MIAMI — A Venezuelan man currently detained at the Krome detention center in Miami says he would rather return to the country he fled, despite fearing for his life, than remain locked up in what he describes as inhumane conditions in U.S. immigration detention.

Nerwys Alexandro Reyes Pineda, 42, entered the U.S. in July 2024 through the Mexican border using a Customs and Border Protection app known as CBP One that the Biden administration had set up to schedule entries by migrants seeking asylum. After being granted parole by an immigration officer, he initially settled in Houston, where he lived with his girlfriend for eight months and obtained a work permit and driver’s license.

But his situation changed dramatically on June 10, when his asylum claim was dismissed. He was arrested during a routine appointment at the Miramar Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and has since been held at the Krome detention center. He has told his family that the conditions are so unbearable he is now considering returning on his own to Venezuela.

Reyes Pineda’s girlfriend, Kelly Bormita, said he and more than 100 other detainees at Krome are being held without access to showers, beds or blankets. He has remained in the same black shirt, gray pants, and black shoes he wore to his ICE appointment and was not permitted to shower for the first seven days of his detention, she said.

“They treat us like animals. We’re shackled at the feet, hands, and waist,” Bormita says Reyes Pineda told her during a recent phone call.

“He told me he would rather be deported than wait in detention for months just to see if he qualifies for a credible fear interview,” she said, referring to the screening by immigration officials to see if a migrant facing deportation removal has a “credible fear” of persecution or torture if they are returned to their country. “He doesn’t want to be locked up like a criminal.” He also told her that several Cuban detainees in Krome have been waiting over four months to argue their asylum claims, and he fears going through the same ordeal.

Reyes didn’t sign his deportation order when he first arrived at Krome and is now waiting for a deportation officer to process it while still awaiting his credible-fear interview, Bormita said. She says he no longer wants to remain at Krome. “If they don’t grant him parole to fight his case, he would rather be deported to Venezuela,” she said.

Earlier this year, the Miami Herald reported that hundreds of immigrants swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown remain detained at Krome under dire conditions. The Herald interviewed former detainees, as well as attorneys and family members, who described a facility stretched to its breaking point, with detainees in a state of physical and emotional desperation, conditions that echo Reyes Pineda’s account.

In recent months, members of Congress, including U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Frederica Wilson and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick have visited the Krome North Service Processing Center, the Broward Transitional Center and other South Florida facilities holding ICE detainees. The Democratic lawmakers have been outspoken critics of conditions at the centers amid concerns over overcrowding and detainee deaths. In January and February, two men died while detained at Krome. Although autopsies ruled their deaths natural, the Herald uncovered reports suggesting questionable medical treatment. In April, a Haitian woman also died at the Broward Transitional Center.

The Trump administration is encouraging migrants to self-deport using the CBP One mobile app — the same platform previously used under the Biden administration to schedule lawful entry appointments at the U.S.-Mexico border — to notify U.S. immigration authorities of their intent to leave. Under this new policy, the administration is offering $1,000 and a free flight home to undocumented immigrants who voluntarily return to their countries of origin. However, it remains unclear whether Reyes would be eligible, as he is already in detention and could face forced deportation if the asylum officer determines he does not have a credible fear of returning to Venezuela.

System in crisis

Maria Zequeira, an immigration attorney consulted by Reyes’ family though not formally retained, says he followed all government procedures when he filed his asylum petition after she met with him at Krome. She believes immigration authorities denied his case based on a far stricter and more punitive interpretation of the law — an approach that gained traction under the Trump administration.

“The administration is ignoring years of established legal procedures meant to protect asylum seekers,” said Zequeira, who has practiced immigration law since 1990. “These claims are being dismissed based on a far harsher reading of the law, and often in alignment with policy shifts rather than legal merits. In Reyes Pineda’s case, the judge ruled on the matter over his objection without any discussion.”

Reyes Pineda’s case raises broader questions about how immigration cases are being managed. Attorneys for the Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss deportation cases that were already pending before immigration judges. That is significant because people with active cases in immigration court cannot be placed into expedited removal, a fast-track administrative process that bypasses judicial review and is commonly used by the government to deport people quickly. By dismissing the court cases, DHS effectively opened the door for ICE to transfer those people into expedited removal proceedings, where they have far fewer legal protections.

Several immigration attorneys told the Herald they believe recent arrests are being driven by a DHS memo in January that instructs ICE agents to consider placing immigrants into expedited removal proceedings if they have been in the U.S. for less than two years. Those proceedings allow for deportations without a hearing before an immigration judge.

“Take all steps necessary to review the alien’s case and consider, in exercising your enforcement discretion, whether to apply expedited removal. This may include steps to terminate any ongoing removal proceeding,” the memo reads.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Zequeira added. “Such draconian interpretations of long-established processes meant to protect refugees and asylees simply didn’t exist before the Trump era. It seems this administration is determined to dismantle the legal protections designed for the most vulnerable: asylees.”

Fleeing Venezuela

Before fleeing Venezuela, Reyes Pineda worked as a taxi driver in Zulia, a border state undergoing by economic collapse and plagued by armed bandits. In 2015, he was arrested for allegedly smuggling basic groceries—sugar, rice, pasta, soap, milk and toothpaste—after buying them at a local supermarket and crossing into Colombia to find medicine for his youngest son. He was stopped by Venezuelan border guards, detained and imprisoned for 45 days.

In a sworn affidavit submitted as part of his U.S. asylum case, Reyes Pineda described being threatened and robbed by Colombian guerrilla groups operating near the border. He later made the treacherous journey through the Darién Gap on the Colombia-Panama border to reach the United States. In his 2024 application for asylum, he cited the risk of psychological torture and ongoing persecution if he were forced to return.

Although he was sentenced in Venezuela to two years and 10 months in prison for the alleged smuggling offense, he never served time. His case was delayed for six years due to procedural backlogs, and the charges were ultimately dropped after the statute of limitations expired. According to Venezuelan legal experts, he is no longer at risk of imprisonment for that offense if he returns home. However, it remains unclear how deported Venezuelans are treated upon arrival, as there is little public information about the thousands of Venezuelans deported during the first five months of the Trump administration under agreements with the Nicolás Maduro regime.

In his 2024 affidavit, Reyes Pineda said his fear of returning to Venezuela remains real. Yet he now faces a painful dilemma: endure what he describes as inhumane detention conditions while awaiting a credible fear parole hearing, or risk returning to the very country he once fled.

“The economic crisis in Venezuela was devastating. Access to healthcare was nearly impossible, and I was forced to flee the country due to the imminent danger I faced,” Reyes said in his affidavit. “I continue to live in fear of returning, as the psychological trauma remains — and I know that Maduro does not forget those who have dared to oppose him.”

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