Re: Convention Against Torture

August 6, 2025

President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Re: Convention Against Torture

Dear Mr. President:

The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture. Among other things, Article 3 of the Convention prohibits the United States from sending or returning a person to a jurisdiction where the risk of torture is material. The prohibition is absolute, whether the victim has been convicted of a crime or is a saint.

As reported in The Washington Post (July 31, 2025, “‘Welcome to hell:’ Inside the megaprison where the U.S. deported immigrants,”), your administration violated Article 3 in deporting Venezuelans to suffer torture in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

Relevant portions of the story speak volumes:

“One detainee was beaten unconscious. Others emerged from the dark isolation room covered in bruises, struggling to walk or vomiting blood. Another returned to his cell in tears, telling fellow detainees he’d just been sexually assaulted.

“Let’s hit him like a piñata,” guards shouted amid the beatings, detainees recalled, the blows echoing against the metal walls.

They called it “La Isla”—The Island—the cell where Venezuelans deported from the United States by the Trump administration said they suffered some of the worst abuse of their 125 days in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.”

You have turned international law into a spider’s web. It catches the politically weak but is shredded by the powerful.

Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, Esq.

Ralph Nader, Esq.

Lou Fisher