Until five weeks ago, Arturo Suarez was a professional singer, performing in the United States as he waited for his asylum claim to be processed. Originally from Venezuela, he had entered the US through proper, legal channels. But he is now imprisoned in a notorious jail in El Salvador, sent there by the Trump administration, despite seemingly never having faced trial or committed any crime. The White House claims he is a gang member but has not provided evidence to support this allegation.

His brother, Nelson Suarez, told Sky News he believes his brother’s only “crime” is being Venezuelan and having tattoos. Arturo, 34, was recording a music video inside a house in March when he was arrested by immigration agents. He was first taken to a deportation center in El Paso, Texas, and then, it appears, put on to a military flight to El Salvador.

A photograph Nelson spotted on a news website of inmates with hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together, shows Arturo in the CECOT prison, which holds members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs. Arturo has 33 tattoos, including a hummingbird on his neck—in memory of their late mother—tattoos of which could have landed him at the center of President Trump’s anti-immigration policy. Nelson provided documents indicating Arturo had no criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, or the United States.

In March, Donald Trump signed the Alien Enemies Act, allowing the president to detain and deport immigrants living legally in the US if they are from countries deemed “enemies.” Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had “infiltrated the United States” and was “conducting irregular warfare.” Immigration officials have focused on certain tattoos being gang symbols, with a document outlining a point-based system to determine if an immigrant “may be validated” as a gang member.

Another man, Jerce Reyes Barrios, who fled Venezuela after marching in anti-government protests, is also imprisoned in CECOT. His lawyer, Linette Tobin, says Reyes Barrios was deported based on a tattoo and a photograph from 13 years ago, which she claims has been misinterpreted as a gang symbol.

Reyes Barrios has no criminal record. Ms. Tobin says she and other lawyers are trying to establish a UN working group on enforced disappearances to check on the men in the prison, as it is “incommunicado.” The DHS claims they are not misusing tattoos alone and says Reyes Barrios’s social media indicates he is a gang member, but Ms. Tobin disputes this.

Sky News contacted the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a response to Arturo’s and Reyes Barrios’s cases but has not heard back.

A federal judge has ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another man mistakenly deported, must be returned to the US by Monday 7 April. The White House has acknowledged that at least one man was sent to El Salvador by “administrative error,” but claims Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, which his lawyers dispute.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/my-brother-was-thrown-to-the-lions-in-el-salvador-jail-by-trump-administration-13343119