Makeup artist is one of the US deportees sent from El Salvador to Venezuela, congressman says
Rep. Robert Garcia posted on social media Friday night: 'We have been in touch with Andry Hernández Romero's legal team and they have confirmed he is out of CECOT and back in Venezuela. We are grateful he is alive and are engaged with both the State Department and his team.'
Romero, a gay man, fled Venezuela last summer and sought asylum in the U.S. He used a U.S. Customs and Border Protection phone app to arrange an appointment at a U.S. border crossing in San Diego.
That's where he was asked about his tattoos. U.S. immigration authorities use a series of 'gang identifiers' to help them spot members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Romero, who is in his early 20s, has a crown tattooed on each wrist. One is next to the word 'Mom.' The other next to 'Dad.' The crowns, according to his lawyer, also pay homage to his hometown's Christmastime 'Three Kings' festival, and to his work in beauty pageants, where crowns are common.
Romero, who insisted he has no ties to Tren, was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and transferred to a California detention center. He was eventually flown to the Salvadoran mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, amid President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
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Reuters
5 hours ago
- Reuters
Deported Venezuelan imprisoned in El Salvador files formal complaint against US
WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) - A Venezuelan man filed a formal complaint on Thursday against the U.S. government for sending him to El Salvador's most notorious prison, a new legal strategy that could be duplicated by others who have said they were falsely accused of gang membership by President Donald Trump's administration. Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, 27, filed what it called an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, contending that federal employees wrongfully removed him from the United States without cause or due process. Rengel's complaint, which seeks $1.3 million in monetary damages, is not a lawsuit brought in a court but rather an action filed with the government alleging a violation of law. It is the first of its kind brought by one of the 252 Venezuelan men who were deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March. He invoked the Federal Tort Claims Act, a U.S. law that allows people to sue the U.S. government for wrongful acts committed by federal employees acting within the scope of their employment. Under that law, a complaint must be filed with the appropriate agency before a lawsuit can be brought. The government now has six months to investigate and respond to Rengel's complaint. If it denies his claim or fails to respond in that time period, Rengel could then sue in federal court. The Republican president, who campaigned in last year's election on a pledge of mass deportations, in March invoked a 1798 statute called the Alien Enemies Act as part of an effort to quickly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. The law authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime. The U.S. government last invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which historically has been employed only during wartime, during World War Two to intern and deport people of Japanese, German and Italian descent. The Venezuelan deportees were held incommunicado in El Salvador's maximum security CECOT prison until they were returned to Venezuela last week as part of a prisoner swap between the United States and Venezuela. Family and friends of some of them said the deportees were not gang members and were wrongly accused based on tattoos, hand gestures and clothing. Venezuelan government officials and deportees have said they were tortured in prison. Rengel's lawyers said in the complaint that, because of his tattoos, DHS employees detained him in the parking lot of his apartment in Irving, Texas, and falsely accused him of membership in the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin in a statement on Thursday reiterated the U.S. government's claim that Rengel was associated with Tren de Aragua and said he was "deemed a public safety threat." McLaughlin said Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "will not allow foreign terrorist enemies to operate in our country and endanger Americans." Rengel alleged that, after moving him to a detention center, DHS employees lied to him, telling him he was being sent to Venezuela. "Instead, for more than four months, Rengel languished in El Salvador – which is not his country of origin and a place where he has no ties – where he suffered physical, verbal and psychological abuse," the complaint said.
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Migrant sent to El Salvador prison by the Trump administration says he was beaten by guards
A migrant from Venezuela deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador has taken the first step toward suing the U.S. government, saying he was wrongly sent to a notorious prison in the Central American country where he was beaten by guards and kept from contacting his family or an attorney. Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, 27, has filed a claim for $1.3 million with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, his attorneys with Democracy Defenders Fund said Thursday. Rengel is among more than 250 migrants from Venezuela sent to El Salvador in March, out of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Immigration agents took Rengel into custody on March 13 in the parking lot of his apartment in Irving, Texas, wrongly claiming his tattoos reflected an affiliation with Tren de Aragua, according to his claim. He had entered the U.S. in 2023. He worked as a barber and was scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in 2028. Homeland Security said in an email that Rengel was a 'confirmed associate' of the Tren de Aragua gang, though it did not specify how it reached that conclusion, and called his claims a fake 'sob story.' 'President Trump and Secretary Noem will not allow foreign terrorist enemies to operate in our country and endanger Americans,' the email said. It added, 'We hear far too much about gang members and criminals' false sob stories and not enough about their victims.' At El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, Rengel said guards hit him with fists and batons and, on one occasion, viciously beat him after taking him to an area of the prison without cameras. Rengel was sent to Venezuela earlier this month as part of a prisoner exchange deal. His attorneys say he is living with his mother and is 'terrified' to return to the United States. They are seeking compensation for emotional and psychological injuries. A federal judge ruled in June that the Trump administration must give some of the migrants sent to the prison in El Salvador a chance to challenge their deportations. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg said the people hadn't been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they were members of Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges. The judge wrote that 'significant evidence' had surfaced indicating that many of the migrants were not connected to the gang 'and thus were languishing in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.' At a hearing on Thursday, an attorney for the Trump administration told Boasberg it would not immediately bring the migrants sent from El Salvador to Venezuela as part of the prisoner exchange back to the U.S. Trump officials planned to await the outcome of other court cases before deciding whether to allow the migrants to return, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Tiberius Davis said. Boasberg had ordered the administration to turn planes carrying the accused gang members around, but the demand was ignored. The judge has found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court. The judge said Thursday he planned to expand his contempt probe to include a recent whistleblower complaint that claims a top Justice Department official suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members. ___ Thanawala reported from Atlanta.
