Two accused Tren de Aragua gangbangers apprehended by the NYPD have been deported to El Salvador’s renowned hellhole prison, despite New York City’s sanctuary policies.
Carlos Chivico Medina, 24, was arrested in a huge drug network takedown in November, while Miguel Vaamondes Barrios, 42, was apprehended in April as part of a raid on squatters in a Bronx residence.
Both were on a leaked list of deportees flown to El Salvador’s terrorism incarceration center (CECOT) earlier this month under the Alien Enemies Act, which President Trump used to make it easier to expel members of Venezuela’s deadly prison gang.
It’s unclear how Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apprehended them, as New York City’s sanctuary rules restrict the information the NYPD and the city’s Department of Correction can exchange with the federal.
Earlier this month, the Trump government took 260 illegal migrants to CECOT, where they were captured in dramatic video wearing shackles and with their heads down.
Barrios, 42, was arrested last spring along with eight other suspects who were discovered squatting in a trashed Bronx apartment filled with guns—including one so-called “ghost gun”—as “well as three extended magazines, a box of ammunition, a bag of ketamine, and a bag of ketamine mixed with cocaine, according to police.
Police charged Barrios with criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a controlled narcotic, and endangering a child for his suspected involvement in the migrant squatter gang.
Pennsylvania and New York were also seeking him on charges of retail theft and shoplifting.
ICE requested a detainer to take him into jail, but sanctuary rules prevent NYC officials from handing over anybody apart from the most violent criminals.
Following the Post’s revelation, ICE raided the Bronx home and arrested three of Barrios’ friends. Currently, Barrios was still in Rikers Island awaiting a bail hearing.
Medina, the other accused gang member nabbed in New York City, was busted in November as part of a big NYPD crackdown on a narcotics and weapons ring in the Bronx.
Medina, who was previously jailed in 2023 on stealing allegations, was among 15 members of the gang apprehended in a joint raid by New York police and federal Homeland Security Investigations agents, according to authorities.
According to the list obtained by CBS News, alleged gang members on the El Salvador flight manifest have also made news for atrocities in other locations.
Wilker Guiterrez Sierra was arrested in February for allegedly committing a vicious knifepoint attack on a 49-year-old man riding a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train; he is one of the 238 accused Tren de Aragua members flown to CECOT.
Two migrant men, Idenis Alexander Sanchez-Paredes, 22, and Wilfredo Jose Mata-Fornerino, 37, were detained for allegedly running a sex trafficking brothel in Tennessee while on board the planes.
The Trump administration allowed that trip under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, sparking a tremendous legal battle.
However, US District Judge James Boasberg commanded the administration to reverse the planes and immediately halt the application of the deportation legislation. It was last used during World War II to justify the internment of Japanese citizens and others who were judged a security danger.
The flights came after Trump designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, allowing the federal government to more quickly capture and deport members of Venezuela’s jail gang.
There were also claims that Nixon Azuaje-Perez, 19, a baby-faced alleged Tren de Aragua gangbanger, was on the planes. He is accused of attempting to conceal evidence of an attempted murder in Aurora, Colorado, over the summer.
The leaked list also included his fellow Tren de Aragua gangbanger, Henry Javier Vargas, 32, who was arrested in January in an apartment complex taken over by the ruthless gang in Aurora, Colorado, and charged with extortion.
