FBI and DHS question using tattoos to accurately ID Venezuelan criminal gangs<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe idea that government contractors might be making that decision would be very alarming,\u201d Sandweg said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are being rendered to a torture prison on the basis of these flimsy and inaccurate determinations,\u201d said Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group. \u201cUsing private prison contractors to make those determinations is just another level of recklessness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reached by phone, Cross deferred all questions to CoreCivic headquarters.<\/p>\n
Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesman, wouldn\u2019t comment specifically on Cross\u2019s case but said in a statement that all employees \u201cclear a rigorous, federal background clearance process\u201d and must be approved by ICE before being employed at an ICE-contracted facility.<\/p>\n
CoreCivic staffers conduct a \u201cthorough assessment\u201d on all people entering its detention centers, but the decision to deport rests solely with ICE, the statement said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCoreCivic does not enforce immigration laws, arrest anyone who may be in violation of immigration laws, or have any say whatsoever in an individual\u2019s deportation or release,\u201d it read.\u00a0\u201cCoreCivic also does not know the circumstances of individuals when they are placed in our facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unknown what, if any, training Cross has had in identifying gang members. In Milwaukee, he rose to the rank of sergeant at the police department and, according to his LinkedIn page, had \u201c19+ years of service\u201d and gained \u201cextensive experience in security, investigations, department management and overall operations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police sergeant shrouded by misdeeds\u00a0<\/p>\n
But his tenure was cratered with controversy. In 2007, he received a misdemeanor conviction after kicking in the door of the apartment he shared with his girlfriend and threatening to kill himself with his service revolver, according to court records. He lost his job but later was reinstated after appealing to the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That incident landed him on the Brady List, which gives defense attorneys a chance to contest an officer’s credibility if they’re called to testify.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Cross was arrested again after driving his car into the side of a house, court records show. His blood alcohol level was more than double the legal limit for driving.\u00a0He was ticketed for first-offense drunken driving after the crash, court records show.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe couldn’t walk straight. He was talking nonsense like, ‘Highway’s here,’\u201d Nina Krasic, who was in the home with her three children, told Fox 6 TV at the time. \u201cI’m like, ‘No.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n
After an internal investigation, Cross was fired from the force in October 2012. He appealed and later resigned.<\/p>\n
Four months later, he was hired at CoreCivic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, questioned the legality of having contract workers make such consequential decisions. A key question is whether, in cases such as Hernandez\u2019s,\u00a0there was other corroborating evidence \u2013 and whether a government official made the final call to send Hernandez to El Salvador, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat determination that somebody would be removable from the country needs to be made by a law enforcement official under the Department of Homeland Security,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would be highly problematic if that determination was being made, in fact, by a private prison employee.\u201d<\/p>\n
In court filings, Paulina Reyes, an attorney for Hernandez, described the crown tattoos on her client as representing his affinity for the annual \u201cThree Kings\u201d festival in his hometown of Capacho, Venezuela.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was a makeup artist at a state-run television station but was constantly discriminated against and threatened for his sexual orientation and political views, according to the affidavit. Hernandez quit the TV job and fled to the United States, where he told relatives he\u2019d be safer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By mid-March, he had vanished.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Follow Jervis on X: @MrRJervis.<\/p>\n
Contributing: Gina Barton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The imprisoned man sought shelter in the U.S. after he told authorities he was persecuted as a gay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[8521,323,5176,188,7902,8514,8517,8522,8530,5483,32,8515,8525,8519,7964,3823,5905,40,7898,2725,2003,7900,8526,5763,6584,12,5179,6591,457,8528,8523,48,8516,4678,1426,8527,1757,1017,8524,5181,49,978,659,8518,8520,8529],"class_list":{"0":"post-12414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-and","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-crime-u0026-justice","13":"tag-customs","14":"tag-deportation","15":"tag-discrimination","16":"tag-discrimination-u0026-identity-relations","17":"tag-donald","18":"tag-donald-trump","19":"tag-el","20":"tag-el-salvador","21":"tag-enabled","22":"tag-enforcement","23":"tag-highlights","24":"tag-identity","25":"tag-immigration","26":"tag-justice","27":"tag-law","28":"tag-law-enforcement","29":"tag-legal","30":"tag-lgbtq-rights","31":"tag-lgbtq","32":"tag-negative","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-overall","35":"tag-overall-negative","36":"tag-people","37":"tag-people-u0026-society","38":"tag-relations","39":"tag-rights","40":"tag-salvador","41":"tag-society","42":"tag-story","43":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","44":"tag-trump","45":"tag-u-s","46":"tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","47":"tag-u0026","48":"tag-united-states","49":"tag-us","50":"tag-usa","51":"tag-venezuela","52":"tag-violence","53":"tag-violence-u0026-abuse"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12414","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=12414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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