Photo: El Salvador Presidency Handout/Anadolu/Getty Images
Last month, the Trump administration invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act to place hundreds of Venezuelan and Salvadoran migrants on deportation flights to El Salvador on allegations that they were criminals with extensive gang ties. Though James Boasberg, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued an order for the military flights to be halted as he weighed a legal challenge, the government has continued to transport migrants out of the country to be detained in CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious maximum-security prison.
But several family members are contesting the allegations against their loved ones, saying they’ve been deported based on faulty information and without due process. While the administration has doubled down on its deportation efforts, reports have emerged that the government is determining gang affiliation in part through an individual’s tattoos or clothing, a clearly imperfect metric. Here, some of the migrants with no reported gang affiliation who have been sent to an uncertain fate.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia
As The Atlantic reported on Monday, the Trump administration acknowledged in court papers that it had wrongfully sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, to an El Salvador prison despite his protected legal status. “Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the filing read.
Abrego Garcia is a native of El Salvador who fled gang violence and entered the United States in 2011 as a 16-year-old. An immigration judge later granted Abrego Garcia “withholding of removal” status in 2019, which allowed him to stay in the country because he would face a possible risk to his life if he returned to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told The Atlantic that Abrego Garcia has no criminal history and isn’t a member of a gang, as alleged by the federal government. He said Abrego Garcia’s only involvement with the law came in 2019 when he and three other men were detained by police in a Home Depot parking lot in Maryland:
During questioning, one of the men told officers that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but the man offered no proof and police said they didn’t believe him, filings show. Police did not identify him as a gang member.
Abrego Garcia was not charged with a crime, but he was handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the arrest to face deportation. In those proceedings, the government claimed that a reliable informant had identified him as a ranking member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia and his family hired an attorney and fought the government’s attempt to deport him. He received “withholding of removal” six months later, a protected status.
The New York Times reports that Abrego Garcia’s family has filed a civil suit urging the government to withhold payments to El Salvador until Abrego Garcia is returned, but the administration’s lawyers have argued that the courts don’t have the jurisdiction to make that order. Vice-President J.D. Vance defended the administration’s action in deporting Abrego Garcia, incorrectly claiming on social media that he was a “convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here.”
Franco Caraballo
The Associated Press spoke to Johanny Sánchez, the wife of Franco Caraballo, one of the many Venezuelan immigrants flown out of the country to El Salvador. According to Sánchez, her husband vanished from ICE’s online detainee locator, and she later learned that he had been deported.
Sánchez said her husband had kept up with his mandatory appointments with ICE as his asylum application was being processed, noting that he went to a February meeting at a Dallas office for the agency. She said Caraballo was not a member of Tren de Aragua and believes he could’ve been profiled because of his numerous tattoos, including one of a clock marking their daughter’s birthday.
“He has lots of tattoos, but that’s not a reason to discriminate against him,” she told the AP.
Andry José Hernández Romero
Attorneys for Andry José Hernández Romero, a makeup artist, have said their client was detained and later transported to El Salvador after arriving in the U.S. as an asylum seeker. The New Yorker reports that the 31-year-old, who is gay, fled Venezuela fearing persecution from the country’s government and initially passed a preliminary screening but that officials focused on his tattoos during a physical examination.
Andry denied belonging to any gang. The agent, who asked him about the tattoos, described his “demeanor during interview” as “uncooperative.” A note was added to his file: “Upon conducting a review of detainee Hernandez’s tattoos it was found that detainee Hernandez has a crown on each one of his wrist. The crown has been found to be an identifier for a Tren de Aragua gang member.” These crowns, according to the government, were “determining factors to conclude reasonable suspicion.”
Hernández Romero was detained for several months and was due for a court appearance in March, but he was deported to El Salvador prior to his hearing. His attorneys have argued that his tattoos are not gang-related. “There is no evidence to believe that he is affiliated in any way with Tren de Aragua and Andry has consistently refuted those claims,” his lawyers wrote, per the Times. “He fled Venezuela due to persecution for his political opinion and his sexual orientation and his tattoos have an obvious explanation that has nothing to do with a gang.”
Mervin Jose Yamarte Fernandez
Family members of Mervin Jose Yamarte Fernandez recognized him in a video showing detainees being transported from a U.S. military flight to the maximum-security prison in El Salvador. He was arrested while working at his job at a Texas restaurant and removed from the country within a day’s time.
His sister, Jare, told the Miami Herald that her brother joined her in Texas from their home country of Venezuela and that he has no criminal record. Unlike some of the others detained by the federal government, she said her brother has no tattoos owing to their family’s religious upbringing. Though Yamarte Fernandez had moved to the United States in order to send money back home to his wife and child, the family had decided to self-deport because of the Trump administration’s targeting of Venezuelan nationals.
“We came to this country to work and do things right,” she told the outlet. “It’s painful that they blame my brother, and they portray him as a member of the Tren de Aragua. I don’t accept the bad reputation created around my brother.”
