A Venezuelan mom desperately trying to find her son after U.S. immigration officers detained him says she noticed him shackled on TV amongst a whole bunch of migrants the Trump administration has accused of being violent gang members and despatched to a Salvadoran jail.
“It’s him. It’s him,” an emotional Mirelis Casique told the BBC of getting seen her 24-year-old son, Francisco Javier Garcia Casique, in pictures of restrained males in all-white clothes and newly shaved heads. “I recognize his features.”
Casique stated her son entered the U.S. in late 2023 to hunt asylum. He introduced himself to authorities on the border and was launched, however was then briefly detained in Texas final 12 months following a routine look with immigration officers after they noticed his tattoos, she instructed The New York Times.
Those tattoos included the phrase “peace” in Spanish, some household names, and a crown. They prompted U.S. authorities to label Garcia Casique a suspected gang member and take him into custody for 2 months earlier than releasing him with an digital monitor.
On Feb. 6, legislation enforcement authorities got here to Garcia Casique’s door and took him again into custody, his mom stated.
“He doesn’t belong to any criminal gang, either in the U.S. or in Venezuela… he’s not a criminal,” she instructed The BBC. “What he’s been is a barber.”
A person figuring out himself as Garcia Casique’s brother additionally shared photos of him chopping hair on social media whereas insisting that his brother is harmless and wrongfully incarcerated.
“What injustice is this? For having tattoos? Why didn’t they investigate him? Why didn’t they send him to his country of origin?” his brother wrote with the pictures. “Respect the human rights of innocent people.”
The U.S. and Salvadoran governments haven’t provided any proof exhibiting that the deported migrants are related to the Tren de Aragua gang, which has been designated as a terrorist group by President Donald Trump.
In a court filing, officers acknowledged that most of the folks despatched to El Salvador should not have felony information, although they claimed this “does not indicate they pose a limited threat.”
“The lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose,” the administration stated in a sworn declaration.
Despite the obvious lack of due course of and proof that the migrants are gang members, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele stated they are going to be imprisoned for at the least a 12 months and compelled to carry out labor underneath a program known as “Zero Idleness.” This program is designed to make the nation’s jail system, which prices $200 million a 12 months to run, self-sustaining, Bukele stated.
“As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time, we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self-sustainable, and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place,” he stated in a statement posted on social media.
Other members of the family of the imprisoned migrants have made comparable pleas for assist, insisting that their family members have been mistakenly recognized as gang members and despatched to the maximum-security Salvadoran jail.
Today, the primary 238 members of the Venezuelan felony group, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our nation. They had been instantly transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a interval of 1 12 months (renewable).
The United States pays a really low payment for them,… pic.twitter.com/tfsi8cgpD6
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025
“He has lots of tattoos, but that’s not a reason to discriminate against him,” Johanny Sánchez instructed The Washington Post of her Venezuelan husband, Franco Caraballo, whom she stated was amongst these deported from Texas to El Salvador.
Another Venezuelan mom instructed the Post that her son, Ali David Navas Vizcaya, vanished after being instructed final week that he was going to be deported to Venezuela or Mexico. He was detained in early 2024 after showing for an appointment with immigration officers on the U.S.-Mexico border, she stated.
“He told me, ‘Finally, we’re going to be together, and this nightmare is going to be over,’” his mom, Xiomara Vizcaya, who lives within the northern Venezuelan metropolis of Barquisimeto, stated of her son’s final cellphone name to her on Friday.
A relative of migrant Mervin Yamarte, 29, additionally told NBC News that Yamarte’s household “fainted. They started screaming,” once they noticed him in a social media video with a shaved head and ripped shirt among the many folks deported to El Salvador.
His brother, like many others, stated Yamarte was misidentified as a gang member solely due to his tattoos.
The sister of migrant Fritzgeralth De Jesus stated the identical about her brother.
“From the beginning, they asked constantly about his tattoos. They would ask him if he was a member of the criminal gang, Tren de Aragua, and he always said no,” she additionally instructed NBC News.
On Wednesday, an legal professional for detained Venezuelan soccer participant Jerce Reyes Barrios accused U.S. authorities of deporting him to El Salvador due to his tattoos and a photograph of him making hand gestures, which the lawyer stated imply “rock and roll” or “I love you.”
His tattoos embody a crown on prime of a soccer ball with a rosary and the phrase “Dios,” which implies “God” in Spanish, the legal professional stated in a court docket submitting.
