2 days ago
Opinion: Will we stand idly by as a son is torn from his Utah family and deported to one of the world's most inhumane prisons?
The story of the U.D.M.C. family of Holladay, Utah, is as compelling as any refugee story since President Trump's immigration crackdown began on January 23, 2025.
That mass expulsion campaign is striking fear in the hearts of millions of immigrants — not just those who come illegally, but also families like the U.D.M.C family, who followed all the rules to enter the U.S. legally.
The U.D.M.C family — a father, mother, two sons and a daughter-in-law — are Latter-day Saints from Venezuela, a failing country where living conditions are dire, marked by political instability and economic collapse; where 70% of the population lacks adequate access to food, healthcare, clean water, electricity and educational opportunity.
Venezuela is also one of the most violent and corrupt countries in the world. When U.D.M.C and his family took to the streets to protest corruption and election fraud in the Maduro government, police detained them and confiscated their ID cards. Soon they began receiving death threats. A lawyer friend advised them to leave the country or face arrest and imprisonment. In 2019, they fled Venezuela hoping to emigrate to the U.S.
The family's path was long and difficult. After living for a few years in neighboring Colombia, they trekked mostly on foot through Guatemala and Honduras to Mexico, reaching Mexico City last year. There, they used U.S. Customs and Border Protection's CBP One mobile app to apply for humanitarian parole and permission to enter the U.S. legally, which was approved.
After crossing the Mexican border legally on August 22, 2024, the family traveled to Utah and settled in Holladay, where they were embraced by their neighborhood and local Latter-day Saint congregation. They located housing, obtained work permits, found employment and applied for asylum. They are now self-supporting and law-abiding taxpayers. The family was granted an asylum hearing date in 2028, entitling them to reside in the U.S. legally until their asylum applications are ruled on.
The makings of a true American success story? It wasn't to be. Someone was left behind. As the family entered the U.S. last August, their 19-year-old son Uriel David, a young man without any criminal history who speaks no English and suffers health problems, was torn from his family, arrested and detained. He has since been swallowed up in a harrowing saga of human tragedy that is stealing national headlines and rapidly becoming a stain on our national character.
Originally detained in San Diego, Uriel David's path has been traced by his family to ICE's El Valle Detention Center in Texas. There, according to the findings of a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in the early morning hours of March 15, 2025, 140 Venezuelans held by the Department of Homeland Security 'were awakened from their cells, taken to a separate room, shackled and informed they were being transferred. To where? That they were not told.'
They were loaded onto planes. 'As the planes waited on the tarmac,' the court found, 'many passengers aboard reportedly began to panic and beg officials for more information, but none was provided.' The planes eventually landed in El Salvador, where the detainees were transferred into CECOT, a brutal Salvadoran mega-prison known for torture, beatings and death.
Based on video from a news report, Uriel David's family identified him among the detainees transferred to CECOT. New cases are being filed every week in federal courts across the U.S. alleging similar deportations of immigrants spirited away to CECOT or other foreign prisons without notice, hearings or any other semblance of the Fifth Amendment due process rights to which every person in the U.S. is entitled, citizen or noncitizen.
In every case so far, courts have found that the Trump administration stripped these detainees of their rights by not allowing them a meaningful opportunity to challenge their removal before being flown to El Salvador. Judges are ordering the government to vindicate the detainees' rights, even if it means returning them to the United States.
In some cases, Trump officials blame administrative error for their actions. In other cases, they stonewall, daring the courts to punish them for contempt of court. In one case, a judge ordered a flight of detainees to turn around midair, an order which was ignored. In three other pending cases, federal judges determined that Trump officials expelled people from the country in violation of standing court orders. In one of these cases, federal appeals court judge Roger Gregory wrote, 'We are confronted again with the efforts of the executive branch to set aside the rule of law in pursuit of its goals.'
Illegal deportations can never in good conscience be brushed off as mere administrative errors or excusable violations of law. They are matters of life and death.
CECOT, where Uriel David is believed to be held, is the largest prison in Latin America. It houses up to 40,000 of the most violent criminals — rival gang members whose internecine wars for decades terrorized all of El Salvador, plunging it into the grip of economic and social chaos and triggering mass emigration.
Prisoners in CECOT are held for life in an 'exception' to the Salvadoran constitution and without any semblance of real due process. Housed 23.5 hours per day in harsh conditions, they are crowded 80 to 100 per cell. Inmates sleep on rows of metal bunks stacked three high without mattresses, pillows or blankets. CECOT has no rehabilitation, recreation or education programs. Visits by lawyers and family members are strictly banned. No telephone calls are allowed. No cell phone service exists within two kilometers of the prison.
The Salvadoran government admits that some inmates are held in CECOT without cause, claiming as an excuse that it is sometimes difficult to determine which inmates are guilty of crimes and which are innocent. In El Salvador, incarceration of innocents is considered the price of law and order. That policy suits the Trump White House fine — it pays El Salvador $6 million a year for the privilege of deporting our immigrants to CECOT.
In Uriel David's case, his family has been unable to learn the reason for his detention and deportation. It is possible that a border guard misinterpreted his tattoos as gang-related? No. His tattoos are innocuous: the word 'familia,' his birthdate, his mother's signature, a crown of thorns, two wings and the lucky number '777.' None of these are gang-related. Uriel David has a constitutional right to prove this to an immigration judge before being expelled from the country.
Shouldn't that matter? Apparently not to Trump officials. A federal judge recently found that 'significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to [a] gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.'
One thing is certain: no one, including Uriel David, would knowingly agree to be transferred to CECOT.
Yet, CECOT is Uriel's life now and for its duration, absent a public outcry loud enough to secure his release. To begin with, his family, their neighbors, our Salt Lake City community and all Americans are entitled to know exactly what happened to him and why. That is not a demand — it is a necessity in a society that considers itself civilized and loyal to a constitution like ours, which protects citizens and noncitizens alike from being held in custody without due process. A nation that tramples individual rights in pursuit of political gain will not last long as a democratic republic.
I ask all Utahns: Will we stand idly by while Uriel David is torn from his Utah family and deported to one of the world's most inhumane prisons? A few days ago, the Trump White House brought Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant unlawfully deported to CECOT, back to the U.S. after falsely claiming for months that this was not possible. Obviously, it is possible.
The rallying cry should now be: 'YOU BROUGHT BACK KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA — NOW BRING BACK URIEL DAVID!'
