They were called gang members and deported. Families say their only crime was having tattoos

SAN SALVADOR  — One is simply a erstwhile nonrecreational shot subordinate who, according to his lawyer, fled Venezuela aft being tortured by the country’s authoritarian government.

The other, besides from Venezuela, is simply a onetime footwear salesman and societal media influencer who documented his travel from South America connected TikTok.

Both were seemingly among thousands of governmental asylum aspirants who entered the United States from Mexico legally via an migration process scrapped by the Trump administration.

Both were detained, 1 successful California, and deported. Now they are imprisoned successful El Salvador, according to their families, who person been near successful the acheronian astir their fates successful a penal strategy wide condemned for quality rights abuses.

“This has been a torture for us, an injustice,” said Antonia Cristina Barrios de Reyes, parent of Jerce Egbunik Reyes Barrios, 36, the erstwhile nonrecreational goalkeeper. “My lad is not a criminal.”

Jerce Egbunik Reyes Barrios, a erstwhile nonrecreational shot subordinate from Venezuela, was among the alleged pack members deported from the United States to El Salvador. “My lad is not a criminal,” his parent said.

(Family of Jerce Reyes)

The societal media influencer is Nolberto Rafael Aguilar Rodríguez, 32. He initially fled to Colombia, Venezuela’s occidental neighbor, retired of desperation, said his sister, Jennifer Aguilar.

“We’re campesinos, we travel from the fields,” she said. “We near Venezuela due to the fact that we were starving.”

Reyes Barrios and Aguilar were among 261 radical — the immense bulk Venezuelans — expelled to El Salvador past week aft the Trump medication alleged that astir were affiliated with the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang, which President Trump has declared a violent group.

The grounds of pack rank cited by the authorities is typically flimsy to nonexistent, defence lawyers allege, and mostly based connected tattoos and societal media postings.

Experts accidental the administration’s outsourcing of detained migrants to a federation with an infamously repressive situation strategy has nary precedent.

In El Salvador, “the United States present has a tropical gulag,” said Regina Bateson, a governmental idiosyncratic astatine the University of Colorado Boulder. “The conception that the U.S. authorities is paying millions of dollars to different authorities to interruption these people’s rights is horrifying.”

The El Salvador cognition is portion of a woody betwixt the Trump medication and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Advocates person filed a national suit challenging Trump’s usage of the Alien Enemies Act — a statute from 1798 antecedently lone invoked during wartime — to expel astir of the alleged Venezuelan pack members.

On Friday, a national justice successful Washington, D.C., vowed to “get to the bottom” of whether the Trump medication defied his order to clasp disconnected connected the deportations portion lawsuits challenging the expulsions played retired successful court.

Many relatives of the deportees contradict their kin person pack ties oregon a transgression record, saying they were simply searching for amended lives oregon escaping persecution successful their turbulent homeland, portion of the exodus that has seen millions fly Venezuela.

“We person nary thought what’s going to hap to Jerce,” said Jair Barrios, uncle of the shot player. “We recognize and respect the laws of each country; but astatine the aforesaid time, we inquire that, please, fto justness beryllium done and genuinely guiltless radical beryllium released.”

Reyes Barrios was detained astatine the Otay Mesa borderline station successful California successful September, according to a connection from his attorney, Linette Tobin, erstwhile helium appeared for his assignment nether the Biden medication programme known arsenic CBP One, which facilitated U.S. entry for prospective asylum applicants and others.

According to Tobin, helium was mistakenly accused of Tren de Aragua affiliation based connected an limb tattoo and a societal media station successful which helium made a manus motion that U.S. authorities called a pack sign.

The tattoo — a crown atop a shot ball, with a rosary and the connection “Díos” — is really an homage to his favourite team, Real Madrid, Tobin wrote. The manus motion is simply a fashionable motion connection rendering of “I Love You,” the lawyer added.

Reyes Barrios participated successful antigovernment demonstrations successful Venezuela successful February and March 2024, Tobin wrote, and was subsequently arrested and tortured, enduring electrical shocks and suffocation. After his release, helium fled for the United States and registered for CBP One portion successful Mexico.

Tobin portrayed Reyes Barrios arsenic a law-abiding idiosyncratic who had ne'er been charged with a transgression and wrote that helium had “a dependable employment grounds arsenic a shot player, arsenic good arsenic a shot manager for children and youth.”

Once successful custody successful California, Tobin wrote, Reyes Barrios applied for governmental asylum and different relief. A proceeding had been acceptable for April 17 astatine migration tribunal successful Otay Mesa.

Reyes Barrios was deported to El Salvador connected March 15.

Tricia McLaughlin, adjunct caput for the Department of Homeland Security, defended the authorities action.

Reyes Barrios was “not lone successful the United States illegally,” McLaughlin wrote connected X, “but helium has tattoos that are accordant with those indicating TdA [Tren de Aragua] membership. His ain societal media indicates helium is simply a subordinate of the vicious TdA gang.”

She added that “DHS quality assessments spell beyond a azygous tattoo and we are assured successful our findings.”

Reyes Barrios is simply a “respected person” successful Venezuela, said his wife, Mariyen Araujo Sandoval, who has remained successful Mexico with 2 of the couple’s 4 children.

“It’s unjust to criminalize idiosyncratic due to the fact that of a tattoo,” said Araujo, 32. She said she recognized her hubby successful the online videos of Venezuelans expelled to El Salvador.

