Latest news with #ReyesBarrios
5 days ago
- Politics
'Am I dreaming?': Soccer coach who says he was deported over his tattoo celebrates his release from CECOT
On Wednesday, more than a dozen children in lime green soccer uniform surrounded Jerce Reyes Barrios, hugging and jumping on their former coach as onlookers cheered. Earlier in the week, hundreds of residents of the Venezuelan town of Machiques de Perija lined the street and cheered as a Venezuelan National Guard truck pulled into town to drop Reyes Barrios off at his home. The crowd threw confetti, jumped up and down, and joyfully roared as he exited the vehicle. The exuberant homecoming was in stark contrast to the welcome he received in March at El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison, where he says he and over 200 other Venezuelan nationals, accused by the Trump administration of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua, were violently ushered into the facility. "Welcome to hell on earth, where you will be condemned and spend the rest of your life, where I will make sure you never eat chicken or meat again," Reyes Barrios recalled one prison guard allegedly telling the men. "That was when I shed my first tear and thought, wow -- my first time being psychologically abused," he told ABC News in an interview Friday, speaking in Spanish from his home in Venezuela, after being released from CECOT in a prisoner swap last week. Reyes Barrios and his fellow detainees were deported from the U.S. when the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act -- an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- by arguing that Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged shortly afterward that "many" of the men deported on March 15 lacked criminal records in the United States -- but said that "the lack of specific information about each individual" actually "demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile." In March, ABC News reported about Reyes Barrios' imprisonment after his attorney, Linette Tobin, submitted a sworn declaration and documents in court she said backed up her claim that her client had no criminal record in Venezuela or the United States, was employed as a professional soccer player and youth coach, and was falsely accused of being a gang member because of his tattoo which showed a crown on top of a soccer ball with a rosary and the word "Dios," meaning "God." Reyes Barrios' family echoed what his attorney said in court filings, and told ABC News that his tattoo was modeled after the Real Madrid soccer team logo. "I got the tattoo because my favorite team is Real Madrid, which has a crown on top of a circle symbolizing the ball, that's why I got it," Reyes Barrios told ABC News. "For me, soccer is the king of sports so it correlates with the soccer ball with the crown." Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to ABC News, said, "DHS intelligence assessments go beyond tattoos, and we are confident in our findings. We aren't going to share intelligence reports and undermine national security every time a gang member denies he is one. That would be insane." 'We were practically lied to' Reyes Barrios crossed the U.S.-Mexico border legally through the CBP One app in September 2025, but was accused of being a Tren de Aragua member and was detained at a facility under maximum security, court records show. "The investigator ... sees my tattoos and tells me this tattoo belongs to the Tren de Aragua gang. I was unaware of (the gang) because in Venezuela you don't really see that," Reyes Barrios said. DHS accused Reyes Barrios of having a gang-affiliated tattoo and also claimed there were photos showing him displaying gang signs. According to Tobin's declaration, those alleged gang signs were the hand symbols for "rock and roll" and "I love you" in sign language. After Tobin presented information about his lack of a criminal record and the source of the tattoo, which included a sworn declaration from the tattoo artist who designed it, Reyes Barrios was transferred out of maximum security. Despite having a court hearing set for April 17, he was transferred to a detention facility in Texas and was promptly deported to El Salvador on March 15, along with over 200 other men. He says ICE officials did not tell the men where they were being sent before they boarded the plane. "There were three planes, everyone clapping because we were going to Venezuela," he said. On the plane, ICE officials ordered the men to keep the windows closed. "The surprise for us -- when we landed in San Salvador," he said. "We were practically lied to." 'We could hear screams' The violent intake process at CECOT was caught on camera and published on social media by Trump administration officials and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele. Reyes Barrios said that once inside the prison, their heads were shaved and they were stripped naked and given prison uniforms. He claims guards beat the men throughout the entire process -- but the real terror started when the men were ushered into "Module 8." "You felt the tension entering that module because we could hear screams. We saw blood, we saw vomit ... people were fainting," he said. It was at that moment that he said a prison official welcomed the men to "hell on earth." From that moment on, Reyes Barrios said the men were not only isolated from other prisoners, but were also cut off from the world. They were unaware, he said, that a federal judge had unsuccessfully ordered the Trump administration to turn their planes around