Latest news with #HernándezRomero
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jon Lovett and Tim Miller team up to ‘raise hell' over gay asylum-seeker vanished to El Salvador by Trump
When Jon Lovett and Tim Miller take the stage alongside Sarah Longwell — a prominent anti-Trump conservative, publisher of The Bulwark, and out lesbian advocate — at Washington, D.C.'s Lincoln Theatre during WorldPride, the tone will be fast, furious, and undeniably funny. Expect jokes. Possibly drag. But beneath the riotous banter and righteous shade, the 'Free Andry" event is dead serious. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. The Crooked Media–Bulwark live show, slated for June 6, is a fundraiser for Andry Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old gay Venezuelan asylum-seeker who came to the United States legally, seeking protection from violence for being gay. Instead, he was disappeared by President Donald Trump's administration and deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison — a place so dystopian it's been compared to a modern-day concentration camp. His lawyers haven't heard from him since. There is no proof of life. Related: Jon Lovett warns Democrats that 'every inch Trump gets is an inch we don't get back' 'This is the worst thing that Trump has done — which is a very competitive category,' Miller said in an interview with The Advocate. 'They kidnapped someone who followed the rules, lied about him, and disappeared him.' Hernández Romero's ordeal began after he made an asylum appointment through the CBP One app, a legal channel established by the Biden administration and repurposed under Trump. He passed a credible fear interview and was detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center, a CoreCivic-run facility in California. He had no criminal history. His lawyer was preparing for his hearing. Then he vanished. Days later, photojournalists captured Hernández Romero being marched off a plane in El Salvador, shackled, sobbing, his head forcibly shaved. According to a Time journalist, he said, "I'm gay" and "I'm a stylist!' he cried to the guards. He was taken to CECOT, a mega-prison designed to hold tens of thousands of alleged gang members — many without charges, let alone convictions. There is no phone access. No mail. No contact with the outside world. Related: Gay asylum-seeker's lawyer worries for the makeup artist's safety in Salvadoran 'hellhole' prison 'They are treating him as if he's not a person,' Miller said. 'Because once they admit he's a human being, it brings the whole thing crashing down.' The deportation was based on a now-debunked claim: The two crown tattoos on Hernández Romero's wrists — placed above the names of his mother and father — were gang symbols. The accusation originated from a former Wisconsin police officer turned ICE contractor — a man fired years earlier after crashing his car while drunk. ICE ran with it anyway. Hernández Romero's lawyer previously told The Advocate there's no evidence the tattoos were related to gang affiliation and that the markings were a personal tribute to Hernández Romero's family and his years performing in religious pageants. On social media, he appeared not as a gang member but as a joyful, flamboyant artist surrounded by beauty queens and runway glitter. Related: Democratic lawmakers fly to El Salvador and demand action on gay man Trump sent to CECOT prison Lovett was struck by the absurdity of the government's rationale. 'There was something really clarifying and horrible about a person begging for someone to listen — 'I'm not a member of any gang, I'm gay,'' he said. 'They're willing to lie so brazenly about a case this clear. What lies wouldn't they tell?' Lovett, the out co-founder of Crooked Media, Pod Save America cohost, and former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, is known for his political satire and co-hosting duties on Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It. Miller, a former Republican strategist turned Trump critic, is a writer and podcast host at The Bulwark and the author of Why We Did It, a memoir about breaking from the GOP. For both Miller and Lovett, the case is a moral breaking point — and a political line in the sand. It's also a haunting example of the Trump administration's vision for immigration — one that flouts judicial orders, distorts wartime law, and reduces queer asylum-seekers to disposable bodies. 'They want to be the heel,' Miller said. 