Albert Jesús Rodríguez Parra was one in every of greater than 230 Venezuelan immigrants the Trump administration despatched to a maximum-security jail in El Salvador. After his launch, he says he desires the world to know what occurred to him.
By Melissa Sanchez for ProPublica
Within the early days of President Donald Trump’s second time period, I spent just a few weeks observing Chicago’s immigration courtroom to get a way of how issues had been altering. One afternoon in March, the case of a 27-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker caught my consideration.
Albert Jesús Rodríguez Parra stared into the digital camera at his digital bond listening to. He wore the orange shirt given to inmates at a jail in Laredo, Texas, and headphones to hearken to the proceedings by means of an interpreter.
Greater than a yr earlier, Rodríguez had been convicted of shoplifting within the Chicago suburbs. However since then he had appeared to get his life on monitor. He discovered a job at Wrigley Area, despatched cash house to his mother in Venezuela and went to the fitness center and church together with his girlfriend. Then, in November, federal authorities detained him at his condo on Chicago’s South Facet and accused him of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
“Are any of your tattoos gang related?” his lawyer requested on the listening to, going by means of the proof laid out in opposition to him in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report. “No,” stated Rodríguez, whose tattoos embrace an angel holding a gun, a wolf and a rose. At one level, he lifted his shirt to point out his mother and father’ names inked throughout his chest.
He was requested a few TikTok video that reveals him dancing to an audio clip of somebody shouting, “Te va agarrar el Tren de Aragua,” which suggests, “The Tren de Aragua is going to get you,” adopted by a dance beat. That audio clip has been shared some 60,000 instances on TikTok — it’s well-liked amongst Venezuelans ridiculing the stereotype that everybody from their nation is a gangster. Rodríguez appeared incredulous on the thought that this was the proof in opposition to him.
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That day, the choose didn’t deal with the gang allegations. However she denied Rodríguez bond, citing the misdemeanor shoplifting conviction. She reminded him that his last listening to was on March 20, simply 10 days away. If she granted him asylum, he’d be a free man and will proceed his life within the U.S.
I advised my editors and colleagues about what I’d heard and made plans to attend the subsequent listening to. I noticed the potential for the form of difficult narrative story that I like: Right here was a younger immigrant who, sure, had come into the nation illegally, however he had turned himself in to frame authorities to hunt asylum. Sure, he had a prison report, but it surely was for a nonviolent offense. And, sure, he had tattoos, however so do the good, white American mothers in my e book membership. I used to be sure there are members of Tren de Aragua within the U.S., but when this was the form of proof the federal government had, I discovered it exhausting to consider it was an “invasion” as Trump claimed. I requested Rodríguez’s lawyer for an interview and commenced requesting police and courtroom information.
5 days later, on March 15, the Trump administration expelled greater than 230 Venezuelan males to a most safety jail in El Salvador, a rustic a lot of them had by no means even set foot in. Trump known as all of them terrorists and gang members. It will be just a few days earlier than the lads’s names could be made public. Maybe naively, it didn’t happen to me that Rodríguez may be in that group. Then I logged into his last listening to and heard his lawyer say he didn’t know the place the federal government had taken him. The lawyer sounded drained and defeated. Later, he would inform me he had barely slept, afraid that Rodríguez may flip up lifeless. On the listening to, he begged a authorities lawyer for info: “For his family’s sake, would you happen to know what country he was sent to?” She advised him she didn’t know, both.
Rodríguez lifts his shirt to show a few of his tattoos. The Trump administration has relied, partly, on tattoos to model Venezuelan immigrants as doable members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Consultants have advised us tattoos usually are not an indicator of membership within the gang.
I used to be astonished. I’m aware of the historical past of authoritarian leaders disappearing individuals they don’t like in Latin America, the a part of the world that my household comes from. I wished to assume that doesn’t occur on this nation. However what I had simply witnessed felt uncomfortably comparable.
As quickly because the listening to ended, I acquired on a name with my colleagues Mica Rosenberg and Perla Trevizo, each of whom cowl immigration and had lately written about how the U.S. authorities had despatched different Venezuelan males to Guantanamo. We talked about what we should always do with what I’d simply heard. Mica contacted a supply within the federal authorities who confirmed, nearly instantly, that Rodríguez was among the many males that our nation had despatched to El Salvador.
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We spoke to the family and attorneys of greater than 100 of the lads and obtained inner authorities information that undercut the Trump administration’s claims that every one the lads are “monsters,” “sick criminals” and the “worst of the worst.” We additionally printed a narrative about how, by and huge, the lads weren’t hiding from federal immigration authorities. They had been within the system; many had open asylum circumstances like Rodríguez and had been ready for his or her day in courtroom earlier than they had been taken away and imprisoned in Central America.
On July 18 — after I’d written the primary draft of this word to you — we started to listen to some chatter a few potential prisoner change between the U.S. and Venezuela. Later that very same day, the lads had been launched. We’d been in the midst of engaged on a case-by-case accounting of the Venezuelan males who’d been held in El Salvador. Although they’d been launched, documenting who they’re and the way they acquired caught up on this dragnet was nonetheless essential, important even, as was the influence of their incarceration.
The result’s a database we printed final week together with profiles of 238 of the lads Trump deported to a Salvadoran jail.
From the second I heard in regards to the males’s return to Venezuela, I thought of Rodríguez. He’d been on my thoughts since embarking on this mission. I messaged together with his mom for days as we waited for the lads to be processed by the federal government of Nicolás Maduro and launched to their households.
Rodríguez, surrounded by his mom, proper, aunt, above, and grandmother, left, is again in Venezuela.
Lastly, one morning final week, he went house. We spoke later that afternoon. He stated he was relieved to be house together with his household however felt traumatized. He advised me he desires the world to know what occurred to him within the Salvadoran jail — each day beatings, humiliation, psychological abuse. “There is no reason for what I went through,” he stated. “I didn’t deserve that.”
The Salvadoran authorities has denied mistreating the Venezuelan prisoners.
We requested the Trump administration about its proof in opposition to Rodríguez. That is the whole thing of its assertion: “Albert Jesús Rodriguez Parra is an illegal alien from Venezuela and Tren de Aragua gang member. He illegally crossed the border on April 22, 2023, under the Biden Administration.”
Whereas Rodríguez was incarcerated in El Salvador and nobody knew what would occur to him, the courtroom saved delaying hearings for his asylum case. However after months of continuances, on Monday, Rodríguez logged right into a digital listening to from Venezuela. “Oh my gosh, I am so happy to see that,” stated Decide Samia Naseem, clearly remembering what had occurred in his case.
Rodríguez’s lawyer stated that his shopper had been tortured and abused in El Salvador. “I can’t even describe to this court what he went through,” he stated. “He’s getting psychological help, and that’s my priority.”
It was a quick listening to, maybe 5 minutes. Rodríguez’s lawyer talked about his involvement in an ongoing lawsuit in opposition to the Trump administration over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans. The federal government lawyer stated little, besides to query whether or not Rodríguez was even allowed to seem just about on account of “security issues” in Venezuela.
Lastly, the choose stated she would administratively shut the case whereas the litigation performs out. “If he should hopefully be able to come back to the U.S., we’ll calendar the case,” she stated.
Naseem turned to Rodríguez, who was muted and appeared severe. “You don’t have to worry about reappearing until this gets sorted out,” she advised him. He nodded and shortly logged off.
We plan to maintain reporting on what occurred and have one other story coming quickly about Rodríguez and the opposite males’s experiences contained in the jail. Please attain out if in case you have info to share.
