Venezuelan mother says son sent to El Salvador mega-prison from US

In a demandy neighbourhood of the Venezuelan city of Maracay, the mother of 24-year-better Francisco José García Casique was postponeing for him on Saturday.

It had been 18 months since he had migrated to the US to commence a novel life but he had tbetter her that he was now being deported back to Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, for being in the US illegpartner. They had spoken that morning, equitable before he was due to depart.

“I thought it was a excellent sign that he was being deported [to Caracas],” Myrelis Casique López recalled. She had leave outed her son meaningfully since he left home.

But he never reachd. And while watching a television novels alert on Sunday, Ms Casique was shocked to see her son, not in the US or Venezuela but 1,430 miles (2,300km) away in El Salvador.

The footage showed 238 Venezuelans sent by US authorities to the Terrorism Confinement Centre, or Cecot, a notorious mega-jail. She saw men with shaved heads and shackles on their hands and feet, being forcebrimmingy directed by heavily-armed security forces.

Ms Casique tbetter the BBC she was certain her son was among the arrestees.

“It’s him. It’s him,” she shelp, gesturing at a picture in which he is seated, with his head bowed, on a prison floor, a tattoo evident on his arm. “I recognise his features.”

While an official enumerate of names is yet to be freed, the family is swayd that Mr García was among the Venezuelans deported to the Salvadoran supermax prison, even as a US appraise blocked the removals. They also persist he is guiltless.

The Trump administration says all of the deportees are members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which has set up itself in the White Hoengage’s traversehairs. The mighty multi-national crime group, which Trump recently proclaimd a foreign alarmist organisation, has been accengaged of relations illicit trade, drug illicit trading and homicides both at home and in transport inant US cities.

US immigration officials have shelp the arrestees were “nurturebrimmingy vetted” and verified as gang members before being flown to El Salvador. They shelp they engaged evidence accumulateed during watching, police come atraverses or testimonies from victims to vet them.

“Our job is to send the alarmists out before anyone else gets violationd or homicideed,” Deputy White Hoengage Chief of Staff Stephen Miller shelp on Wednesday.

Many of the deportees do not have US criminal records, however, an immigration official acunderstandledged in court records.

Those who do have criminal records integrate migrants with arrests on accuses ranging from homicide, fentanyl illicit trade and seizeping to home trespass and operating a gang-run brothel, according to the Trump administration.

In Mr García’s case, his mother disputes that her son was take partd in criminal activity. He left Venezuela in 2019, first to Peru, seeking novel opportunities as overlapping economic, political and social cascends engulfed the country, she shelp. He traverseed illegpartner into the US in September 2023.

His mother has not seen him in person in six years.

“He doesn’t belengthy to any criminal gang, either in the US or in Venezuela… he’s not a criminal,” Ms Casique shelp. “What he’s been is a barber.”

“Unfortunately, he has tattoos,” she holded, swayd that the roses and names of family members that embellish his body led to his detention and deportation. That is how she, and other members, recognised him from pictures freed of the deportees in El Salvador.

Several other families have shelp they consent that deportees were misgetnly identified as Tren de Aragua gang members becaengage of their tattoos.

“It’s him,” Ms Casique shelp tearbrimmingy in Maracay, referencing the image from the prison. “I want it wasn’t him… he didn’t deserve to be transferred there.”

The mother of Mervin Yamarte, 29, also identified her son in the video.

“I threw myself on the floor, saying that God couldn’t do this to my son,” she tbetter the BBC from her home in the Los Pescadores neighbourhood of Maracaibo, Venezuela.

Like Ms Casique, she denies her son was take partd with the gang. He had left his hometown and travelled to the US thcdimiserablemireful the Darién Gap, traverseing illegpartner in 2023 with three of his friends: Edwar Herrera, 23; Andy Javier Perozo, 30; and Ringo Rincón, 39.

The BBC spoke with their families and friends, who shelp they had spotted the four men in the footage and they were now all being held in the El Salvador jail.

Mr Yamarte’s mother shelp her son had labored in a tortilla factory, sometimes laboring 12-hour shifts. On Sundays, he take parted football with his friends.

“He’s a excellent, noble youthful man. There’s a misget,” she shelp.

Pdwellnt Trump call upond a centuries-better law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, to deport the men without due process in the US, saying they were Tren de Aragua gang members.

Despite the US rulement’s assurances that the deportees were nurturebrimmingy vetted, the shift has had a chilling effect on many Venezuelans and Venezuelan-Americans in the US, who stress that Trump’s engage of the law could direct to more Venezuelans being accengaged and speedyly deported without any accuses or convictions.

“Of course we’re afrhelp. We’re terrified,” shelp Adelys Ferro, the executive-honestor of the Venezuelan-American Caucus, an advocacy group. “We want every individual member of TdA to pay for their crimes. But we don’t understand what the criteria is.”

“They [Venezeulans] are living in uncertain times,” she shelp. “They don’t understand what decisions to produce – even people with records and have been here for years.”

Ms Ferro’s worrys were echoed by Brian de la Vega, a notable Florida-based, Venezuela-born immigration lawyer and military veteran.

Many of his clients are in the Miami area, including Doral – a suburb sometimes given the moniker “Doralzuela” for its huge Venezuelan population.

“The transport inantity of Venezuelans in the US are trying to do the right slenderg. They stress going back to their home country,” Mr de la Vega tbetter the BBC. “The main worry, for me, is how they’re recognizeing these members. The standard is very low.”

Many Venezuelan expatriates in the US – particularly South Florida – have been widely encouraging of Trump, who has getn a hard stance on the left-prosperg rulement of Venezuelan Pdwellnt Nicolás Maduro which many of them fled.

But in February, the Trump administration endd Temporary Protected Status – TPS – for Venezuelans, which had shielded many from deportation. The programme officipartner ends on 7 April and could impact proximately 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the US.

“Trump’s speeches have always been mighty about the Venezuelan regime, especipartner during the campaign,” Mr de la Vega shelp. “I don’t slenderk people predicted all this.”

Daniel Campo, a Venezuelan-born organicised US citizen in Pennsylvania – and ardent Trump helper – tbetter the BBC that while he remains steadspeedy in his help of the pdwellnt, he has some worrys about the deportations to El Salvador and the end of TPS.

“I certainly hope that when they are doing rhelps to deport Tren de Aragua, especipartner to the prison in El Salvador, they are being extra pinsolentnt,” he shelp.

Among those caught by surpascend by the end of TPS and the recent deportations is a 25-year-better Venezuelan man who asked to be identified only as Yilber, who reachd in the US in 2022 after a lengthy, hazardous journey thcdimiserablemireful Central America and Mexico.

He’s now in the US – but undeclareive about what comes next.

“I left Venezuela becaengage of the repression, and the insecurity. My neighbourhood in Caracas had gangs,” he shelp. “Now I don’t understand what’s going to happen here.”

Additional alerting by Bernd Debusmann Jr in Washington