A Texas teenager was deported when U.S. immigration officials wrongly linked his tattoos to gang activity, despite his claim that he just got them because they “looked cool,” according to reports.
According to the New Republic, on March 15, President Donald Trump used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport over 200 Venezuelan migrants, saying they were Tren de Aragua gang members.
This action circumvented due process, resulting in individuals being imprisoned and transferred to a Salvadoran prison without a thorough judicial assessment. Individuals with no criminal background were deported, including a young guy who received a tattoo in Dallas solely for aesthetic reasons.
“The men sent to do hard labor in a Salvadoran prison with no due process include: A tattoo artist seeking asylum who entered legally, a teen who got a tattoo in Dallas because he thought it looked cool, a 26-year-old whose tattoos his wife says are unrelated to a gang,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council wrote on X.
Immigration officials allegedly began detaining Latino men with tattoos on the suspicion that they were involved in organized crime.
Many of these people, including asylum seekers, were apparently targeted merely because of their body art, regardless of whether they belonged to a gang.
Aguilera Agüero, one of the detainees, has a tattoo of lyrics from Puerto Rican reggaeton musician Anuel AA, which was allegedly misidentified as gang-related.
A federal judge has since banned Trump’s use of the statute, according to NPR. Families and legal experts continue to try to free the jailed migrants.