'They revel in being the bad guy in the movie. They want people to be afraid — to feel like if they step out of line, if they even touch the system, they could vanish too.' Related: Robert Garcia demands answers in case of gay Venezuelan migrant deported to El Salvador prison Lovett called the situation a 'Kafkaesque bureaucratic doom loop.' The chilling part, he said, isn't just the violence. It's the intentional chaos. 'Feckless bureaucratic incompetence is also incredibly dangerous,' he said. 'It kills people. It destroys lives.' For Miller, the true horror is that it could have been worse. 'They would have liked to have done more already,' he said. 'They've just been blocked by the courts because they did it in such a ham-fisted and stupid way. Their incompetence is the only reason we're not seeing more Andrys.' The goal with 'Free Andry' is to stop it from happening again. Lovett and Miller were particularly incensed by the May exchange between Rep. Robert Garcia and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a House committee hearing. When Garcia pleaded with Noem to confirm whether Hernández Romero was alive, she refused. 'Noem wouldn't even dignify a question as a mother, on behalf of another mother, about where Andry is,' Lovett said. Miller saw it as part of a broader strategy to strip people like Hernández Romero of their personhood. 'They don't want to treat these people as human,' he said. 'Because once you start treating them as human, then that has to change the whole process by which they're acting.' That refusal to admit error — even when confronted with a clear injustice — is, he said, central to Trumpism. 'The ethos is: never give an inch. Never acknowledge fault. Because if you admit Andry is innocent, then it opens up a Pandora's box.' Related: Gay Venezuelan asylum-seeker 'disappeared' to Salvadoran mega-prison under Trump order, Maddow reveals The stakes, they said, go far beyond one case. 'This is a test,' Lovett warned. 'They picked this fight on purpose. If we don't fight now, it will only get worse.' Miller agreed: 'Their incompetence has benefited others who might have been disappeared next. Had they been more efficient within the bounds of the law, there's a lot of scary stuff they could already be doing.' They described a pattern of ICE disappearances so chaotic and unaccountable that it feels dystopian. 'It's the bad luck of having touched the system and run into the wrong ICE official,' Lovett said. 'It's bureaucratic incompetence, but it can be more harmful too. It kills people. It destroys lives.' They also pushed back on the Trump administration's attempts to isolate cases like Hernández Romero's from others like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father mistakenly deported under similar conditions. 'They want the public to think it's just one guy with one tattoo, or one guy with one checkered history,' Miller said. 'But it's not. It's a pattern.' Miller and Lovett emphasized that the fundraiser is a party with a purpose. The program will feature surprise guests, irreverent commentary, and what Lovett called 'the Gs and the Ls coming together.' All proceeds will go to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which represents Hernández Romero and others detained under similar circumstances. 'It's going to be a big fun gay live show at the Lincoln,' Lovett said. 'Not officially part of WorldPride — or, I don't know, some legal queen will come after us — but we're going to raise money and raise hell.' They're hoping that by turning attention toward Hernández Romero's story — and the broader pattern of ICE disappearances — they can pressure lawmakers to act. 'If this just becomes background noise,' Lovett warned, 'they'll keep doing it. They'll move on to the next plane.' For Miller, the need to act is visceral. 'I've been getting very mad about it at random times during the day,' he said. 'I did a rage selfie video in a hotel room. That didn't feel satisfying. Then I was in the shower the other day, and I was getting very upset about it, which is usually different from what I'm doing in the shower. I got out and texted Jon: We need to do something more.' Legal advocates continue pushing in court. Lindsay Toczylowski, a 15-year immigration attorney and executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said that without media coverage, the government's deportation program will keep operating in the shadows. Every day Hernández Romero remains in isolation, she warns, his life could be at risk. She previously told The Advocate that the responsibility falls squarely on the Trump administration if something happens to him. Still, his legal team holds out hope. They believe increased pressure from elected officials, like those recently traveling to El Salvador demanding proof of life, could break through. If someone is allowed to see Hernández Romero and report back that he's alive, it may be the first step toward bringing him home. For Lovett, the fight for justice can't just be urgent — it has to be magnetic. 'Part of the way you get people to come around to seeing things from our point of view,' he said, 'is by being a fun have to be a fun movement." Miller added, 'It's okay to protest about serious things, and make it something people want to be a part of.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kristi Noem Refuses ‘Proof-Of-Life' Request For Gay Makeup Artist Trump Doomed To Salvadoran Hellhole
