The Venezuelan who suffered a rare and major surgery was expelled from El Salvador prison, and his family has no idea how he is

Even before his son was summarily locked up in a Salvadoral prison and cut off from the outside world, Mariela Villamizar was worried about her health.

Wladimir Vera Villamizar, a 33 -year -old welder from western Venezuela, had recovered from a tuberculosis infection that left serious scars in his right lung, according to his family and the medical records examined by NBC News. His health was in decline when he arrived in the United States as a asylum seeker last year and gradually aggravated during the months he went into immigration detention, his mother said.

In January, his family said that, after the release of Vera with an ankle instructor, he was transported urgently to the emergency room according to medical records, he underwent straight emergency pneumonectomy – the total elimination of his right lung.

“The operation has taken more than five hours,” his mother told NBC News from her home in Venezuela. “God worked a miracle, and he came out ok, but the recovery was not what he expected.”

About two weeks after surgery and a few days after President Donald Trump took office, Vera was held again, according to his family. After President Trump invoked emergency powers in war times in March to expel more than 200 Venezuelan men at Supermax prison in Salvador known as the center for the relaxation of terrorism, or Cecot, the name of Vera appeared on A list of deportees disclosed to CBS News.

“Since the last time I spoke to him on March 13, I have not received any information about it,” said Villamizar’s mother. “I don’t know how he’s going, what condition is his health, how they hold it. That he received medical care – or if they even have this there in Salvador. I just don’t know. ”

Because each Cecot prisoner is strictly prohibited, without access to lawyers or dear beings, there is nothing to know if Vera receives treatment. The men were expelled to CECOT under a presidential order invoking the law on extraterrestrial enemies of 1798, a law intended to be used in wartime which allows the suspension of certain regular procedural rights for the non-citizens of the hostile nations. The legality of the decision is the subject of several disputes of disputes with high issues before the federal courts.

In a statement to NBC News, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs secretary of the Ministry of Homeland Security, said that Vera “self-admitted to spending 7 years in prison in murder accusations in Venezuela” and is a “member of Tren of Aragua, one of the most violent terrorist terrorist gangs on the planet Earth”.

Mariela Villamizar, Vera’s mother, admitted that Vera had a 7 -year prison sentence in Venezuela for Homicide, but said that this sentence had been purged for a false accusation and denied that her son was ever a member of Tren of Aragua.

In the United States, lawyers for constitutional rights claim that the criminal history of men sent to Cecot are not relevant to their rights to regular procedure.

“The fact that he had a previous criminal conviction can in no case deprive him of his procedural rights, including the right not to be sent to his potential death in a third country,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “But for this administration, the fact of a previous criminal conviction is enough to sweep away any legal protection for anyone in this country.”

On the issue of Vera’s medical state, McLaughlin said: “This criminal foreigner was in good health at the time of his expulsion to Salvador” and referred questions about his current medical care at Cecot in the US State Department. The State Department referred the investigation to the Ministry of Internal Security.

The Ministry of Internal Security would not comment on the case of Vera or would not confirm if it is, in fact, in Cecot.

Vera’s is one of the hundreds of Venezuelan families who have been demanding for more than 100 days for proof of the lives of their loved ones inside Cecot. In the case of Vera, the need is concrete and urgent: the elimination of a lung is a rare and major operation generally requiring months of intensively managed recovery, including drugs and rehabilitation exercises.

According to doctors interviewed by NBC News – including a thoracic surgeon, a pulmonologist and a primary care doctor – holding a patient so shortly after pneumonectomy raises serious alarms from a medical perspective.

“This is the kind of procedure that you may do once a year,” said Dr. Kiran Lagisty, a general thoracic surgeon of the University of Michigan who specializes in lung diseases. “You know the name of the patient and you worry, because each time you receive a phone call on this subject, it is probably not something good.”

In the weeks following Vera’s detention but before being sent to Salvador, according to his family, his cough – who had first disappeared after the procedure – returned.

Among other things, patients with pneumonectomy are invited to avoid scenarios that could lead to respiratory infections – such as the crowded interior space of a detention center or a prison. The infection presents a serious risk not only for the remaining lung but also to the cavity left by the lung removed in the procedure. Doctors are looking closely with any sign of complications, especially in the first 90 days of recovery.

“When a patient begins to cough, we treat him very seriously,” said Lagisetty.

Vera is one of the many cases of men sent to Cecot with existing medical conditions. Together and free, a non -profit organization coordinating legal and case management services for CECOT families, has documented, among other things, eight cases of asthma, two of diabetes and muscular dystrophy.

Even cases of diabetes or hypertension routine may present serious problems if they are not treated properly, said Dr. Nora V. Becker, primary care doctor and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan.

“These types of chronic conditions require regular access to high -quality drugs and medical care, or patients can face immediate deadly complications or long -term complications that decrease their quality of life,” said Becker.

Michelle Brane, director general of Free and Free, said that the families of men expelled from Cecot “are terrified by the terrificance that they are serious, not only of the general conditions of Cecot, but for lack of appropriate medical treatment. Their life is in danger because the United States has put them there. ”