State and federal agents arrested over 40 people in a raid on a Texas home this week. A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and FBI news release from April 2 claims a warrant was executed after agents “developed intelligence” regarding a gathering of members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. DPS has not released information on what crimes the arrestees had allegedly committed.
Earlier this month, Trump deported over 200 Venezuelan migrants accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua and they were sent to the “Terrorism Confinement Center” in El Salvador as part of an agreement between the US and the Central American nation. Right-wing president and close Trump ally Nayib Bukele has bragged about having prisoners perform labor under what he has dubbed the “Zero Idleness Program.”
In this mass deportation effort, which a US federal judge attempted to block, no concrete evidence of criminality was presented and the individuals were denied court hearings. New evidence suggests that many were swept up in the mass deportation effort simply for the crime of having tattoos.
A notable example is that of Andry José Hernández Romero, a Venezuelan migrant and makeup artist currently imprisoned in El Salvador. Andry reportedly migrated to flee persecution due to his sexual orientation and political views. According to recently released court documents, an agent at the Otay Mesa detention center in California claimed that “detainee Hernandez ports [sic] tattoos ‘crowns’ that are consistent with those of a Tren de Aragua member.” According to Hernández Romero’s loved ones, the crown tattoos on his wrists are a tribute to his involvement in his hometown’s youth drama group, Los Mini Reyes, and his Catholic upbringing.
In fact, it seems as if aesthetic choices such as tattoos, rather than evidence of criminality, are the way the Trump administration is deciding who to target for mass deportation efforts. Court documents reveal that immigration agents are relying on a scorecard-like document, titled the “ALIEN ENEMY VALIDATION GUIDE,” to determine whether a migrant can be deported under one of the oldest laws on the books in the US, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The document includes a system of points, of which eight or higher can be grounds for deportation. Points can be based off of a migrant’s tattoos or social media posts.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for its use of the Alien Enemies Act to pursue mass deportations. The Alien Enemies Act has previously been used to justify the internment of people of Japanese ancestry in internment camps in the US during World War II.
On March 28, the Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court to lift a temporary restraining order (TRO), which has blocked it from deporting more migrants via the Alien Enemies Act. This TRO came about as a result of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Democracy Forward. “We will urge the Supreme Court to preserve the status quo to give the courts time to hear this case, so that more individuals are not sent off to a notorious foreign prison without any process, based on an unprecedented and unlawful use of a wartime authority,” said Lee Gelernt, who is the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and the lead counsel on the lawsuit.
