Mireya Sandia was lying on the bed with her eyes wide open. Her skin was pale, her white hair nearly gone. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer years earlier, and more recently it had spread to her brain and affected her speech. When we first met, in May, she waved me closer, grabbed my hand with a surprisingly strong grip and said, as best she could:
“I want to see my son again.” Then she began to cry.
With a knot in my throat, I held her hand, fearing that there would not be enough time for her to see her only son, Wilmer Vega Sandia.
Her health was what led her son to migrate to the United States. His detention and later deportation to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, known as CECOT, had, in turn, led me to her bedroom in a small village in the Andes.
Over the past four months, as part of a ProPublica-led investigation in collaboration with The Texas Tribune, Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Rebel Alliance Investigates) and Cazadores de Fake News (Fake News Hunters), I have documented in photographs the lives of five families whose sons had been imprisoned in El Salvador, as well as their return to Venezuela, where I am from. I had visited with mothers like Mireya Sandia and other relatives to see how the absence of their loved ones had affected them.
I walked beside them when they protested on the streets of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. I saw them as their hopes grew when there was word that the negotiations for the men’s return were ongoing, and I saw them again when those hopes were deflated after the first negotiations failed.
I documented the homecomings, when the men were abruptly flown back.
Lina Ramos lived in a humble neighborhood on the outskirts of Caracas and attended several marches that I photographed. I knew how tight money was for the family and the incredible effort it took for her to advocate for her son, Juan José Ramos Ramos. Lina told me that she had to crowdfund and get donations from her church, family and neighbors to afford a $2 round-trip bus ticket to the capital. The anguish of his imprisonment, she told me, didn’t let her sit still.
Crisálida Bastidas’ home was also modest. Imagine a tiny kitchen in the left corner and, on the opposite wall, two big beds beside one another for several people to sleep on. Her son José Manuel Ramos Bastidas had been in CECOT for more than three months by the time we met, and I could see her hope vanishing as his imprisonment stretched on. Her sadness was visible, and she looked exhausted. She told me that she couldn’t sleep unless her 1-year-old grandson Jared was with her, the two of them nestled together, with a picture of José Manuel as a child hanging above the bed. The two were identical as children, and she clung to her grandson to feel near to her own son.
As more time passed, they sometimes slipped into speaking about their sons in the past tense. Then they’d quickly correct themselves and say, “He’s alive.”
I remember one mother on her knees, crying and asking, “Please make this stop.”
One morning, I got a call telling me that the men were coming home. It was one of the many mothers I had met in the past few months. I was wary, because this was not the first time I had gotten a call like that, and I always worried what disappointment would do to them. Doris Sandia, Wilmer’s aunt, called me and asked several times if I was sure the men were coming home. She was wary of getting her heart broken again. But this time it was true.
By the time I got out of the house, families that could afford to come to Caracas were already marching downtown. This time they were celebrating.
I ran into Lina Ramos and almost didn’t recognize her. She had a wide smile that I had never seen before. She hugged me tight, relieved to see a familiar face behind dozens of cameras. I walked next to her for miles.
The next day I was at Lina’s house at sunrise, waiting to finally photograph her son. Lina had gotten $20 in donations from family members and neighbors, and she used that money to decorate her house. She made stewed chicken with rice and plantains, her son’s favorite. Lina didn’t want to take any phone calls, to keep the line clear in case Juan called. She wouldn’t leave the house because rumors had gone around that if nobody was home, the police officers escorting the men wouldn’t drop them off. Lina was forced to stand still for the first time in four months.
Lina’s granddaughters grabbed me by the hand and took me to help them pick flowers to welcome their uncle. They spent hours making the flower arrangements, and then tied yellow, blue and red balloons into an arch. But time passed and Juan didn’t arrive. The balloons started to pop in the heat. By the time I left, the flowers had withered and the balloon arch was halfway gone.
Carmen Bonilla had to call off from one of her jobs — she drives a taxi and sometimes buys and then resells cheese — just in case someone brought her son Andry home. Those last few days, when the men were back in Venezuela but not yet home, felt longer than the rest. Nobody dared to leave the house or take a call. I remember Carmen looking through her phone and seeing a video of Andry singing a song on a bus after the men arrived back in Venezuela. Carmen was happy but puzzled. “He must be very happy to be singing,” she said. “Andry is not like that. He’s very serious.”
I think she realized at that moment that the son she’d raised might not be the same person who was coming home. That whatever had happened to them in those months in prison had probably changed them forever.
When Juan José Ramos arrived at Lina’s house, he cried and pointed at the peeling paint. He said he wanted to give his mother a more decent house; it had been one of his reasons for going to the U.S. In prison, he had asked the guards to end his life rather than force him to live that way any longer. Listening to her son talk about his experiences, she tried to understand the weight of his words.
I returned to photograph Mireya Sandia once again. This time she cried in joy while her son held her. Much like his mother, he had spent four months with the daily thought that maybe he wouldn’t make it home in time to say goodbye to her.
She held my hand once again and I leaned in to listen to her speak. She’d become so weak over the previous four months that I could barely make out her words: “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” It dawned on me that during this time in El Salvador, each of the men were not only losing time, they were losing loved ones. They were missing major life moments that can never be recovered. Not only did the men say they were tortured during these four months; their families said they were too.
As fireworks exploded in the town of Umuquena and residents surrounded Wilmer Vega, Mireya Sandia said, “It felt like an endless night.” Wilmer fell to his knees as if he could barely carry the joy of the moment.
Several men had said that guards told them every day that they were worthless and nobody was looking for them. I thought of those words and wondered what Wilmer Vega was thinking as the people of his hometown filled the streets to greet him.
The men said they returned home deeply traumatized. Most of the men I met were struggling to sleep, drink water or leave their homes. Wilmer broke into tears telling me that he had a panic attack the first time he walked down a busy commercial street. In many cases, the celebration was bittersweet. The men were home but they were scarred.
I thought this would be the end of a chapter, a long-awaited reunion. But life is more nuanced than that. Once I saw and heard from these men, it was clear the path before them was steep. They are coming back to Venezuela after losing what little they had made before. Most of them said they lost everything, either during detention in the U.S. or during their imprisonment in El Salvador.
In many cases, these men left Venezuela nearly a decade ago. Their beds, their friends, their employers, even their children are no longer here. They returned with only the clothes they were wearing, with no equipment to resume their jobs, to a country that is, in many ways, the same one they had to leave. When asked about the future, they didn’t have an answer.
All this made me think of Venezuelans’ longing for opportunity, safety and freedom. It made sense for millions of people to imagine a life in the U.S., which has been perceived as a haven. Many Venezuelans supported President Donald Trump’s policies, especially after his first term. I don’t know how much this episode will change their views, but it has undoubtedly been a sobering moment for many.
Still, thousands of Venezuelans are packing their suitcases. Boats, planes and buses continue to depart for other destinations: Colombia, Peru, Brazil, even Spain. They are filled with people who want to give their children medical care, buy their mother a prettier house, afford a parent’s cancer treatments.
But it may not change the question that many Venezuelans now ask themselves and each other: Where will we be safe?
