Families say Trump administration still offers no info after men deported to El Salvador prison

Carmen Bonilla can't sleep, fearing for her son. Families say the U.S. and El Salvador offer no answers about the men taken to prison.

Carmen Bonilla has barely slept for nearly two months, her mind filled with terrifying thoughts about what might be happening to her son, whose dream to go to the United States for a better life has turned into a waking nightmare.

Andry Blanco Bonilla, 40, was among the nearly 240 Venezuelan immigrants who were boarded onto planes and taken to a mega-prison in El Salvador on March 15, in a case that has spurred multiple legal battles and reached the Supreme Court.

Families and attorneys told NBC News they haven’t heard from the men since, and that the United States and Salvadoran governments have given them little to no information. The Trump administration’s action taken nearly two months ago has rippled across continents, leaving loved ones broken and in the dark, they said. They said that their family members have been wrongfully caught up in the administration’s agenda to deport immigrants en masse.

“I know nothing about what’s happening to him,” Bonilla said in Spanish from her home in Venezuela. “I don’t sleep. I’ve lost weight. Watching the news about this makes me sick.”

The men are expected to be held in El Salvador for at least a year, in a prison system that has faced multiple allegations of human rights abuses. The president of El Salvador has said that the one-year sentence is “renewable.”