Immigration lawyers say that a Venezuelan gay makeup artist sought asylum in the United States was erroneously identified as a member of a gang and deported to El Salvador, a case that is becoming a turning point in the debate on deportation by the Trump government of hundreds of migrants to a megaprision of El Salvador known for its inhumanity.
Lindsay Toczylowski, founder of the Legal Center for Immigrant Defenders, said he lost contact with his client, identified as a 31 -year -old gay man from Venezuela, Andry Venezuelan train from Aragua to El Salvador on March 15.
Toczylowski said that Andry disappeared from the arrest records that same day, and his name later appeared on an internal list of the government obtained by CBS of migrants deported to the Center for Terrorism Confinement of El Salvador, a megaprision known for human rights violations.
The Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) erroneously arrested Andry last year, when he requested asylum by persecution due to his sexual orientation and his opposition to the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, because immigration officers thought that his tattoos linked him to the Aragua train, according to tweets and appearances in Toczylowski media.
Andry is among several migrants deported to El Salvador whose lawyers and relatives have said that they have no affiliation with gangs or criminal records, and that they took the right legal measures to seek asylum in the United States.
Lee: Venezuela denounces as ‘kidnapping’ transfer of US migrants to El Salvador
Trump’s government states that he had the authority to deport migrants who suspected affiliation with gangs without judicial hearings under the law of foreign enemies of 1798, a decision blocked by the district judge James Boasberg, who says that it is not a valid statement.
Boasberg ruled on Monday that migrants have “right to individualized audiences to determine if the law applies to them at all.”
“Are you telling me that this man is from Aragua’s train? Was it so dangerous that we had to send it to a foreign prison field to be hit without due process? Do you have any soul left @marcorubio?” The podcast presenter The Bulwark, Tim Miller, referring to Andry, tweeted, along with photos shared by his lawyers posing with makeup brushes.
Others allegedly falsely identified as members of the Aragua train
A Barber de Venezuela, Franco José Caraballo Tiapa, 26, is among those included in a list obtained by CBS of Venezuelans deported to El Salvador. He was arrested by ICE in February and accused by the National Security Department of being a member of the Aragua Train, although he has no criminal record in the United States and the Venezuelan authorities say he does not have them there, according to CBS, who reported that the DHS registration mentions its tattoos but does not say they were linked to affiliation with gangs. His wife told CBS that he lost contact with him on March 15.
Lee: border tsar defends deportations to Salvadoran prison: ‘It should be a celebration’ ‘
A professional Venezuelan soccer player, Jerce Reyes Barrios, 36, was also deported to El Salvador after the United States immigration officers alleged last year that his tattoos were linked to affiliation with gangs, said USA Today, citing his lawyer, Linette Tobin, who said that the tattoo quoted by the DHS was from a soccer ball and a rosary ball.
Barrios sought asylum in the United States after being arrested and tortured in Venezuela for protesting against Maduro, Tobin told New York Post. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the officers are “confident” in the affiliation of neighborhoods with gangs in a statement to the New York Post in response to the statements that he was mistakenly deported.
Philip Holsinger, a photojournalist who documented the entry of migrants to El Salvador prison, wrote for Time magazine that “a young man cried when a guard pushed him to the ground” and said “I am not a member of a gang. I am gay. I am a barber.” Holsinger wrote that he believed him, because the man “did not seem what he expected – it was not a tattooed monster.”
The inmates in the Center for Terrorism Confinement of El Salvador, known as CECOT, are maintained in cells equipped with metal bunk beds and crowded with dozens of inmates for 23 and a half hours a day, according to CNN.
Lee: They stop in the State of Mexico to member of Mara Salvatrucha searched by the FBI and El Salvador
The cells do not have sheets, pillows or mattresses, the inmates are not allowed books and meals are served through bars, CNN reported. The State Department also documented credible reports of “hard and potentially mortal prison conditions”, including incidents that described as “torture”, as beating by guards and the use of electric shocks in a 2023 report.
The installation was opened two years ago in the midst of crime repression in El Salvador and houses up to 20,000 prisoners, many of whom are accused of drugs or drug traffickers.
The Trump government repeatedly resisted Boasberg’s requests last week to obtain more information about when and why migrants were taken to El Salvador, while seeking to determine if he violated his order to turn the flights that transported deported migrants under the law of foreign enemies.
The Trump government has affirmed that the flights took off before Boasberg issued his ruling on March 15, hours after Trump invoked authority in times of war, and has argued that Boasberg’s written order did not include the instructions that he verbally gave less than an hour before turning the flights. The Trump government has also challenged Boasberg’s authority on restricting its use of foreign enemies law.
This article was originally published by Forbes US
Little text and great information in our X (formerly Twitter), follow us!
