Latest news with #ThreeKingsDay
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
At least 50 migrants sent to El Salvador prison entered US legally, Cato Institute finds
At least 50 Venezuelan men who were sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison by the Trump administration had immigrated to the U.S. legally, a review by the Libertarian Cato Institute found. The Monday report reviewed data for just a fraction of the men sent to the prison for whom immigration records are available. 'The government calls them all 'illegal aliens.' But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,' Cato wrote in its report. That figure is in line with broader statistics for Venezuelan migrants, as many came as refugees or through a parole program established by the Biden administration that provided two years of work permits to those who could secure a U.S.-based sponsor. 'The proportion isn't what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are,' Cato wrote. 'Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.' The report takes issue with Trump administration claims that it deported immigrants who had illegally entered in the country, when in fact, 21 were allowed into the country after presenting at a port of entry, and 24 were paroled into the country. Four came as refugees, and one initially came on a tourist visa. Full records for the roughly 200 Venezuelans sent to prison in El Salvador have not been provided by the Trump administration. Cato reviewed the information for 174 of the men for whom some information is publicly available. While the Trump team has accused several of the men of being involved with gangs, in many cases that accusation appears to be largely based on tattoos. Several of those tattoos are nods to sports teams or have personal meaning not related to gang affiliation. In the case of one man, Andry José Hernández Romero, the crown tattoos on his arms were a nod to the Three Kings Day celebrations the makeup artist's hometown in Venezuela is known for. 'At least 42 were labeled as gang members primarily based on their tattoos, which Venezuelan gangs do not use to identify members and are not reliable indicators of gang membership,' Cato wrote. The records reviewed by Cato also countered administration claims that it was deporting criminals. Of the men who had immigrated legally, 'only two appear to have had a U.S. criminal conviction of any kind, both for minor drug offenses,' the report found. The report noted that because many were detained immediately before being deported to the Salvadoran prison, 'there is no possibility that they demonstrated any gang ties or committed any crimes inside the United States.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
At least 50 migrants sent to El Salvador prison entered US legally, Cato Institute finds
At least 50 Venezuelan men who were sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison by the Trump administration had immigrated to the U.S. legally, a review by the Libertarian Cato Institute found. The Monday report reviewed data for just a fraction of the men sent to the prison for whom immigration records are available. 'The government calls them all 'illegal aliens.' But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,' Cato wrote in its report. That figure is in line with broader statistics for Venezuelan migrants, as many came as refugees or through a parole program established by the Biden administration that provided two years of work permits to those who could secure a U.S.-based sponsor. 'The proportion isn't what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are,' Cato wrote. 'Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.' The report takes issue with Trump administration claims that it deported illegal immigrants. Twenty-one were allowed into the country after presenting at a port of entry, while 24 were paroled into the country. Four came as refugees, and one initially came on a tourist visa. Full records for the roughly 200 Venezuelans sent to prison in El Salvador have not been provided by the Trump administration. Cato reviewed the information for 174 of the men for whom some information is publicly available. While the Trump team has accused several of the men of being involved with gangs, in many cases that appears to be largely based on tattoos. Several of those tattoos are nods to sports teams or have personal meaning not related to gang affiliation. In the case of one man, Andry José Hernández Romero, the crown tattoos on his arms were a nod to the Three Kings Day celebrations the makeup artist's hometown in Venezuela is known for. 'At least 42 were labeled as gang members primarily based on their tattoos, which Venezuelan gangs do not use to identify members and are not reliable indicators of gang membership,' Cato wrote. The records reviewed by Cato also countered administration claims that they were deporting criminals. Of the legal immigrants, 'only two appear to have had a U.S. criminal conviction of any kind, both for minor drug offenses,' the report found. The report noted that because many were detained immediately before being deported to the Salvadoran prison, 'there is no possibility that they demonstrated any gang ties or committed any crimes inside the United States.'
