Venezuelan who had rare, major surgery was deported to El Salvador prison, and his family has no idea how he is

NBC News

a day ago

Even before her son was summarily locked up in a Salvadoran prison and cut off from contact with the outside world, Mariela Villamizar was worried about his health.
Wladimir Vera Villamizar, a 33-year-old welder from western Venezuela, had recovered from a tuberculosis infection that left severe scarring in his right lung, according to his family and medical records reviewed by NBC News. His health was in decline when he arrived in the United States as an asylum-seeker last year and got progressively worse during the months he spent in immigration detention, his mother said.
In January, his family said, after Vera had been released with an ankle monitor, he was rushed to the E.R. According to medical records, he underwent an emergency right pneumonectomy — the total removal of his right lung.
'The operation took over 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 the surgery and days after President Donald Trump took office, Vera was detained once again, according to his family. After President Trump invoked emergency wartime powers in March to deport more than 200 Venezuelan men to the supermax prison in El Salvador known as the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism, or CECOT, Vera's name turned up on a list of deportees leaked to CBS News.
'Since the last time I spoke to him on March 13, I've gotten no information about him,' Villamizar's mother said. 'I don't know how he's doing, what condition his health is in, how they're holding him. Whether he's received any medical attention — or if they even have that over there in El Salvador. I just don't know.'
Because every prisoner at CECOT is held strictly incommunicado, with zero access to lawyers or loved ones, nothing is known about whether Vera is receiving any treatment. The men were deported to CECOT under a presidential order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law meant to be used in wartime that allows for the suspension of certain due process rights for noncitizens from hostile nations. The legality of the move is the subject of multiple strands of high-stakes litigation in the federal courts.
In a statement to NBC News, Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security's Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, said that Vera 'self-admitted to spending 7 years in prison on murder charges in Venezuela' and is a 'member of Tren de Aragua, one of the most violent ruthless terrorist gangs on planet earth.'
Mariela Villamizar, Vera's mother, acknowledged that Vera had served a 7-year prison sentence in Venezuela for homicide, but said this sentence was served over a false accusation and denied that her son was ever a member of Tren de Aragua.
Constitutional rights attorneys in the U.S. say the past criminal histories of the men sent to CECOT are irrelevant to their due process rights.
'The fact that he had a prior criminal conviction can in no way 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 for the Center for Constitutional Rights. 'But for this administration, the fact of a prior criminal conviction is enough to sweep away any legal protections for any person in this country.'
On the question of Vera's medical condition, McLaughlin said: 'This criminal illegal alien was in good health at the time of his deportation to El Salvador,' and referred questions about his current medical care at CECOT to the U.S. State Department. The State Department referred the inquiry back to the Department of Homeland Security.
The Department of Homeland Security would not comment on Vera's case or confirm whether he is, in fact, at CECOT.
Vera's is one of hundreds of Venezuelan families who have been clamoring for more than 100 days for proof of life from their loved ones inside CECOT. In Vera's case, the need is concrete and urgent: The removal of a lung is a rare, major operation typically requiring months of intensively managed recovery, including medication and rehabilitation exercises.
According to doctors interviewed by NBC News — including a thoracic surgeon, a pulmonologist and a primary care physician — detaining a patient so soon after a pneumonectomy raises serious alarms from a medical perspective.
'It's the kind of procedure you do maybe once a year,' said Dr. Kiran Lagisetty, a general thoracic surgeon at the University of Michigan who specializes in diseases of the lung. 'You know the name of the patient and you worry about them, because whenever you get a phone call about that, it's probably not something good.'
In the weeks after Vera was detained but before he was sent to El Salvador, according to his family, his cough — which had initially gone away after the procedure — came back.
Among other things, pneumonectomy patients are told to avoid scenarios that could lead to respiratory infections — such as the crowded indoor space of a detention center or a prison. Infection poses a serious risk not only to the remaining lung but also to the cavity left by the lung removed in the procedure. Physicians look closely for any sign of complications, especially in the first 90 days of recovery.
'When a patient starts coughing, we treat it very seriously,' Lagisetty said.
Vera's is one of several cases of men sent to CECOT with existing medical conditions. Together and Free, a nonprofit organization coordinating legal and case management services for the CECOT families, has documented, among others, eight cases of asthma, two of diabetes and one of muscular dystrophy.
Even routine cases of diabetes or hypertension can present serious problems if they are not properly treated, said Dr. Nora V. Becker, a primary care physician and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan.
'These types of chronic conditions require regular access to medications and high-quality medical care, or patients can face either immediate life-threatening complications or long-term complications that diminish their quality of life,' Becker said.
Michelle Brané, Together and Free's executive director, said the families of the men deported to CECOT 'are terrified that they are at serious risk, not only from the general conditions at CECOT but from lack of appropriate medical treatment. Their lives are at risk because the United States put them there.'