when the ACLU filed an emergency motion in court. "We couldn't see the sun, I mean, we didn't know anything. We said that we had been forgotten, that we were literally going to die there, that no one was fighting for us," he said. The men were regularly beaten, he said. Their beards grew long and unkept. He said the lights inside their crowded cells were kept on and the guards would regularly beat their batons against the bars to keep the men from sleeping during the day. When members of the Red Cross or other officials would visit the prison, Reyes Barrios says the prisoners were handed clean clothes and allowed to shower. They were given better food to maintain the appearance that they were being treated well, he said. "They would take one cell to supposedly go play soccer," he said. "They would have us pretend to play for five minutes, record a video, take a photo, and then back inside. No one else would go out. " The men passed the time playing games and exercising. Reyes Barrios said he read the Bible as he fell into depression. "I read a lot about Job's story because just as God gave Job the patience to endure everything that happened to him, I asked God to give me patience." Then, more than three months into their imprisonment, the men began to suspect something strange was happening when they were given haircuts. At two in the morning, a guard told the men they had 20 minutes to shower. They started to suspect they were about to be released, Reyes Barrios said. "We start clapping, because they never send us to shower at two in the morning," he said. They were each given plain clothes, sneakers, and a sweater. "Some started crying and that moment was beautiful," he said. On July 18, more than 250 Venezuelan migrants were freed by El Salvador and transported to Venezuela. In exchange, the Venezuela's Maduro regime agreed to release 10 American prisoners from their custody. 'Am I dreaming?' A video taken by Reyes Barrios' sister showed the tearful moment he hugged his father after arriving back in his hometown of Machiques de Perija. "Could it be true or am I dreaming?" he says he asks himself now that he has been freed. "I pinch myself, yes it's real." "That welcome the people gave me, I didn't expect it, but that shows the U.S. government that I'm not a criminal," he said. Reyes Barrios says he has no plans of returning to the United States at the moment, but he fears being detained again. A team of lawyers is advising him on filing a potential lawsuit, but he has not yet made a decision. He said he's focused on spending time with his daughters and with God. "At night I would ask God to show me my future in dreams -- what will become of my life," Reyes Barrios recalled of his time in CECOT. "I dreamed of being in my town with my daughters with my parents, and I'd head straight to the soccer field," he said.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
‘Hell on earth.' A Venezuelan deportee describes abuse in El Salvador prison
CARACAS, Venezeula — When Jerce Reyes Barrios and other Venezuelan deportees entered a maximum security prison in El Salvador this spring, he said guards greeted them with taunts. 'Welcome to El Salvador, you sons of bitches,' Reyes Barrios said the guards told them. 'You've arrived at the Terrorist Confinement Center. Hell on earth.' What followed, Reyes Barrios said, were the darkest months of his life. Reyes Barrios said he was regularly beaten on his neck, ribs and head. He and other prisoners were given little food and forced to drink contaminated water. They slept on metal beds with no mattresses in overcrowded cells, listening to the screams of other inmates. 'There was blood, vomit and people passed out on the floor, he said. Reyes Barrios, 36, was one of more than 250 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador from the United States in March after President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without normal immigration procedures. Many of the men, including Reyes Barrios, insist that they have no ties to the gang and were denied due process. After enduring months in detention in El Salvador, they were sent home last week as part of a prisoner exchange deal that included Venezuela's release of several detained Americans. Venezuela's attorney general said interviews with the men revealed 'systemic torture' inside the Salvadoran prison, including daily beatings, rancid food and sexual abuse. One of the former detainees, Neiyerver Adrián León Rengel, filed a claim Thursday with the Homeland Security Department, accusing the U.S. of removing him without due process and asking for $1.3 million in damages. Reyes Barrios spoke to The Times over video Thursday after returning to his hometown of Machiques, a city of 140,000 not far from the Colombian border. He was overjoyed to be reunited with his mother, his wife and his children. But he said he was haunted by his experience in prison. A onetime professional soccer player, Reyes Barrios left Venezuela last year amid political unrest and in search of economic opportunity. He entered the U.S. on Sept. 1 at the Otay Mesa border crossing in California under the asylum program known as CBP One. He was immediately detained, accused of being a gangster and placed in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A court statement earlier this year from his attorney, Linette Tobin, said authorities tied Reyes Barrios to Tren de Aragua based solely on an arm tattoo and a social media post in which he made a hand gesture that U.S. authorities interpreted as a gang sign. The tattoo — a crown sitting atop a soccer ball, with a rosary and the word 'Díos' or 'God' — is actually an homage to his favorite team, Real Madrid, Tobin wrote. She said the hand gesture is sign language for 'I Love You.' While in custody in California, Reyes Barrios applied for political asylum and other relief. A hearing had been set for April 17, but on March 15, he was deported to El Salvador 'with no notice to counsel or family,' Tobin wrote. Reyes Barrios 'has never been arrested or charged with a crime,' Tobin added. 