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
Venezuelan deported from US using gang 'points system', lawyers say
When Andry Hernández got a pair of tattoos on his wrists with the words mom and dad, he thought they would look even more striking if he added something else to them, according to the tattoo artist, José Manuel Mora. "What if you add some small crowns?" Mr Hernández is said to have asked the artist. The crown is the symbol of the Catholic annual Three Kings Day celebrations for which Mr Hernández's Venezuelan hometown, Capacho Nuevo, is famed. Seven years later, those crowns may have led to Mr Hernández being locked up in El Salvador's mega-prison. He and dozens of other Venezuelans alleged by US President Donald Trump to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang were deported to the Central American nation in March. "If I had known that the crowns would take Andry to jail, I would never have tattooed them on his body", Mr Mora tells BBC Mundo. Mr Hernández left his hometown in Venezuela for the United States in May last year. Like many migrants, he began a long trip through the Darién jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama, on his journey to Mexico. According to court documents filed by his lawyers, obtained by BBC Mundo, the 31-year-old surrendered at the border, at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, on 29 August after making an appointment with the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency for asylum. His asylum request claimed that he was a victim of persecution in Venezuela for his political beliefs and sexual orientation. What is Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang targeted by Trump? BBC Verify: British man's tattoo wrongly linked to Venezuelan gang in US government document He was then taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and was sent to the Otay Mesa Detention Centre in San Diego. At the centre, "he was flagged as a security risk for the sole reason of his tattoos", his lawyer wrote in a statement. His legal team says Mr Hernández's interrogation at the centre was carried out by an official from the private company CoreCivic - a company contracted by the government - not by Ice agents. CoreCivic official Arturo Torres, acting as interviewer, used a score system to determine whether a detainee is part of a criminal organisation. It has nine categories, each with its own score. According to the criteria, the detainees are considered gang members if they score 10 or more points, and they are considered suspects if they score nine or fewer points. Mr Hernández was given five points for the tattoos on his wrists, which included two crowns, according to paperwork signed in December 2024 by officers from the company. The interviewing officer wrote: "Detainee Hernández 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". The BBC has contacted CoreCivic for comment, but has not received a reply. "So far, that form is the only government document linking Mr Hernández to the Tren de Aragua," Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Centre and part of the legal team representing the young Venezuelan, told BBC Mundo. Authorities have not provided further information about Mr Hernández's case, or the charges faced by him or other Venezuelans recently deported to El Salvador. Lawyers defending migrants' cases do not know whether the particular score system that marked Mr Hernández as a suspected member of Tren de Aragua has been used during the assessment of other detainees. However, authorities have acknowledged that tattoos are one of the criteria used for identifying gang members. According to court documents filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of Venezuelan deportees, there is second scoring guide which evaluates detainees on a 20-point scale. The form instructs agents on how to validate detainees as a member of Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act - a centuries-old law that has been invoked by Trump to detain and deport individuals considered enemies of the United States. Higher scores of 10 points are given to detainees who have criminal or civil convictions, sentencing memorandums, or criminal complaints that identify them as members of Tren de Aragua. Lower scores are for those with tattoos denoting their membership or loyalty to the gang (four points) - or who have insignias, logos, notes, drawings, or clothing indicating loyalty to it (also four points). The lowest scores (two points) are assigned if the detainee, for instance, appears on social media displaying symbols or hand gestures related to the gang. BBC Mundo reached out to DHS and Ice to request information about the scoring system used in the two forms, but received no response. However, DHS has previously published a statement on its website, called 100 Days of Fighting Fake News, stating that its assessments go well beyond tattoos and social media. "We are confident in our law enforcement's intelligence, and we aren't going to share intelligence reports", the document said. "We have a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process under the US Constitution." What is the 1798 law that Trump used to deport migrants? Jason Stevens, special agent in charge of the El Paso Homeland Security Investigations Office, told BBC Mundo that according to the guidelines, officers used a variety of criteria to identify a gang member. He said in addition to an individual's tattoos, officers look at criminal associations, monikers, social media activity and messages on phones. Lawyers representing deportees have included official