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Migrant deported to notorious El Salvador prison demands $1.3M from Trump administration after savage beatings, vile conditions and 24-hour confinement
Federal agents arrested Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel outside his apartment in Texas on his 27th birthday. Two days later, he was deported to a brutal prison in El Salvador, where he was packed in a jail cell with more than a dozen other Venezuelan men for up to 24 hours a day, for four months. Inside El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, Rengel 'endured physical, verbal and psychological abuse,' including routine beatings from guards using their fists and batons, according to his complaint to the Department of Homeland Security Thursday. The details of Rengel's removal from the United States, and his time spent in CECOT, constitute the first legal action against Donald Trump's administration in the wake of a prisoner swap that the release of 250 Venezuelans from the notorious Salvadoran jail. Rengel's administrative claim seeks $1.3 million in damages, alleging wrongful detention and personal injury. The claim is the first step towards a lawsuit against the administration, which has faced an avalanche of legal challenges related to the summary removal of dozens of immigrants to a foreign prison where they faced the prospect of indefinite detention. 'You don't have to be a constitutional scholar for the Rengel case to set off alarms,' according to Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, which filed the claim on Rengel's behalf. 'Detaining and disappearing someone without cause or access to legal recourse is illegal and abhorrent,' he added. 'This kind of conduct may be straight out of the Trump playbook on immigration, but it has nothing to do with the American Constitution or our values.' The Independent has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment. Rengel came to the U.S. in 2023 by appointment through the CBP One app, a Joe Biden-era program that allowed immigrants to schedule with immigration officers before arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. He also applied for temporary protected status, with a pending immigration court date in 2028, according to his attorneys. After his arrest, agents falsely claimed his tattoos were affiliated with Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, which he has adamantly denied, according to the complaint. He was not allowed to challenge that 'flimsy pretext for removal' under Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act, which labels Venezuelan 'members' of Tren de Aragua 'alien enemies' who can be summarily deported. Federal authorities have wide discretion to determine membership, largely by pointing to their tattoos. Inside CECOT, Rengel was routinely beaten, and on one occasion, taken to an area of the prison without cameras where guards 'viciously' attacked him, according to his complaint. Rengel was also 'forced to witness guards severely beating' other detainees, the complaint says. CECOT guards 'would turn out the light, take a detainee out of the cell, and attack them outside their cell in front of Rengel and his cellmates,' according to the complaint. Rengel was imprisoned with 18 or 19 other Venezuelans inside a cell no larger than 10-by-10 feet, and the men were rarely allowed to leave, staying inside the cell up to 24 hours a day, the complaint says. They shared two toilets in the cell without any privacy, and the cell was only cleaned once a week, according to Rengel. The Red Cross visited the facility on June 12, and Rengel spoke with the group for 30 minutes — his only contact with the outside world during his imprisonment, according to the complaint. On July 18, following trilateral negotiations with the U.S. and Salvadoran and Venezuelan governments, Rengel and more than 250 other Venezuelans jailed inside the facility were returned to their home country. Rengel has since returned to his mother's home in Municipio Baruta, Venezuela, and is 'terrified to return to the United States given the horrendous treatment he endured,' according to his complaint. Court orders in several cases urged administration officials to 'facilitate' the return of immigrants wrongfully deported to CECOT, and the top judge in Washington, D.C., has threatened officials with contempt after defying his orders to turn the planes around in the first place. Officials claimed for months that the United States no longer has jurisdiction over deportees that were locked up in El Salvador. But authorities in that country recently told the United Nations that the 'legal responsibility for these people lie exclusively' with the U.S. government. Attorneys for Rengel argue that his release — along with the release of dozens of other Venezuelan detainees — demonstrate that the U.S. government has always had the ability to secure their release. 'Mr. Rengel's loved ones were cut off from contact, left with no answers, and forced to endure months of fear, confusion, and heartbreak," according to Juan Proaño, president of Latino civil rights organization LULAC, which is representing Rengel. 'While no amount of money will ever be able to make up for the deeply traumatic wounds Mr. Rengel now bears, our government has the responsibility to ensure he and his family have the resources they need as they cope,' Proaño said.