'He has a steady employment record as a soccer player as well as a soccer coach for children and youth.' The surprise deportation of Reyes Barrios and other Venezuelans to El Salvador drew outcry from human rights advocates and spurred a legal battle with the Trump administration. Reyes Barrios was not aware of the controversy over deportations as he was ushered in handcuffs from the airport in San Salvador to the country's infamous Terrorism Confinement Center, also known as CECOT. There, Reyes Barrios said he and other inmates were forced to walk on their knees as their heads were shaved and they were repeatedly beaten. He said he was put in a cell with 21 other men — all Venezuelans. Guards meted out measly portions of beans and tortillas and told the inmates they 'would never eat chicken or meat again.' El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, has detained tens of thousands of his compatriots in CECOT and other prisons in recent years, part of a gang crackdown that human rights advocates say has ensnared thousands of innocent people. Bukele garnered worldwide attention and praise from U.S. Republicans after he published dramatic photos and videos showing hundreds of prisoners crammed together in humiliating positions, wearing nothing but underwear and shackles. During a meeting with Bukele at the Oval Office this year, Trump said he was interested in sending 'homegrowns' — i.e. American prisoners — to El Salvador's jails. A spokeswoman for Bukele did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Reyes Barrios said guards told him and the other detained Venezuelans that they would spend the rest of their lives in the prison. Reyes Barrios said he started praying at night: 'God, protect my mother and my children. I entrust my soul to you because I think I'm going to die.' Then, several days ago, he and the other prisoners were awakened by yelling in the early morning hours. Guards told them they had 20 minutes to take showers and prepare to leave. 'At that moment, we all shouted with joy,' Reyes Barrios said. 'I think that was my only happy day at CECOT.' After arriving in Venezuela, Reyes Barrios and the other returnees spent days in government custody, undergoing medical checks and interviews with officials. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has seized on the treatment of prisoners, airing videos on state television in which some deportees describe suffering abuses including rape, beatings and being shot at with pellet guns. Venezuelan authorities say they are investigating Bukele over the alleged abuse. Maduro, a leftist authoritarian who has ruled Venezuela since 2013, has maintained his grip on power by jailing — and sometimes torturing — opponents. Many of the 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled the country in recent years have cited political repression as one reason for leaving. In Tobin's court statement, she said Reyes Barrios participated in two demonstrations against Maduro in early 2024. After the second, Reyes Barrios was detained by authorities along with other protesters and tortured, she wrote. Reyes Barrios said he did not wish to discuss Venezuelan politics. He said he was just grateful to be back with his family. 'My mother is very happy, ' he said. He was greeted in his hometown by some of the young soccer players he once coached. They wore their uniforms and held balloons. Reyes Barrios juggled a ball a bit, gave the kids hugs and high fives, and smiled. Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Mogollón, a special correspondent, from Caracas. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell contributed from Mexico City.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The grim irony of a convicted felon denying immigrants their right to due process
It was the sort of headline we're accustomed to seeing in reports from repressive regimes overseas: Earlier this month, more than 200 immigrants were unceremoniously shipped out of the United States to a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador, all without benefit of any prior judicial process — and, indeed, in possible defiance of explicit orders from a federal judge. The formal legal basis for this stunning action was an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, meant to be used during times of war to detain or expel potential spies and saboteurs employed by the enemy nation. The rhetorical and political basis, however, was a circular argument long used by authoritarians: These are bad and violent people, alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — and maybe even 'terrorists!' — who therefore do not deserve any due process. Attorney General Pam Bondi struck a note echoed by many in the administration in a CNN interview when she blasted the judge who had ordered a halt to the expulsions: 'The question should be why is a judge trying to protect terrorists who have invaded our country?' How do we know they're terrorists or gang members without due process? Shush. It's grimly ironic, then, that