government guidelines in their court cases, arguing that it is insufficient to identify a detainee as a member of Tren de Aragua based on photographs of tattoos. Venezuelan researcher and journalist Ronna Rísquez, author of a book about Tren de Aragua, dismisses the idea that tattoos are a criterion that defines membership in this group. "Equating the Tren de Aragua gang with Central American gangs in terms of tattoos is a mistake," she warned. "You don't have to have a tattoo to be a member of the Tren de Aragua gang." Unaware that he was suspected of belonging to Tren de Aragua, Mr Hernández was expecting to appear in a US court for another asylum-related hearing that he hoped could eventually allow him to remain in the country. By March 2025, he had spent nearly six months at the San Diego detention centre before being abruptly transferred to the Webb County Detention Centre in Laredo, Texas, while his asylum case was still pending. He was not the only person who would be transferred to that second centre. On 15 March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Tren de Aragua members, arguing that Venezuelan authorities had ceded control over their territories to transnational criminal organisations. Without being able to contest the charges, Mr Hernández was deported that day as part of a group of 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans, to El Salvador's notorious mega-prison, known as the Terrorist Confinement Centre (Cecot). Mr Hernández had a court date scheduled for his asylum request, but according to his lawyers, authorities at the Webb County Detention Centre would not allow him to attend via video call. Since then, no-one has heard from him. His parents had no information about him until they were told that someone had seen a photo of their son in a Salvadoran prison. Inside El Salvador's secretive mega-jail Venezuelans deported to mega-prison 'trapped in black hole' Mr Hernández designed and hand-embroidered his own costumes for the annual religious festival of known as the Three Wise Men of Capacho, his family say. He also designed the outfits for some of the girls for their own celebrations of the festival in his home state of Táchira, near the border with Colombia. The symbol that identifies the religious festival - which was officially declared part of Venezuela's national cultural heritage, and of which its residents are proud - is a golden crown. Since he was 7 years old, Mr Hernández has participated in the festival representing various biblical characters. "Andry is a makeup artist, a theatre actor, and we all love him very much", said Miguel Chacón, president of the Capacho Three Kings Foundation, which organises the 108-year-old event. "Some young people get tattoos of the kings' crowns like Andry did. That was his crime." Hundreds of people in Capacho Nuevo, a modest agricultural town, participated in a vigil at the end of March to demand Mr Hernández's release. Some of them wore crowns. One of Mr Hernández's friends, Reina Cárdenas, maintained contact with him until a few days before his deportation. She showed BBC Mundo official documents indicating that the young man had no criminal record in Venezuela. Mr Hernández dreamed of opening a beauty salon and helping his parents financially, Ms Cárdenas said by phone from Capacho Nuevo. Seeking a better future, Mr Hernández left his hometown and lived in Bogotá for a year, where he worked as a makeup artist and as a hotel receptionist. He returned to Venezuela after receiving a job offer at a television channel in Caracas, where he was excited by the idea of doing makeup for presenters, models, and beauty queens, Ms Cárdenas said. "He did not stay in the TV station for more than a year because he was discriminated against for his sexual orientation and because of his political beliefs," she noted. "He received threats." Mr Hernández decided to leave Caracas and return to his hometown. "He wasn't well, he didn't want to leave his house," his friend said. He remained there for five months until May 2024, when he decided to travel to the US through the Darién jungle, despite his mother urging him to stay. Today, Mr Hernández's mother, Alexis Romero de Hernández, can hardly bear the pain of not having him by her side. "I'm waiting for news of my son," she told BBC Mundo. "I want to know how he is. I wonder how they're treating him. If they gave him water. If they gave him food. Every day I think about him and ask God to bring him back to me." The last known image of Hernandez is a photo taken of him on the night of 15 March inside the Salvadoran mega-prison, when a American photojournalist Philip Holsinger documented the arrival of a group of alleged criminals for Time magazine. That was when he took a photo of a young man saying "I'm not a gang member. I'm gay. I'm a barber", Mr Holsinger wrote in his article. The man was chained and on his knees while the guards shaved his head. Mr Holsinger later learned that man was Mr Hernández. "He was being slapped every time he would speak up… he started praying and calling out, literally crying for his mother," Holsinger told CBS. "Then he buried his face in his chained hands and cried as he was slapped again." Mr Hernández's case has caused a stir in the US, and mystery surrounds his whereabouts. California Governor Gavin Newsom has requested his return, while four US congressional representatives travelled to El Salvador and requested to be provided with proof of life for him. They did not get it. British man's tattoo wrongly linked to Venezuelan gang in US government document What is the 1798 law that Trump used to deport migrants?
