SALT LAKE CITY -- Lawyers at a Utah law firm are laying the groundwork for a $56 million lawsuit against President Donald Trump and federal immigration authorities on behalf of a Venezuelan man sent last year to a notorious Salvadoran prison by U.S. authorities.
The man has no criminal record in the U.S. or in Venezuela and came to the U.S. legally, his attorneys say.
Lawyers from Parker and McConkie on Tuesday unveiled plans to file a notice of claim on behalf of a client they identify as Johnny Hernandez, a pseudonym, stemming from the personal injuries they say he suffered due to the actions of U.S. immigration officials. Filing a notice of claim is a preliminary step required before suing the government.
Hernandez, 20, who has four family members also from Venezuela living in Utah, suffered "catastrophic injuries" at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, known as CECOT, at the hands of prison guards there, according to his lawyers. Hernandez was detained by U.S. officials in San Diego, California, soon after his Aug. 22, 2024, entry into the country with the four other family members and eventually sent to CECOT in March 2025, part of the first contingent of immigrants U.S. officials sent to the Salvadoran prison.
That transfer of immigrants to El Salvador -- part of Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration -- sparked controversy and outrage from critics, in part because administration officials brushed aside judicial orders to halt the flights carrying the people. Trump officials maintained that those sent were criminal immigrants, but others questioned his characterization and Hernandez's lawyers say Hernandez has no criminal record in either Venezuela or the United States.
"The Trump administration knowingly and unlawfully locked up an innocent person for four months in a concentration camp-like prison where he suffered torture, shooting, beatings and solitary confinement," said Jim McConkie, one of the attorneys pursuing the case. "When the U.S. government knowingly and purposefully violates the law by detaining and deporting innocent individuals on false charges and is not held responsible, the individual rights of not just legal immigrants but all Americans are placed in jeopardy."
Hernandez and around 250 other Venezuelans sent, like him, by U.S. officials to CECOT were released on July 18, 2025, and he was returned to Venezuela, where he now lives. He continues to suffer from injuries sustained at CECOT, including a shoulder wound caused by a rubber bullet, anxiety, depression and more, according to the notice of claim.
"The U.S. government knew or should have known that the transfer of (Hernandez) to CECOT in El Salvador would subject him to a high risk, if not the certainty of the severe torture and abuse that he has actually suffered," reads the notice of claim.
He is still recovering from the "unspeakable horrors" he experienced in El Salvador, according to attorney Brent Ward, also involved in the case.