all this was carried out on the orders of a convicted criminal, President Donald Trump, who has made the exploitation of due process guarantees a minor art form. In case after case, Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has also successfully managed the legal system to delay and, thus far, avoid legal accountability, even where the evidence of his wrongdoing was copious, decisive and public. Many of the migrants now languishing in El Salvador, by contrast, appear to have been denied judicial process precisely because the evidence against them was so thin — and in some cases essentially nonexistent. Consider the case of Jerce Reyes Barrios, one of the very few expelled migrants for whom we have some idea of the grounds on which they were detained and ultimately imprisoned. An affidavit filed by his attorney provides the outline of his case. Reyes Barrios had been a professional soccer player in Venezuela, where last year he was detained and subjected to torture for protesting against the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. He fled to Mexico, where he used a Customs and Border Patrol app to submit a request for asylum, and then the United States. He was detained in California pending a hearing on his asylum petition, which had been slated for April. According to the affidavit, however, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents grew suspicious of a tattoo the soccer player sported, which his attorney says is modeled on the logo for the Spanish soccer team Real Madrid, as well as social media posts in which Reyes Barrios is making the classic rock-and-roll horns hand gesture. That, says his attorney, was enough to get him put on a plane to El Salvador. The Department of Homeland Security, unsurprisingly, rejects this characterization and insists that it remains 'confident' in its assessment that Reyes Barrios is a gang member based on evidence gleaned from his social media accounts. What evidence, exactly? Is it sufficient to condemn a man to be locked up for at least a year in a foreign prison famous for human right abuses? The public, and the courts, may never learn. And Reyes Barrios is hardly alone: Relatives of several other detainees have come forward to insist that their family members have no ties to Tren de Aragua. Even if in some cases such ties are demonstrable — if you rounded up a few hundred men you'd probably net some gang members purely by chance — one might quaintly imagine that some specific crime would be required to justify indefinite imprisonment under brutal conditions. But ICE itself has acknowledged that many of the men have no criminal records in the United States and does not appear to even be claiming, in most cases, that it has evidence of concrete gang-related criminal offenses. No worries, according to Robert Cerna, acting director of enforcement and removal operations in ICE's field office in Harlingen, Texas, because 'the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose' because it 'demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.' In other words, according to Cerna's Kafkaesque logic, the absence of any evidence of criminality only proves what ingenious criminals they must be. There is no good reason to simply trust ICE's determinations on this score without neutral judges checking their work. American law enforcement has a well-documented tendency to misidentify Black and Latino men as gang members based on superficial indicators like appearance or social connections to other suspects. And ICE itself has a disturbing history of detaining and sometimes even attempting to deport U.S. citizens and legal residents. Indeed, it's fair to ask whether getting it right is even the point. Venezuela, after all, is under the boot of a dictator with little regard for human rights. That gives many refugees from that country plausible asylum claims, which legally must be given fair hearings. And if you're aiming to ultimately deport millions, respecting their right to those hearings must seem awfully 'impractical.' The dubious invocation of the Alien Enemies Act has all the hallmarks of an administration — impatient to conduct the mass deportations Trump campaigned on — looking for a pretext to circumvent that process. The AEA, after all, was meant to deal not with routine gang activity, but with actual foreign invasions: It has been invoked on just three previous occasions in our history, each of those during an actual war. The Trump administration's excuse for deploying it now is the claim that Tren de Aragua amounts to a foreign military force, a claim it bolsters with allegations that the gang has ties to Venezuela's government. One tiny problem: Just last month, the American intelligence community came to precisely the opposite conclusion. It's worth noting that Trump has been much more appreciative of due process guarantees when it comes to his own brushes with the legal system — and indeed, he has successfully exploited them to the hilt. Nearly two years ago, Trump was found civilly liable in New York state for both fraud and for sexually abusing and defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll but has thus far avoided paying a dime of the penalties he owes thanks to a series of fruitless but seemingly endless appeals. Though he got away with a wrist slap following his felony conviction for falsifying documents in connection with his hush money payments to a porn actress, he faced a slew of far more serious criminal charges before being re-elected in November. The most open and shut of these involved