The U.S. homeland security secretary on Wednesday refused to confirm whether a gay makeup artist disappeared by the Trump administration to an infamous Salvadoran prison two months ago was even alive. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the man, Andry Hernández Romero, was simply not her problem. Hernández Romero is the one of hundreds of people banished by the United States to the notorious prison camp without charge or trial. 'This individual is in El Salvador, and the appeal would be best made to the president, and to the government, of El Salvador,' Noem told Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee. Garcia kept pushing, asking Noem to request a 'proof-of-life' for Hernández Romero from the government of El Salvador. 'This is not under my jurisdiction,' Noem said. Despite Noem's prevaricating, the administration has every ability to check on its detainees in El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, as President Donald Trump has admitted. The administration made a multimillion-dollar deal with El Salvador to house detainees, and Noem herself has called the foreign prison 'one of the tools in our toolkit' — belying any claim that U.S. detainees, once on Salvadoran soil, are no longer subject to U.S. detention. An ongoing legal battle centers on this concept, known as 'constructive custody': The Trump administration considers the detainees to be in El Salvador's custody; lawyers advocating for the U.S. detainees' rights say they're owed their day in U.S. court. Hernández Romero is one of the more noteddetainees shipped by the Trump administration to CECOT, partly because a photojournalist in El Salvador, Philip Holsinger, identified him specifically, crying and shouting 'I'm innocent' and 'I'm gay' as CECOT guards shaved his head. Pursuing an asylum claim in the United States, Hernández Romero made an appointment to enter the country on the app formerly known as CBP One. He passed a credible fear interview, which should have allowed him to stay in the United States as his asylum case proceeded. (People who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization still have the right to claim asylum, but both former President Joe Biden and Trump have undermined this right.) Still, Hernández Romero was detained once he arrived in the country, and never left detention. Instead, he was accused of being a gang member by the administration, seemingly due to his tattoos, and the assessment of a disgraced former police officer working for a U.S. private prison company. 'He's not in a gang. He's a makeup artist who worked at Miss Venezuela,' his attorney, Lindsay Toczylowski, told The Advocate last month. 'His social media is full of beauty queens. The only crowns he touches are made of rhinestones.' Alongside at least 287 others, Hernández Romero was disappeared by the administration to CECOT, where he has been out of touch from his family and lawyers for two months. Noem's acknowledgement that 'this individual is in El Salvador' is more than most U.S. CECOT detainees get — for hundreds of people expelled to the prison camp from the United States, neither the U.S. nor Salvadoran governments have even acknowledged their detention, in what manyconsider to be 'enforced disappearances' under international law. Historians Are 'Shocked' By What They've Seen Trump Do In Just 100 Days Human Rights Groups File Emergency Petition Over Trump Expulsions To Salvadoran Mega-Prison Top Human Rights Official Rings Alarm Bells About Trump Policy
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
We Need Proof of Life for the Makeup Artist Trump Sent to El Salvador
