A Venezuelan mom desperately looking for her son after U.S. immigration officers detained him says she noticed him shackled on TV amongst a whole lot of migrants the Trump administration has accused of being violent gang members and despatched to a Salvadoran jail.
“It’s him. It’s him,” an emotional Mirelis Casique told the BBC of getting seen her 24-year-old son, Francisco Javier Garcia Casique, in pictures of restrained males in all-white clothes and newly shaved heads. “I acknowledge his options.”
Casique mentioned her son entered the U.S. in late 2023 to hunt asylum. He offered himself to authorities on the border and was launched, however was then briefly detained in Texas final yr following a routine look with immigration officers after they noticed his tattoos, she advised The New York Times.
These tattoos included the phrase “peace” in Spanish, some household names, and a crown. They prompted U.S. authorities to label Garcia Casique a suspected gang member and take him into custody for 2 months earlier than releasing him with an digital monitor.
On Feb. 6, regulation enforcement authorities got here to Garcia Casique’s door and took him again into custody, his mom mentioned.
“He doesn’t belong to any felony gang, both within the U.S. or in Venezuela… he’s not a felony,” she advised The BBC. “What he’s been is a barber.”
A person figuring out himself as Garcia Casique’s brother additionally shared photos of him slicing hair on social media whereas insisting that his brother is harmless and wrongfully incarcerated.
“What injustice is that this? For having tattoos? Why didn’t they examine him? Why didn’t they ship him to his nation of origin?” his brother wrote with the pictures. “Respect the human rights of harmless individuals.”
The U.S. and Salvadoran governments haven’t supplied any proof exhibiting that the deported migrants are related to the Tren de Aragua gang, which has been designated as a terrorist group by President Donald Trump.
In a court filing, officers acknowledged that lots of the individuals despatched to El Salvador should not have felony data, although they claimed this “doesn’t point out they pose a restricted risk.”
“The dearth of particular details about every particular person really highlights the chance they pose,” the administration mentioned in a sworn declaration.
Regardless of the obvious lack of due course of and proof that the migrants are gang members, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele mentioned they are going to be imprisoned for no less than a yr and compelled to carry out labor below a program known as “Zero Idleness.” This program is designed to make the nation’s jail system, which prices $200 million a yr to run, self-sustaining, Bukele mentioned.
“As all the time, we proceed advancing within the combat towards organized crime. However this time, we’re additionally serving to our allies, making our jail system self-sustainable, and acquiring important intelligence to make our nation an excellent safer place,” he mentioned in a statement posted on social media.
Different relations of the imprisoned migrants have made comparable pleas for assist, insisting that their family members have been mistakenly recognized as gang members and despatched to the maximum-security Salvadoran jail.
“He has numerous tattoos, however that’s not a motive to discriminate towards him,” Johanny Sánchez advised The Washington Post of her Venezuelan husband, Franco Caraballo, whom she mentioned was amongst these deported from Texas to El Salvador.
One other Venezuelan mom advised the Publish that her son, Ali David Navas Vizcaya, vanished after being advised final week that he was going to be deported to Venezuela or Mexico. He was detained in early 2024 after showing for an appointment with immigration officers on the U.S.-Mexico border, she mentioned.
“He advised me, ‘Lastly, we’re going to be collectively, and this nightmare goes to be over,’” his mom, Xiomara Vizcaya, who lives within the northern Venezuelan metropolis of Barquisimeto, mentioned of her son’s final telephone name to her on Friday.
A relative of migrant Mervin Yamarte, 29, additionally told NBC News that Yamarte’s household “fainted. They began screaming,” once they noticed him in a social media video with a shaved head and ripped shirt among the many individuals deported to El Salvador.
His brother, like many others, mentioned Yamarte was misidentified as a gang member solely due to his tattoos.
The sister of migrant Fritzgeralth De Jesus mentioned the identical about her brother.
“From the start, they requested continually about his tattoos. They’d ask him if he was a member of the felony gang, Tren de Aragua, and he all the time mentioned no,” she additionally advised NBC Information.
On Wednesday, an legal professional for detained Venezuelan soccer participant Jerce Reyes Barrios accused U.S. authorities of deporting him to El Salvador due to his tattoos and a photograph of him making hand gestures, which the lawyer mentioned imply “rock and roll” or “I like you.”
His tattoos embody a crown on high of a soccer ball with a rosary and the phrase “Dios,” which implies “God” in Spanish, the legal professional mentioned in a court docket submitting.