Trump's hoarding of — and repeated refusal to return — top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, with which he absconded when he departed the White House in 2021. The facts in that case were not disputed: Trump's defense involved a misguided reading of the Presidential Records Act on which his lawyers based their argument that he had discretion to treat American nuclear secrets as his personal property. Lawyers not employed by Donald Trump uniformly found this theory laughable. Nevertheless, a slew of pretrial motions ground the case to a standstill until a friendly judge appointed by him finally dismissed it, based on an idiosyncratic ruling that the special prosecutor spearheading the case had not been properly appointed. Given more time, the Justice Department could most likely have overturned that ruling or simply had ordinary Justice Department prosecutors refile the charges, but Trump had successfully run out the clock. The same trick proved successful with the arguably even more serious charges Trump faced in connection with his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Here, too, there were reams of evidence — most of it now part of the public record — that Trump had sought to strong-arm officials into blocking certification of the election via bogus claims of vote-tampering that his own staff and officials had told him were false, that he had incited a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol with the same end in mind and sat approvingly by as his followers attacked police and that he had approved a scheme to have loyalists submit fraudulent electoral vote certifications, falsely identifying themselves as legitimate Electoral College delegates. (Trump pleaded not guilty to every count against him and has denied wrongdoing in each case.) Though conviction in that last, rather more complex case was less certain, it was most definitely based on a stronger foundation than a few tattoos and social media photos. Perhaps given his own experience, it's understandable that Donald Trump views due process as little more than a tool for criminals seeking loopholes to escape justice. It worked that way for him, after all. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U.S. Sent Venezuelan Asylum-Seeker To El Salvador Based On Real Madrid Tattoo: Lawyer
The Trump administration expelled a professional soccer player to El Salvador based on a tattoo that paid homage to the soccer club Real Madrid, his attorney said. The soccer player fled Venezuela after protesting authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro — but now he's one of several former U.S. migrants who haven't contacted friends or attorneys in several days and are presumably being detained in an infamous Salvadoran prison. Jerce Reyes Barrios was falsely identified as a gang member because of his tattoo, his lawyer said — echoing a claim that numerouslawyersandfamilies of the expelled migrants have asserted in recent days. The tattoo was merely an homage to the soccer club Real Madrid, the lawyer said. Over the weekend, the administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants and asylum-seekers to a brutal Salvadoran prison infamous for widespread human rights abuses. Many were sent to the prison under the rarely used Alien Enemies Act, a wartime proclamation that gives presidents the extraordinary power to jail and deport people deemed enemy combatants without due process. The Trump administration asserts the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is actually a terrorist group and a wing of the Venezuelan state that is actively involved in an invasion of the United States. Deportations under the Alien Enemies Act were paused by a judge — but not before the administration expelled hundreds of people to El Salvador — in violation of the judge's verbal order to divert planes back to the United States. The administration has been defiant of the judge for days, and it continues to call for an end to his restraining order on further flights to El Salvador. In a filing arguing that the judge ought to keep his temporary restraining order in place, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt cited experts who detailed the shockingconditions in the Salvadoran prison system — full of allegations of torture, human rights abuses, and enforced disappearances. The filing noted 'multiple' attorneys who had described clients 'who were suddenly and without notice transferred to Texas, and removed to El Salvador despite upcoming asylum hearings and strong claims to that relief.' 'If the President can label any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison,' the filing argued. Among those believed to have been expelled to El Salvador was Reyes Barrios. In a sworn declaration filed in court Thursday, to accompany Gelernt's filing, Reyes Barrios' attorney Linette Tobin said Reyes Barrios fled Venezuela for the United States last year, after he was tortured with electric shocks and suffocation for protesting the authoritarian regime of the country's leader, Maduro. Reyes Barrios entered the United States, after making an appointment on the CBP One cellphone app and presenting himself to immigration officials. He's applied for asylum and relief under the Convention Against Torture. Reyes Barrios had a hearing set for April 17, Tobin wrote. While in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, Reyes Barrios was placed under maximum security and 'accused of being a Tren de Aragua gang member,' Tobin wrote. The accusation was based on two things, she said: his tattoo, and a picture of Reyes Barrios' on social media, in which he's making a 'Rock & Roll' hand gesture. The tattoo, Reyes Barrios' lawyer said, was benign. It shows a crown sitting atop a soccer ball and the word 'Dios,' or 'God.' 