I understand why Kilmar Abrego Garcia has become the face of Donald Trump's monstrous policy of sending migrants to a gulag in El Salvador. In a court filing, the administration's own lawyers initially admitted that his deportation was an 'administrative error,' and the White House has been disregarding a Supreme Court ruling to 'facilitate' his return. Abrego Garcia's case was both a human tragedy and an incipient constitutional crisis. His Kafkaesque predicament is a stark illustration of what it means to be stripped of the law's protection, and thus a warning for us all. But Abrego Garcia is not alone. America has sent hundreds of people to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, a mega-prison where inmates never have visitors or step outside and the lights are on 24 hours a day. Of all the men we've rendered to this hell, the one I can't get out of my mind is Andry Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela, sent to rot in El Salvador because the Trump administration claimed his tattoos link him to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. In photos he is slight, holding makeup brushes or posing with flowers or rainbow balloons. The photojournalist Philip Holsinger captured his arrival in El Salvador, where he sobbed and called out for his mother as guards shaved his head, introducing him to a life of total dehumanization. This week, four Democratic members of Congress went to El Salvador to try to see Abrego Garcia, and while they were there, they sought proof of life for Hernández Romero. They didn't get it. 'No one has actually heard about Andry at all since the abduction, including his lawyers and family,' said Robert Garcia, a congressman from California. The Democrats obtained a promise from the American Embassy in El Salvador to check on Hernández Romero, but as of this writing, there's been no update. Hernández Romero's case exemplifies the carelessness that has marked the Trump administration's arrangement with El Salvador from the beginning. And it highlights the rapid transformation of America from a place of refuge for at least some victims of oppression to a place where noncitizens often seem to have no human rights at all. Hernández Romero, who fled Venezuela in part because of the persecution he'd faced as a gay man, tried to come to America the right way. After making the grueling journey north, he was arrested the first time he attempted to get into the United States and sent back to Mexico. But there, he did what he should have done in the first place, downloading an app from Customs and Border Protection and making an appointment to claim asylum. He passed a preliminary screening; officials found that he had credible fear of being persecuted if he returned home. During a physical exam, however, an officer flagged the crown tattoos he has on each wrist — one with the word 'mom' and the other with the word 'dad' — and he was sent to Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, run by the private prison company CoreCivic. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Gay asylum-seeker's lawyer worries for the makeup artist's safety in Salvadoran ‘hellhole' prison
The last time anyone spoke to Andry Hernández Romero, he thought he was being put on a plane back to Venezuela. Instead, the 31-year-old gay Venezuelan makeup artist, who came to the United States seeking asylum from political persecution and anti-LGBTQ+ violence, according to his attorney, was forcibly disappeared into one of the world's toughest prisons. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. Hernández Romero is now believed to be held inside El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, better known as CECOT — a sprawling, brutalist mega-prison that has been compared to a modern gulag or concentration camp. Constructed by President Nayib Bukele to house alleged gang members, CECOT holds tens of thousands of men in isolation, most without trial. Many have not been convicted of any crimes. There is no phone access. No mail. No visits. No light. No end. Related: Gay Venezuelan asylum-seeker 'disappeared' to Salvadoran mega-prison under Trump order, Maddow reveals 'This is one of the most shocking things I could ever imagine happening to a client,' said Lindsay Toczylowski, a 15-year immigration attorney and executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, in an interview with The Advocate. Toczylowski is representing Hernández Romero in court. Andry Hernandez RomeroCourtesy Immigrant Defenders Law Center 'He never left ICE custody,' she said. 