Venezuelans sue aviation firms over CECOT prison deportation flights

Lawsuit targets private contractors in immigration enforcement actions

Three Venezuelan men who were deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison last year have filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. aviation companies CSI Aviation and GlobalX, accusing them of violating the men’s civil rights by knowingly transporting them to a facility where they would be tortured, according to a lawsuit filed July 17 in federal court in Washington, D.C.

The suit — filed by a team of human rights attorneys and first reported by the Guardian — accuses the companies of false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence, alleging that CSI and GlobalX “went to great lengths” to execute what the lawsuit describes as “rendition flights” to El Salvador “in concert with the US government, in flagrant violation of US and international law.”

Anthony Enriquez, vice president of advocacy and litigation for the Kennedy Human Rights Center, said in an interview that “many people might not be aware of the degree to which private companies are intertwined with the human rights abuses occurring under the Trump administration through the detention and unlawful deportation schemes that are occurring.” Enriquez is one of the attorneys representing the Venezuelan men.

The lawsuit stems from the Trump administration’s March 2025 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, which President Donald Trump used to expel hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants from the United States. Trump accused the Venezuelan government, then led by Nicolás Maduro, of instructing members of the Tren de Aragua gang to “invade” the U.S. The administration has never publicly proved that the Venezuelan men it deported were members of the gang.

On the day the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, GlobalX — working at the behest of CSI, according to the lawsuit — positioned three planes at a Texas airport for the operation. The Department of Homeland Security had hired CSI Aviation, a Texas-based company, and GlobalX, headquartered in Florida, to conduct the flights. After the planes took off for Central America, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered them to return. The lawsuit alleges the companies ignored the court order and continued to El Salvador.

“Despite knowing that El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (‘CECOT’) mega-prison was a notorious blacksite, from which no detainee had ever left alive, Defendants went to great lengths to transport Plaintiffs and Class Members there, in concert with the US government, in flagrant violation of U.S. and international law,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants evaded or ignored judicial oversight and the foreseeable risk of torture and successfully delivered Plaintiffs and the Class to El Salvador for imprisonment at CECOT.”

The men were deported alongside more than 230 other Venezuelan detainees. According to the lawsuit, the Venezuelans “continue to experience severe emotional suffering from the humiliation, terror, and cruelty that they endured.”

Once the men arrived in El Salvador, Salvadoran security forces boarded the planes, beat the deportees, and transported them to CECOT, according to accounts collected in a November 2025 Human Rights Watch report. HRW described the men as “subjected to what amounts to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance under international human rights law.” The report also detailed conditions inside the facility, including guards using beatings, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and sexual assault against detainees.

CSI Aviation has played a significant role in the administration’s deportation campaign, the lawsuit says, brokering “nearly all” deportation flights via a multimillion-dollar contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The company is the single highest-value recipient of ICE contracts, the lawsuit adds, with revenue from ICE totaling $1.23 billion in 2025. For the three flights to El Salvador, CSI sub-contracted with GlobalX, with CSI serving as the intermediary between ICE and the airline.

Without CSI and GlobalX’s involvement, the lawsuit says, “neither Plaintiffs nor the Class would have been rendered to CECOT.”

The Venezuelan men were returned to their home country in July 2025 after a prisoner exchange deal involving the United States, El Salvador, and Venezuela. The group of Salvadoran nationals who were also sent to CECOT on those flights remain detained there, according to the lawsuit. The U.S. government has not released the full list of deportees sent to the facility.

CSI Aviation and GlobalX had not responded to the lawsuit at the time of the filing, the Guardian reported. The DHS did not respond to specific claims in the lawsuit and referred questions to the Salvadoran government.

Federal judge James Boasberg, who is presiding over the original CECOT deportation case, will oversee the lawsuit’s proceedings and determine whether the entire class of Venezuelans can sue.

The three main plaintiffs continue to experience daily headaches, difficulty sleeping, and emotional distress from their time in detention, the lawsuit says.