'DHS alleges that this tattoo is proof of gang membership. In reality, he chose this tattoo because it is similar to the logo for his favorite soccer team Real Madrid,' she wrote. The evidence supporting Reyes Barrios' claim that he's not a gang member is significant: After submitting Venezuelan documents indicating he had no criminal record, several employment letters, and 'a declaration from the tattoo artist who rendered the tattoo,' alongside several similar online images, Reyes Barrios was removed from maximum security detention at the facility where he was initially detained, his lawyer said. 'Nevertheless,' Tobin wrote, 'on March 10th or 11th, he was transferred from Otay Mesa [Detention Facility] to Texas without notice.' Then, she wrote, 'he was deported to El Salvador. Counsel and Family have lost all contact with him and have no information regarding his whereabouts or condition.' Trump administration officials did not immediately answer HuffPost's questions about declarations from Reyes Barrios' or other migrants' attorneys. Reyes Barrios' story is one of many terrifying accounts of migrants in the United States seemingly being labeled as gang members — and potentially being sent to El Salvador's brutal supermax prison known as CECOT without due process. Among the other declarations filed in court Thursday, one man, identified by his attorney as JABV, was recognized by his brother in a video of expelled migrants being manhandled and sent to the prison. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a key Trump ally, posted the video and mocked the judge's order that was meant to halt the flights carrying the expelled migrants. JABV had no removal order at the time of his removal, his lawyer Osvaldo E. Caro-Cruz stated — an indication he was likely expelled under the Alien Enemies Act proclamation, which treats supposed Tren de Aragua gang members as an invading army. Like Reyes Barrios, JABV fled Venezuela due to political persecution, his lawyer said. Caro-Cruz said that while JABV was participating in peaceful campaign activity for an opposition leader, he was 'violently abducted' and detained for several days, during which time he was tortured, deprived of food and assaulted. Caro-Cruz noted he had video of Venezuelan police raiding JABV's home, 'confirming that he was being actively persecuted by the Maduro regime due to his political opposition.' After fleeing to the United States and pursuing asylum, a U.S. immigration document falsely accused JABV of being a gang member, the lawyer said. According to Caro-Cruz, that document stated: 'Subject has gang-related tattoos which were photographed by [Customs and Border Protection Officer] Clesi. The tattoos are well-known tattoos that Tren de Aragua gang members tend to have. Subject denied being part of Tren de Aragua or any other gang.' In fact, according to the attorney, the claims of gang affiliation are 'entirely speculative and unsubstantiated.' 'His tattoos are a Rose, a Clock and a Crown with his son's name on it. These are common in Venezuela and bear no exclusive association with gang affiliation,' he wrote, adding that his client had no criminal history in either Venezuela or the United States. He had a hearing schedule for April 7, Caro-Cruz said. Nonetheless, on March 16, he learned his client had been removed from the United States without any notice to his attorney or his family — a recurring theme in the declarations filed Thursday. Caro-Cruz said he still had 'not been informed' about his client's whereabouts. Another man, EV, was similarly imprisoned and tortured by the Venezuelan government after participating in an anti-government protest. He also does not have a removal order, his lawyer Austin Thierry wrote. Yet ICE alleged on immigration paperwork that EV's tattoos 'indicate he is a member of Tren de Aragua,' the lawyer recounted. In fact, Thierry said, 'EV has various tattoos, such as tattoos of anime, flowers, and animals, that he chose to get for personal and artistic reasons.' A crown tattoo that 'may be why ICE falsely accused him of gang membership,' is actually a tribute to his grandmother, whose 'date of death appears at the base of the crown,' the lawyer wrote. Thierry said he didn't know where EV was, but that he had not heard from him since the morning of March 15, when, like others who were expelled by the Trump administration to El Salvador, EV had been moved to El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas. One of the declarations Thursday was of the sister of a man believed to have been sent to El Savador. Solanyer Michell Sarabia Gonzalez wrote that she and her 19-year-old brother, Anyelo Jose Sarabia, are both asylum-seekers who arrived in the United States from Venezuela in 2023. Her brother was detained during a routine ICE check-in in January, she wrote, and 'the officers asked me whether my brother belonged to a gang and about a tattoo that is visible on his hand.' Her brother had never been part of any gang, she said. The tattoo on his hand shows a rose — and he got it in Arlington, Texas, last year 'because he thought it looked cool.' Her brother has two other tattoos, she said — one that says 'fuerza y valiente' ('strength and courage') and another with a Bible verse. 