'He had no criminal history. And yet they secretly shipped him off to a hellhole, like his life meant nothing.' She said Hernández Romero, a pageant stylist and lifelong theater performer, had never even been arrested. Now she worries he is shackled and starving in a foreign land he had never set foot in before being deported there by the Trump administration under the pretext of national security and based on nothing more than a tattoo. Hernández Romero's journey to CECOT began with a crown — two, in fact. Toczylowski said the tattoos on his wrists, one above his mother's name and one above his father's, were part of a tribute to his family and the Three Kings Day pageants in which he had performed since childhood. But to a disgraced former Milwaukee police officer working for private prison contractor CoreCivic, they looked like gang insignia. Related: Deported gay makeup artist cried for mother in prison, photojournalist says That officer, who had been fired for crashing his car while intoxicated and later hired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, submitted a report claiming the crowns suggested membership in Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal syndicate that the Trump administration has labeled a foreign terrorist organization. That flimsy accusation, uncorroborated by any credible evidence, became Hernández Romero's ticket to indefinite torture. 'He's not in a gang. He's a makeup artist who worked at Miss Venezuela,' Toczylowski said. 'His social media is full of beauty queens. The only crowns he touches are made of rhinestones.' A prison officer opening a gate at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, in San Vicente, El Salvador on April 4, 2025. Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images Hernández Romero entered the U.S. last year after making an appointment through the Biden administration's CBP One app. The Trump administration has repurposed the app, now called CBP Home, to get undocumented immigrants to self-deport. His attorney says he followed the rules and did everything right. When he arrived, he was detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California, run by CoreCivic. He never once stepped outside a detention facility. He was no danger to Americans, his lawyer says. Related: Bad Wisconsin cop's tattoo claim helped deport gay asylum-seeker to Salvadoran prison hellscape: report Hernández Romero was scheduled for an asylum hearing March 13. But when the hearing came, he didn't appear — not because he skipped court, but because ICE didn't bring him. His lawyers were confused, and then they panicked. By Friday of that week, he was no longer listed in the ICE detainee locator. By Sunday, Bukele posted videos of Venezuelan men being brutally marched off planes in shackles on social media. Hernández Romero's lawyers scanned the footage frame by frame. They saw him. 'He was crying, begging guards, 'I'm gay! I'm a stylist!'' Toczylowski said. 'He was being slapped, his head forcibly shaved. And then he disappeared into the dark.' CECOT is not a prison in any traditional sense. It is a vast fortress of pain. Thousands of men sleep on metal slabs in vast concrete rooms. They are beaten for speaking. They are denied food until they are too weak to resist, Toczylowski said. Their heads are shaved, their identities stripped. They are forbidden from speaking, even to each other. Photojournalist Philip Holsinger, who documented the prison for Time, said Hernández Romero sobbed uncontrollably, praying and calling out for his mother as guards dragged him down a hallway. Hernández Romero's mother learned of his fate only when Toczylowski called to tell her he was in El Salvador. ICE has refused to confirm anything to his attorneys. There is no removal order and no legal paperwork. The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not respond to The Advocate's requests for comment. The Trump administration claims the Alien Enemies Act — a law passed in 1798 to detain foreign nationals during war — gives it unchecked power to disappear people like Hernández Romero without trial. ICE has since declared it will not facilitate any communication with him or make him available for court appearances, his lawyer said. 'It is terrifying,' Toczylowski said. 'Because we have no idea what is happening to him.' Andry Hernandez RomeroCourtesy Immigrant Defenders Law Center Despite the trauma, Toczylowski and her team are fighting. They've filed court motions. They've contacted elected officials. But the wheels of justice move slowly — too slowly for someone caged in a windowless concrete block, surrounded by armed guards, his future erased. 'Every single day he remains there, his life is at risk,' she said. 'And if anything happens to him, it is on President Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security [Kristi] Noem, and Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio.' Hernández Romero's case, she warned, is not just about one person. 'If they can do this to him, they can do it to anyone,' she said. 'Green card holders. U.S. citizens. Anyone.' In a quiet moment during the interview, Toczylowski reflected on the emotional toll. 