What is Tren de Aragua? What to know about Venezuelan gang targeted by Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\nThe issue has ascended to the U.S. Supreme Court, as opponents of the policy attempt to derail the president’s use of the law, calling it unconstitutional. On Friday, the court continued blocking the administration’s use of the 1798 wartime law and directed a lower court to determine what process the government should use to allow migrants time and information to protect their rights.<\/p>\n
In her statement, McLaughlin reaffirmed Garcia Casique\u2019s ties to Tren de Aragua and defended the agency\u2019s decision to send him to CECOT, saying he entered the country illegally in 2023 and was ordered deported by a judge last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested [Garcia Casique] on Feb. 6, in Longview, Texas. He was removed to El Salvador March 15.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the confusion over the wrong photo raises more questions about the speed with which the Trump administration deported individuals to the prison in El Salvador and the lack of judicial review of their cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lack of information and lack of due process is really evident here,\u201d said Michelle Bran\u00e9, executive director of Together and Free, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group helping Garcia Casique\u2019s family obtain legal help, who worked in the Biden administration overseeing family reunification efforts after Trump\u2019s first term.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThese people were sent to a black hole where we don\u2019t know whether they\u2019ll ever come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confusion over gang suspects \u00a0<\/p>\n
Garcia Casique, the oldest of four siblings, left Venezuela in 2019 when he was 18 to escape the country\u2019s spiraling economy and violence. He worked as a barber in Peru for a few years then set off for the United States, where several of his barber friends had relocated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in late 2023 near Eagle Pass, Texas, turning himself over to border agents. He was processed and released until his immigration court date. Initially, he was bused from the border to Denver but eventually made his way back to Longview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to DHS, federal agents at the ICE Dallas office detained him on Feb. 29, 2024, \u201cafter being deemed a public safety threat as a confirmed member of the Tren de Aragua gang.\u201d\u00a0His family, however, said Garcia Casique missed an interview with ICE and visited the agency to try to reenter the system when he was detained.<\/p>\n
As the real Garcia Casique was locked up at an ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, another man, also in federal custody, was interviewed by Dallas Police detectives.<\/p>\n
It’s unclear what the man told detectives, but a gang profile was uploaded into the database with Garcia-Casique’s name and the bearded man’s photo tying him to Tren de Aragua since he “admitted to strong knowledge” of the gang.<\/p>\n
But that person, according to Dallas Police, was not Garcia Casique.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The identity of the man in the photo remained a mystery to the outside world until USA TODAY sought clarification from federal officials. After repeated requests, McLaughlin, at DHS, identified the bearded man as Juan Jose Calvillo-Castaneda, a Mexican national questioned for potential ties to a Mexican gang. He was removed last year to Mexico, she said.<\/p>\n
On Apr. 16, 2024, an immigration judge ordered Garcia Casique deported, according to DHS. But he was released under his own supervision with an ankle monitor, since the U.S. at the time didn\u2019t have a removal agreement with Venezuela. In his \u201cOrder of Supervision\u201d checklist, agents checked the box for \u201cNCIC Check,\u201d meaning a national criminal background check on Garcia Casique had not found anything concerning to keep him detained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Garcia Casique’s identifying info with the faulty photo flowed from ICE into the TxGANG database. It would take federal agents thirteen months to realize that the biographical details did not match the true identity of the bearded man.<\/p>\n
How exactly Garcia Casique’s info got juxtaposed with Calvillo-Castaneda’s photo remains muddled \u2013 and hinges on two divergent storylines. Dallas Police said they interviewed Calvillo-Castaneda while he was in ICE custody and were provided incorrect information. But McLaughlin claimed that a Dallas Police detective inadvertently attached the wrong photo to the entry.<\/p>\n
Either way, someone like Garcia Casique, with no criminal record and who was checking in with ICE, should have never been targeted in the recent raids, said Jason Houser, former ICE chief of staff in the Biden administration, who has been critical of Trump’s border policies.<\/p>\n
The fact that federal authorities last year released him with an ankle monitor shows that Garcia Casique wasn’t a public safety or national security threat, Houser said.<\/p>\n
Garcia Casique was one of dozens of Venezuelans who were easy to locate and swept up by federal agents more focused on a public show of force rather than getting actual criminals off the street, he said.<\/p>\n
“He literally lost the immigration Russian roulette,” Houser said of Garcia Casique.<\/p>\n
An ICE spokesman declined to say if or how the agency utilizes the Texas gang database but said: \u201cICE is leveraging all available law enforcement resources to aggressively pursue these aliens to restore law and order in our communities and integrity to our nation\u2019s immigration laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Garcia Casique was detained by ICE last year, he was questioned about his tattoos, which may have played a role in his detention, Mirelys Casique said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tattoos, which include several roses, the names of both his grandmothers next to clocks, and a small crown with his mother\u2019s name, roused the suspicion of federal agents, she said. Agents may also have questioned Garcia Casique about his home region of Aragua \u2013 where Tren de Aragua originated.<\/p>\n
