Eyvin Hernandez didn’t quite make it home for Christmas – but for his friends and family, he was close enough.
Hernandez, a Los Angeles County public defender who grew up in the South Bay, arrived back in the United States late Wednesday, Dec. 20, following 21 months in a Venezuelan prison.
He was one of 10 imprisoned Americans released as part of a prisoner exchange the Biden administration agreed to with the South American country. The U.S. freed a close ally of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for the Americans..
Hernandez’s release came about nine months after his family and friends held a rally in downtown Los Angeles to urge the Biden administration to work to free him.
For those who know Hernandez, like 15-year friend Vianey Juarez – who said the past 21 months felt like being “in captivity (alongside him), only in a different way” – the L.A. resident’s release was a gift.
“It takes the holiday season,” Juarez said, “and makes it even sweeter than what it is.”
But Hernandez isn’t home yet.
Instead, he’s in Texas, participating in a voluntary hostage reintegration program hosted by the US Department of Defense. The program is intended to help hostages and political prisoners acclimate to normal life – which isn’t always easy.
“Honestly, all you think about when you are in prison is how you didn’t appreciate being free while you were free,” Hernandez, who wasn’t available to be interviewed for this story, told Telemundo moments after returning to U.S. soil last week. “There’s no way to understand what it’s like to be in prison, unjustly, and not have any way out.”
Post-Isolation Support Activities, or PISA, typically lasts two weeks and is intended to help former detainees transition back to society. Notable past participants of the program include WNBA star Brittney Griner, Trevor Reed and Citgo 6, a group of six Houston oil executives. All of them experienced captivity abroad.
The program, originally meant for military personnel, is typically voluntary. Attendees undergo evaluation, obtain medical and psychological care, and participate in debriefing sessions. The program’s instructors also provide guidance to family members, such as how to protect information that could be used against the detained individual, as outlined by a 2019 manual for personnel recovery from the joint chiefs of staff.
The process of acclimating back to normal, however, may extend far beyond the initial phase. Indeed, the process can be long and challenging, said Michael Scott Moore, a journalist who was held hostage by pirates in Somalia.
Moore traveled to Somalia in January 2012 to research a book on piracy, but was kidnapped and held captive for 2 1/2 years by a local gang of pirates. He was freed in September 2014 after paying a $1.6 million ransom, which his mother collected from family, friends and the magazines he had worked for. Moore serves on the Board of Directors at Hostage US, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources for detainees and their families.
Being held captive took a toll on him physically and, more significantly, emotionally, Moore said.
“I don’t know if my response is unique, but I found it impossible to continue with a normal sort of hope,” he said. “I could only get through it by giving up on hope altogether.
“I stopped living for the future or some future point, because I didn’t know when that was going to be,” Moore added. “On the other hand, as often as I’ve said this, I do think that continuing to be alive was hopeful.”
While the experience and trauma can vary from person to person, Moore said, a crucial factor for a detained individual is to be given the personal time and space to recover from the ordeal.
A former captive may also encounter various challenges related to finances, employment, housing, and debts or insurance, according to Hostage US.
“What people need more than some specific treatment is to be given the time and space to recover,” Moore said. “Because I think, basically, your body and your mind know how to do it, but they have to be allowed to and sort of promoted in certain ways.”
Families and friends should be supportive, Moore said, but recovery doesn’t happen overnight.
The ex-captive should not feel the pressure to recover.
It took Moore, for example, a year or two to recover physically, he said – and much longer to recover mentally.
“I think the rule of thumb is that it’s meant to take twice as long as you were in to recover mentally,” Moore, a Redondo Beach resident, said. “I just never took it for granted that I was better. On the other hand, I simply got on with it, and you do feel better from day to day or from month to month.”
Hernandez’s friends and family seem to understand his recovery may take time – and they said they’ll be there to help him.
“I think knowing him and his personality, he will come out of all this stronger than he went in and I look forward to seeing in the future what he does,” said Karlene Nguyen, another longtime friend of Hernandez, “because I’m sure he’s going to turn this situation into something positive.”
Hernandez’s family flew to San Antonio, Texas, to meet the public defender when his plane touched down from Venezuela, Nguyen said.
For the first time in nearly two years, they got to hug him and talk to him in person. And now, they are staying close as he participates in the PISA program, she added.
Knowing that they have been able to see him in person, Nguyen said, “is just the best feeling in the world.”
Nguyen said she is looking forward to eventually having regular conversations with him – ones that extend beyond the mere five minutes he was allotted during his captivity. She is also looking forward to just hanging out with him, going on hikes or chilling at the ocean – all the things he couldn’t do while in prison.
“I think that’ll be very therapeutic for him,” Nguyen said.
Hernandez, who was arrested at the Venezuelan-Colombian border in March 2022 while on a two-week vacation, had been detained in a Venezuelan cell. The United States government considered Hernandez a wrongfully detained political prisoner and his family described his living conditions as dire.
Hernandez missed birthdays and holidays – and didn’t know when he’d see his family again.
But now he’s free at last.
“This time for Christmas, he’s here and it has just been incredible,” Nguyen said, “because he is the best Christmas gift we could have.”
And soon, Hernandez will be home – in Los Angeles – for good.
How to help
To help Hernandez financially during the reintegration process, his friends and family have set up a GoFundMe account. It has raised $54,614 out of its target of $100,000, as of early afternoon Tuesday, Dec. 26.