'I have not had a case or a situation that has weighed on me like this since we were at the epicenter of the family separation crisis,' she said. 'We were helping kids in shelters who were crying for their parents. I thought that was the most shocking thing I'd ever witnessed in my career. But what has happened to Andry? It tops that.' She paused. 'This is as bad as it gets.' Andry Hernandez RomeroCourtesy Immigrant Defenders Law Center Hernández Romero doesn't know that people are fighting for him. He doesn't know that his theater troupe in Venezuela is staging rallies in his honor, wearing crowns in protest. He doesn't know that, according to Toczylowski, churches in Canada, Spain, and the Netherlands have offered him sanctuary. He doesn't know that dozens of strangers across the U.S. have offered to house him if he ever returns. 'We just want him to know he's not alone,' Toczylowski said. 'He's loved. We're fighting like hell to bring him home.' ImmDef continues to represent Hernández Romero and others like him pro bono. The nonprofit organization accepts financial contributions and urges those who support Hernández Romero to share his story, contact elected officials, and support legal efforts to bring him back. 'We have started representing other people who are also in El Salvador, whose stories we are just learning,' Toczylowski said. 'We obviously do all of this work pro bono. So, if people want to support organizations like us that fight to get due process for people and that provide free lawyers to people, they should. We could certainly use the support." On Saturday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary pause on further deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. The court's order came after the American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency appeal on behalf of dozens of men being held in Texas, many of whom were reportedly being bused to airports without notice or hearings. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. The court's move signals new scrutiny of Trump's use of executive wartime powers to bypass asylum law. While the justices have not yet ruled on the law's constitutionality, the pause blocks removals 'until further order of this court.' On Monday, four Democratic U.S. lawmakers traveled to El Salvador to investigate the situation for those detained, including to conduct a welfare check on Hernández Romero. U.S. Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Robert Garcia of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida, and Maxine Dexter of Oregon sent a letter to Rubio requesting that they or Hernández Romero's lawyers be able to see him. "As a gay man, Mr. Hernández Romero is at particular risk of persecution if deported or imprisoned in El Salvador, a country where LGBTQIA+ people can face 'torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, excessive use of force, illegal and arbitrary arrests and other forms of abuse, much of it committed by public security agents,'" the letter states. Beyond financial support, Toczylowski said Hernández Romero's case needs continued attention. 'We need elected officials — like Sen. [Chris] Van Hollen did — to go to El Salvador and demand answers,' she said. 'And if we're able to get an elected official to go down like Sen. Van Hollen did, and they're able to speak with him, I want him to know how many people — his team here at ImmDef, his family, and so many around the world — are fighting for him so that he doesn't give up hope, so that he doesn't give up the will to survive.' Van Hollen, a Democratic U.S. senator from Maryland, traveled to San Salvador last week to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another man deported under similar circumstances. Van Hollen confirmed that Abrego Garcia had been held in CECOT for weeks, isolated, taunted, and emotionally traumatized. He was later transferred to a lower-level facility, still in isolation, but reportedly improved. 'He was clearly strengthened by the fact that people were fighting to ensure his rights are protected,' Van Hollen said at a news conference after returning. Toczylowski said she hopes someone will be allowed to speak to Hernández Romero soon and that he will learn he hasn't been forgotten. 'If it were me, I'd want someone to tell my story. I'd want someone to know I was human,' she said. 'If it can happen to Andry — it can happen to a green card holder. It can happen to a U.S. citizen. That should chill us all.'
CBS News
07-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
ICE claims tattoos tie migrants to the Tren de Aragua gang. Experts say they aren't reliable identifiers.