But neither his tattoos nor home region connected Garcia Casique in any way to Tren de Aragua, his mother said, adding that her son has no criminal record in either the U.S. or Venezuela.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat really determines if someone\u2019s a criminal?\u201d Mirelys Casique said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas database struggles to validate gang entries<\/strong><\/p>\nThe TxGANG database is a repository for thousands of alleged gang members and suspected criminals. But it\u2019s also been criticized for not consistently validating the allegations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A state audit conducted on the database in November found that of the 65,832 names in the system, 7,199 \u2013 or nearly 11 percent \u2013 had not been validated within five years as required by federal law. Of those, more than 1,200 had not been validated within the last 10 years.<\/p>\n
The Texas Department of Public Safety runs the database but local law enforcement agencies are responsible for entering the names. A person can be entered into the database without committing a crime and individual agencies are responsible for validating entries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since an earlier audit in 2022, DPS had improved its system of validating entries, according to the audit. \u201cHowever, as of November 2024, TxGANG still contained records that were not validated within the federally required timeframes,\u201d auditors wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jerry Robinette, former head of the San Antonio office of Homeland Security Investigations under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said HSI agents commonly used the TxGANG database for intel on suspected criminal migrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They also used the database to try to determine which migrants belonged to which gang in order to keep them in separate holding facilities, for their safety, he said. The database was one of several tools used by federal investigators to try to determine gang affiliation, Robinette said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even if a name appeared in the database, he said, investigators would have to corroborate the information with several other sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to make sure the information is accurate,\u201d Robinette said. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about deporting someone. There are consequences behind that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018He had nothing to fear because he wasn\u2019t a criminal\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\nAfter being released by ICE last year, Garcia Casique went back to work cutting hair in Longview. He saved money, moved out of a cramped home he shared with other migrants and into a roomier apartment. Each time he moved, he notified authorities of his new address, his mother said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a normal life, he was working,\u201d she said. \u201cHe kept saying he had nothing to fear because he wasn\u2019t a criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unbeknownst to Garcia Casique, his name and details, next to a stranger\u2019s face, were bouncing around the TxGANG database \u2013 and drawing the attention of state law enforcement officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an email dated Sept. 9, 2024, Freeman Martin, who would later become head of DPS, forwarded a slide presentation titled \u201cTren de Aragua (TdA) Presentation,\u201d to a number of state officials. The 38-page presentation contained photos of at-large Tren de Aragua kingpins and some of the clock, train and star tattoos authorities believed reveal TdA allegiance. Page 18 displayed the entry with Garcia Casique\u2019s info along with the bearded suspect\u2019s photo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Expelled to Salvadoran prison\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nOn Feb. 6, ICE agents stormed Garcia Casique\u2019s apartment and whisked him away. He was transferred to a federal detention center near Laredo, Texas, not far from the U.S.-Mexico border.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Initially, his mother said she wasn\u2019t alarmed \u2013 she just assumed the agents planned to fulfill his deportation order and return him to his native Venezuela. Garcia Casique even signed an order consenting to be deported to his home country, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the morning of Mar. 15, Garcia Casique called his mom from inside the detention facility to tell her he was told he\u2019d be boarding a flight later that day and would soon rejoin her in Venezuela. He never showed up. The family later discovered an online image of him, head shaven, being paraded into CECOT.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mirelys Casique hasn\u2019t spoken to her son since.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few weeks after Garcia Casique\u2019s final phone call to his mom, agents with Homeland Security Investigations called the Dallas Police Department to notify officials there that the picture in the TxGANG entry on Garcia Casique did not match ICE photographs taken of him when he was initially detained nor anything in ICE\u2019s record on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The entry was promptly purged from the database.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Follow Jervis and Penzenstadler on X: @MrRJervis, @npenzenstadler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venezuelans in El Salvador prison plead for freedom in video Venezuelans held in a high-security prison in El…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[8521,188,7902,8517,5483,32,40,7898,6584,12,5179,6591,369,1757,5181,49,978,659,8520,8529],"class_list":{"0":"post-113092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-crime-u0026-justice","11":"tag-deportation","12":"tag-donald","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-justice","16":"tag-negative","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-overall","19":"tag-overall-negative","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-trump","22":"tag-u0026","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-violence","27":"tag-violence-u0026-abuse"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114531839778141069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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