Venezuela.

Mr. Quintero filed an initial habeas petition in February 2025 challenging his indefinite detention at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. But instead of releasing Mr. Quintero or responding to his petition, the government took the extraordinary and lawless step of transferring Mr. Quintero to CECOT — a decision that could amount to an effective life sentence. Mr. Quintero’s amended habeas petition challenges the legal basis for his confinement and seeks his immediate release from CECOT. 

CECOT has a well-documented history of civil and human rights abuses. One court described CECOT as the site of “some of the most inhumane and squalid conditions known in any carceral system.” Human Rights Watch, an organization that investigates human rights abuses globally, is unaware of any detained people who have ever been released from CECOT. People held in CECOT are denied communication with their lawyers and family members and only appear before courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred at a time. Those detained share communal cells that hold up to 100 people and sleep on metal slabs, without pillows or blankets.

Like others forcibly sent to CECOT, Mr. Quintero was given no due process and no opportunity to contest his transfer to a foreign prison. His continued detention is a clear violation of applicable laws, including the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act. The government must therefore immediately release Mr. Quintero from CECOT.