WASHINGTON DC — A lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington DC, accusing aviation companies CSI Aviation and GlobalX of violating the civil rights of Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador. The complaint, filed by the Human Rights Center, seeks damages for plaintiffs who were transported overseas despite a federal court order directing their return.

The lawsuit accuses CSI Aviation and GlobalX of false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and other violations for their role in flying three planes that transported Venezuelan men to El Salvador. The legal filing states that the companies transported the men to El Salvador despite a federal judge ordering the flights to return to the US after they had taken off.

The administration and airline companies ignored the court order and the flights arrived in El Salvador, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges that CSI Aviation and GlobalX knew the men would likely be tortured inside the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot), a maximum security prison in El Salvador where the men were detained for four months.

CSI Aviation sub-contracted with GlobalX for the three flights to El Salvador, acting as the intermediary between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and GlobalX, according to the lawsuit. CSI Aviation Inc is incorporated in Texas, while GlobalX is headquartered in Florida.

"Despite knowing that El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (‘CECOT’) mega-prison was a notorious blacksite, from which no detainee had ever left alive, Defendants went to great lengths to transport Plaintiffs and Class Members there, in concert with the US government, in flagrant violation of U.S. and international law," the lawsuit states.

Anthony Enriquez, vice-president of advocacy and litigation for the Kennedy Human Rights Center, said the case shows a broader issue regarding private sector involvement in government enforcement actions. Many people might not be aware of the degree to which private companies are intertwined with the human rights abuses occurring under the Trump administration through the detention and unlawful deportation schemes that are occurring," Enriquez said."

The lawsuit states that CSI Aviation helped broker nearly all deportation flights via a multimillion-dollar contract with ICE. The filing identifies CSI Aviation as the single highest-value recipient of ICE contracts, with revenue from ICE in 2025 totaling $1.23 billion. The lawsuit states that CSI Aviation and GlobalX enjoyed unprecedented financial profits from the deportation scheme.

The events at the center of the lawsuit stem from actions taken in early 2024. On March 15, 2024, Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to expel hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants from the US. The Trump administration accused the Venezuelan government, led by Nicolás Maduro, of instructing members of the gang Tren de Aragua to invade the US.

Following the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, the administration rounded up 252 Venezuelan and Salvadorian men in ICE detention and expelled them to El Salvador. The lawsuit states that GlobalX positioned three planes at an airport in Texas on the day the Alien Enemies Act was invoked in preparation for the expulsion. In March 2024, the Trump administration expelled more than 230 Venezuelan men held in US immigration custody to El Salvador.

The US and El Salvador struck a deal in which the US would pay millions of dollars to El Salvador to detain deportees from the US in Cecot. Salvadorian security forces boarded the planes upon arrival in El Salvador and beat the deportees, according to many of the men. The lawsuit states that the Venezuelan men continue to struggle with long-lasting health effects and mental health trauma.

The Trump administration has not proved that the Venezuelan men were members of Tren de Aragua. News reports revealed that some of the men were falsely accused of being gang members. The US government has not released the entire list of deportees sent to Cecot.

In 2025, the group of Venezuelan men were returned to Venezuela after a prisoner exchange deal involving the US, El Salvador, and Venezuela. A November 2025 report from Human Rights Watch stated that the men were subjected to what amounts to arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance under international human rights law. Lawmakers, families, and members of the public protested against the immigrants’ detention in Cecot.