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.'
USA Today
22-04-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Dem Congressman cites USA TODAY, presses for answers on gay stylist sent to El Salvador
Dem Congressman cites USA TODAY, presses for answers on gay stylist sent to El Salvador Show Caption Hide Caption Tattoos used by officials to identify and deport Venezuelan migrants Advocates for Venezuelan migrants say immigration authorities are using tattoos to wrongfully tie them to the Tren de Aragua prison gang. U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia wants answers from a private detention center contractor and the federal officials who handled the deportation of a 31-year-old gay Venezuelan asylum seeker featured in USA TODAY earlier this month. Garcia, D-California, sent two formal oversight letters April 17 to the heads of CoreCivic, the contractor, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As part of Garcia's letter, he cited the investigative report that revealed a former Milwaukee police officer with credibility issues worked for CoreCivic. According to a court filing, Charles Cross Jr., was involved in the process to flag the Venezuelan as a suspected member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang based on his tattoos. By May 1, Garcia wants answers to his "grave concerns" regarding Andry José Hernandez, the makeup artist. He issued six questions aimed at understanding CoreCivic's hiring, screening and training practices and whether the company collaborates with ICE on gang determinations that may impact deportation decisions. Hernandez was one of more than 200 Venezuelan migrants sent to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center on March 15. His attorneys have said Hernandez's crown tattoos labeled "Mom" and "Dad," are common cultural symbols in his hometown of Capacho, Venezuela, associated with Three Kings Day celebrations. While in detention at CoreCivic's Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, Hernandez was screened by Cross and another staffer, Arturo Torres. The results of that screening are documented on a CoreCivic questionnaire now part of a federal court record. It's unclear to what extent Hernandez was evaluated by federal agents, or whether other corroborating evidence was used to accuse him of ties to the criminal group. Hernandez fled Venezuela last year because he claimed he was persecuted as a gay man – one of the protected groups allowed to claim asylum under U.S. law. He passed an initial "credible fear" interview with a federal agent but, after Border Patrol authorities questioned him about his tattoos, he was transferred to ICE custody and sent to the detention center. A CoreCivic spokesperson confirmed it received Garcia's letter and planned to respond. CoreCivic insists that it does not enforce immgration laws and that any deportation orders are made by ICE. Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for the Nashville company, told USA TODAY that it provides specialized training for employees who all must 'clear a rigorous, federal background clearance process.' Gustin said it screens all individuals for potential affiliation with gangs and other threat groups as a precaution, but does not make those determinations on behalf of ICE. An ICE spokesperson said April 21 that it would respond to the letter 'through official channels and by appropriate officials at the agency.' Previously, the Department of Homeland Security declined to offer details on the Hernandez case, but said that the department uses more than just tattoos to determine gang allegience. Cross, 62, was fired from his position as a Milwaukee police sergeant in 2012 after driving his car into a family's home while intoxicated. He appealed the decision and resigned in the process, according to the department. A misdemeanor criminal charge from 2007 landed him on the city's Brady List, used by prosecutors to identify police who had been accused of lying, breaking the law or acting in a way that erodes their credibility to testify in court, according to Milwaukee County District Attorney records. On April 21, Garcia and three other Democratic lawmakers traveled to El Salvador to get information on the detainees transferred to the country and advocate for their release. That trip followed the high-profile stop earlier in April by U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, who met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported "in error" by the administration in March.