'I did both of these tattoos when my brother was in Texas,' she said, emphasizing that they also had no connection to any gang, and that her brother had no criminal record in either Venezuela or the United States. Since he was removed to El Salvador, she said, she has not heard from him, even though they'd previously spoken almost daily during his U.S. detention. 'I am extremely concerned about the health and safety of my little brother,' she wrote. Another lawyer, Katherine Kim, described a prospective client, RB, whose family member recognized him in a photo of the migrants who'd been removed to El Salvador, despite him having no criminal record, no removal order, and a court date set for March 21. RB's family member 'believes that the government has falsely accused him of membership in Tren de Aragua based on a single tattoo, which is of a flower.' Thursday's declarations also include several from lawyers for individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Trump administration — a handful of asylum-seekers in the United States who were seemingly set to be expelled to El Salvador, but were kept in the United States at the last minute after U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg halted their removals. This written order from Boasberg was separate from his verbal order in court Saturday that the government should turn any planes around that were on their way to El Salvador — the order the Trump administration defied. Inmultipledeclarations, several of the individual plaintiffs' attorneys described their clients being sent in shackles from El Valle Detention Facility in Texas to a local airport. Once there, they were put on three planes — seemingly the same three planes that would later land in El Salvador. Like others, the lawyers emphasized that their clients had no gang affiliation. But the handful of individual plaintiffs were spared — taken off the planes at the last minute. The attorneys recounted that their clients all heard something similar from an ICE officer: that they did not know how lucky they were — that they had all 'just won the lottery.' Federal Judge Clashes With DOJ Lawyers As Possible 'Constitutional Crisis' Looms The Constitutional Crisis Under Donald Trump Has Taken A Dangerous Turn Trump Administration Throws Hissy Fit, Tells Judge To Be More 'Respectful' Trump Has No Shame — And That Could Be A Big Problem For The Courts
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Did ICE Deport This Guy Over a Real Madrid Tattoo?
On Jerce Reyes Barrios' arm, there is a tattoo of a soccer ball with a crown and the Spanish word Dios. Is that proof that Reyes Barrios is a dangerous member of an infamous Venezuelan drug gang, or merely that he's a fan of the Spanish soccer team Real Madrid? That's the sort of question that an immigration court might be able to settle. It won't get the chance. Reyes Barrios was one of about 200 people deported to El Salvador, without due process, last weekend. In a sworn statement filed in federal court on Wednesday, an attorney representing Reyes Barrios claims that American immigration officials misunderstood the meaning behind her client's tattoos and took social media posts out of context in order to justify arresting and ultimately deporting Reyes Barrios. "Counsel and family have lost all contact with him and have no information regarding his whereabouts or condition," wrote Linette Tobin, the attorney. According to Tobin's statement, Reyes Barrios left Venezuela after being arrested for protesting against Nicolás Maduro's rule. Upon reaching the U.S. border, he applied for asylum and was being kept in custody ahead of a court hearing that was scheduled for April 17. A hearing like that is meant to determine whether someone like Reyes Barrios qualifies for asylum—that is, was he fleeing a foreign regime that had arrested and tortured him, as his attorney claims, or was he part of what the Trump administration has called an "invasion" of the United States by the Tren de Aragua gang? Part of that hearing might have focused on his tattoo of a soccer ball with a crown and the word Dios. Government attorneys could have argued why those symbols might connect Reyes Barrios to the gang and would (one hopes) be expected also to present more significant evidence for why he should be denied lawful entry to the country. Tobin could then refute those claims with her own evidence. As she explained in the sworn statement filed on Wednesday, Reyes Barrios was a former professional soccer player and a fan of Real Madrid. That explains the tattoo. More importantly, she claims that Reyes Marrios had "a police clearance from Venezuela indicating no criminal record, multiple employment letters, [and] a declaration from the tattoo artist who rendered the tattoo." A court could then weigh those claims and come to a decision about Reyes Barrios' status. That decision might be made with imperfect information and likely would not satisfy everyone—but that should be preferable to the nakedly unjust and inhumane treatment of Reyes Barrios and dozens of others who were on those deportation flights, which appear to have taken off in defiance of a judicial order. Ignoring the due process rights of asylum seekers might allow the Trump administration to deport more migrants more quickly, but it grants far too much power to immigration police and will inevitably lead to innocent people being caught up in Trump's effort to deport violent criminals. No one should end up in an El Salvadorian prison because a cop misunderstood a tattoo. The post Did ICE Deport This Guy Over a Real Madrid Tattoo? appeared first on