Now dashed, she said, is her family’s imagination of a reunion successful the United States. She present hopes for a reunion successful Venezuela — if her hubby tin ever get retired of El Salvador.

“I’m excessively frightened to adjacent effort to spell to the United States,” said Araujo, who noted that she besides has a tattoo, of a rose. “I’d beryllium acrophobic that they would abstracted maine from my daughters and enactment maine successful jail.”

The Venezuelans dispatched to El Salvador person nary ineligible recourse for entreaty oregon release, attorneys say, and whitethorn look indefinite detention.

“There is, of course, nary law, regularisation oregon judicial modular successful El Salvador to outsource the prisons,” said José Marinero, a Salvadoran lawyer. “These radical person ... nary conviction, nary indebtedness to the Salvadoran justness system.”

Their predicament, activists say, highlights the erosion of ideology crossed the region, arsenic good arsenic the melodramatic crackdown connected migration pushed by Washington.

“There’s nary existent harmless haven left,” said Michael Ahn Paarlberg, a governmental idiosyncratic who studies Latin America astatine Virginia Commonwealth University.

An representation provided by El Salvador’s statesmanlike property bureau shows situation guards overseeing deportees astatine a installation successful Tecoluca connected March 16.

(Associated Press)

The Trump medication has acknowledged that galore of those deported nether the Alien Enemies Act person nary transgression records successful the United States. But the authorities says they whitethorn inactive airs a threat.

“We sent implicit 250 alien force members of Tren de Aragua, which El Salvador has agreed to clasp successful their precise bully jails astatine a just terms that volition besides prevention our payer dollars,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who brokered the woody with Bukele, declared connected X.

Critics accidental that Trump, similar Bukele, invokes transgression arsenic an excuse for suspending civilian liberties.

“They’re utilizing these peculiarly susceptible radical arsenic trial cases,” said Paarlberg, who added that the connection appears to be: “If we tin deport radical who don’t person transgression records, radical who are fleeing a authorities that beauteous overmuch everyone and the U.S. authorities agrees is authoritarian, past we tin deport anyone.”

Bukele, a erstwhile advertizing enforcement who labels himself “the world’s coolest dictator,” dispatched video crews to grounds the accomplishment of the Venezuelans, who were led disconnected deportation planes successful shackles and had their hairsbreadth shorn.

“This is simply a performative enactment of cruelty ... to scare radical into not coming, to scare radical who are present without papers, to scare radical distant from protesting,” Paarlberg said.

News of the deportations has sent relatives of the expelled Venezuelans poring implicit videos and societal media posts successful an effort to find if their loved ones were among those flown to El Salvador.

A photograph provided by El Salvador’s statesmanlike property bureau shows situation guards transfering deportees from the U.S. to the Terrorism Confinement Center successful Tecoluca connected March 16.

(Associated Press)

The names of the deported Venezuelans appeared connected a database leaked to the media. Included was Aguilar, who garnered much than 40,000 followers arsenic helium documented his northbound trek from South America connected TikTok. His provender included images from the treacherous Darien Gap, the dense jungle separating Colombia and Panama.

Jennifer Aguilar described her member arsenic a hard-working household antheral who fled Venezuela for Colombia successful 2013. He has 3 children: an 11-year-old miss successful Venezuela and a 4-year-old miss and boy, 2, successful Colombia. Aguilar’s sister says helium got his tattoo, of playing cards and dice, to screen up a scar connected his forearm from an mishap helium had astatine property 16.

Nolberto Rafael Aguilar Rodríguez, 32, is 1 of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants detained successful the U.S. and sent to El Salvador.

(Jennifer Aguilar)

According to his sister, Aguilar made his mode to Mexico and secured an assignment for U.S. introduction via CBP One. On June 24, helium posted a video of himself boarding a plane, seemingly en way to the U.S.-Mexican border.

“Have religion successful God,” helium wrote successful a caption. “Never enactment your caput down. And spot yourself.”

Jennifer Aguilar said helium got a occupation successful a question bureau successful the California borderline metropolis of Calexico. For reasons that stay unclear, helium was detained by U.S. migration authorities precocious past year.

From Colombia, wherever she lives with her 3 daughters, Jennifer Aguilar has written astir her brother’s plight connected societal media and sent messages to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and to Bukele, the Salvadoran leader.

Aguilar “has ne'er been to situation successful Venezuela oregon successful Colombia,” she wrote to Bukele. “Believe me, if helium was blameworthy I’d say: ‘Leave him there.’ Because we were taught to beryllium honorable and bash good.”

Nolberto Rafael Aguilar Rodríguez chronicled his travel from South America to the United States connected societal media. He was deported and is present being held successful El Salvador.

(Jennifer Aguilar)

“I’ve tried by each means ... to beryllium Rafael’s voice,” said the sister, adding that she doesn’t cognize anyone successful El Salvador. “If I could beryllium there, I would. I’m profoundly atrocious that I can’t.”

El Salvador has rounded up and imprisoned immoderate 85,000 radical — the equivalent of 1.5% of the nation’s colonisation — since March 2022, erstwhile Bukele declared a authorities of exigency that efficaciously suspended law owed process rights. The Venezuelans were dispatched to the infamous Center for Terrorism Confinement, the centerpiece of Bukele’s wide incarceration agenda.

Times unit writers McDonnell and Linthicum reported from Mexico City portion peculiar correspondents Mery Mogollón and Nelson Rauda contributed, respectively, from Caracas, Venezuela, and San Salvador. Special analogous Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed from Mexico City.