Tattoos of crowns , a clock and other symbols have been used by the Trump administration to allege Venezuelan men deported from the U.S. are members of the Tren de Aragua gang. But experts and police in a Colorado city who have investigated the gang say tattoos aren't reliable markers of affiliation. The administration alleges the deportees it sent to El Salvador's notorious maximum security prison are gang members, mostly with Tren de Aragua, and some with MS-13. It has also acknowledged that "many" of them have no criminal records. President Trump invoked the 1798 wartime Alien Enemies Act , claiming Tren de Aragua is invading the United States, to deport many of the men. The administration also declared Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization. Court documents, lawyers and family members of some of the migrants have said their tattoos were reasons they were determined to be alleged Tren de Aragua members. The wife of Franco Jose Caraballo , a barber from Venezuela with no criminal record, said officers kept asking questions about his tattoo of a pocket watch that marks the time of their daughter's birth. A lawyer for Caraballo says he's not a gang member and his wife said he is innocent when asked what worries her about his detention in the Salvadoran prison. Another man, Andry José Hernández Romero, has crown tattoos over the words "Mom" and "Dad." Hernández Romero is a makeup artist who identifies as gay. He faced discrimination and threats in Venezuela because of his sexual orientation and political views and was seeking asylum in the U.S., his attorney said in a court filing. A questionnaire, used in correctional facilities to assess potential gang affiliation, appears to show that Hernández Romero's tattoos were the only basis to allegedly connect him to Tren de Aragua. "The crown has been found to be an identifier for a Tren de Aragua gang member," an officer wrote in the filing. Many experts disagree that tattoos can identify members of the gang. "Expert after expert tells us tattoos are not a reliable indicator of whether you're part of this particular gang," Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who is leading the legal challenge against the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act, told 60 Minutes . Rebecca Hanson, an assistant professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Florida, wrote in a court filing for the case that there are no tattoos, symbols or hand gestures associated with the group. "The TdA, and gangs more generally in Venezuela, do not have a history of using tattoos to indicate membership," she said. "TdA members may, of course, have tattoos, but this is not part of a collective identity." In Aurora, Colorado, which Mr. Trump has claimed is a "war zone" overrun by the Tren de Aragua, Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said it's very difficult to identify Tren de Aragua members. Chamberlain said he would not describe the city as a "war zone," but said Aurora has been "ground zero" for the gang's activities. The city saw organized violent crime concentrated in three apartment complexes, one of which is now shuttered. The Aurora Police Department likely has the best understanding of the Tren de Aragua gang of any U.S. law enforcement agency, he said. "It's unlike MS-13, it's unlike a Crip or a Blood," he said. "If you go back to gangs in the early '80s or the '90s again, the way they walked, the way they talked, what they wore, they had very obvious signs." But Tren de Aragua does not, he said. Rather than focusing on trying to identify gang members, Chamberlain said his department has focused on criminal activity. "For us, it wasn't about what gang they were involved in. It's about what criminal activity they were involved in, and we knew that there was criminal activity," he said. "If we could connect it to TdA as we were evolving this process, that's great." Chamberlain said his department counted a total of nine confirmed Tren de Aragua members who passed through Aurora in the last two years. Jeanette Rodriguez, who serves as a liaison between local law enforcement and the Venezuelan migrant community in Aurora, said Tren de Aragua members don't flaunt obvious signs of gang membership. "If you compare it to like MS-13, they're very proud of who they are, and they would tattoo them on their faces, and are very proud of who they are. Tren de Aragua, they know the value of laying low," she said. Hanson noted that the Trump administration's partial reliance on tattoos to conclude migrants are members of Tren de Aragua "appears to result from an incorrect conflation of gang practices in Central America and Venezuela." It's different than in El Salvador and Honduras, where "gangs have long used tattoos to indicate membership and identity," she said. At CECOT , the El Salvador prison, many of the inmates have prominent tattoos. One, Marvin Vazquez, who is an MS-13 member, said "you gotta kill" to get a tattoo like the "MS" ones he showed on his chest and abdomen. Vazquez was arrested in El Salvador after the government declared war on the gangs in 2022. Gustavo Villatoro, El Salvador's minister of justice and public security, said tattoos are one way the government identifies gang members. He said not all the prisoners in CECOT have been convicted of crimes. Under the Alien Enemies Act , the Trump administration does not need to follow due process to remove individuals from the U.S. Asked if he was worried some migrants were incorrectly identified as gang members, Mr. Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan said he's not. "I'll trust the men and women at ICE," Homan said. "I've been assured numerous times that everybody in that plane from Venezuela was a TdA member. The rest of 'em were MS-13." Homan said the government did not rely just on tattoos, but would not share evidence to prove the deportees are gang members. And in cases like those of Caraballo and Hernández Romero, it's unclear what other basis was used to allege they are Tren de Aragua members.
