Bulwark Takes - The Trump Administration Are Cruel And Heartless Bastards For This

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Tim Miller is joined by Noah Lanard and Isabela Dias to discuss their article in Mother Jones “You’re Here Because of Your Tattoos." They discuss many of the detained men in El Salvador wrongly accused of being gang members because of having tattoos, including tattoos of an autism awareness ribbon, hummingbirds, and flowers.

Hey guys, Tim Miller from the Bulwark. I'm here with Noah Lenard and Isabella Diaz of Mother Jones. They wrote this great piece I've been referencing last week about the Venezuelans that we have sent to the El Salvador hellhole. It was called You're Here Because of Your Tattoos. And I wanted to talk to you guys about the story. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having us on. Yeah, thank you. So you guys have talked, you said in the article, to family members of 10 of the Venezuelans that we've sent to El Salvador. I guess we think there's somewhere between 238, maybe more total that have been sent.

I want to go through a couple of the specific people that you talk about, but just broadly, kind of what are you hearing? What are you learning from those conversations with these family members? Yeah, absolutely. So we spoke to, like you said, 10 families, lawyers, relatives of people who had been sent to El Salvador. And when we first started talking to them, we weren't sure they were in El Salvador and their relatives weren't because there was no official list. So it was a really kind of horrific situation where some of them had maybe recognized a

relative in one of the very fascistic propaganda photos that the government put out in el salvador others just said like oh we talked to them he said he was going back to venezuela he never arrived therefore he's probably in el salvador so that's where things stood as we started reporting it and you know yeah we were finding these people on social media through their lawyers kind of all over the place i can't even imagine just like the horror of some of the family members like where you see these videos of them, you know, their head shaved, like they put their head down, being treated, just really horribly shackled. I mean, what was it like? How were they dealing with processing this emotionally? Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of an unimaginable situation to be in. You know, in most of the cases, the families had no news of their relatives and loved ones, you know, for a few days since March 15, when the planes took off.

And so they were doing this kind of like desperate, you know, scouting of the Internet for any clue, you know, looking at photos that the Salvadoran government released, like you said, and, you know, they all, all of these men were sent to the, the terrorism confinement center, were put in this white prison uniforms, they had their heads shaved. And so these family members were looking for, you know, any evidence like that, you know, trying to identify them based on tattoos. So, you know, seeing a rose on the neck that was like peeking through the white t-shirt. And that's how they learned of the fate of their relatives. And then later on, when CBS News released a list of the 238 or so men who had been sent to El Salvador, they had the final confirmation. And your conversation with the lawyers, like at this point, the legal recourse here is pretty murky, right? Because if they were still on American soil, then I think they would have greater ability to obviously access their clients, for example, etc. So what are lawyers saying about this process? know, fatalistic about it? Are there options?

Yeah, so there's a lawsuit that covers some of the people sent there, about two thirds of the people now from the ACLU. And that's the one that's been getting a lot of press attention, the one where the Trump administration flouted the court order. But yeah, I mean, it seems like from the court hearings we've been listening to is they're not super optimistic, or the judge isn't certain that he has authority over these people anymore because they are now in the custody of a foreign government. So, I mean, we are paying, the U.S. United States is paying for $6 million for them. So maybe there's some recourse there, but I wouldn't say there's a ton of optimism, but Isabella would. Yeah. And I think, you know, we know for a fact that some of the men who were sent to El Salvador without due process, they had upcoming hearings in U.S. immigration courts. Some of those hearings were for asylum cases where they might have legitimate claims.

You know, one of the people we write about in the story, his lawyer said he had a very good case for fleeing political persecution from paramilitary groups aligned with the Maduro regime in Venezuela. And, you know, they were sent to this maximum security prison in El Salvador without having an opportunity to show any evidence before an immigration judge. A lot of them also came through legal pathways through the CBP1 application from the Biden administration. And they had their hearings moved and then were deported shortly before they were supposed to appear in court. Yeah, I think that's an important point, though. And you guys tell me, but at least in many of the

cases I've read, maybe even all of them, these men were coming through at least quasi-legal means, right? It's not like they were sneaking across the border and had been captured, like some of them were in third countries, either Mexico or Colombia, you know, applying, going through the process. As you mentioned, some of them came to the border, but then, you know, said they had an asylum claim. They used the CBP1 app that the Trump administration shut down, but was the legal way to kind of get a hearing during the Biden administration. So like a lot of the pushback that you saw from Victoria Sparks this weekend was like, these guys are illegal. You don't get due process if you come illegally.

But I know the folks you talked to, and it seems like today all, or at least most of them were trying to come through legal pathways. Yeah, everyone, I think everyone that we talked to was certainly trying to come through legal pathways. Many officially came to the border ports of entry through like Isabella said, through the CBP1 application. And even in the other cases,

no one we talked to that I'm aware of tried to sneak into the country. For example, in one of the cases, Nery Alvarado, he left Venezuela in late October, but he only ended up entering the US in April because he was stuck basically waiting for one of these appointments for months. And when he couldn't get one, he just walked over and turned himself into a border patrol agent, which is what a lot of people were doing at that point. So that technically under the law counts as an illegal entry, but the goal is to get yourself into U.S. custody so you can present your asylum case. Yeah. Well, let's talk about some of these cases in particular. Since you mentioned Nery Alvarado, we'll start with him. Folks will be familiar because we've been talking about him.

This is the guy that had the autism awareness tattoo, kind of like the rainbow ribbon tattoo. Talk about his case. Yeah, so this was one that really stood out to us. I mean, we came across it. We saw a TikTok actually from the bakery that he worked at in Dallas. They had posted a TikTok basically in Spanish saying, one of our star bakers has been sent to El Salvador. So we called the bakery, got in touch with his boss, who's a

great guy, had become his friend. And basically at that point, we were talking on Thursday about 10 days ago. And he wasn't entirely sure yet that his friend was in El Salvador, but he was pretty sure because he had made the calls around and he hadn't shown up in Venezuela as they'd been expecting. But yeah, I mean, Neri was, I mean, from everything we learned from our reporting, it's just a completely, as his boss described him, a standup guy. I talked to his older sister and it was just like the love that she had for him was so clear. I mean, I said like, what type of guy is he? How would you describe him? It's like, oh, he's the type of person who would never hurt a fly. Anyone who spends even an hour with Nary will tell you what a nice guy, what a

sweet person he is. And that's evidenced too by a video that we shared last week too. It's a video made by the swim club where he volunteered and worked helping children with developmental disabilities, including his brother who's 15 and has autism. And that was part of the reason he went to the United States was to support his brother. And he has a big tattoo that's an autism awareness ribbon with his brother's name, as you mentioned. And then his two other tattoos are similarly innocuous. One's in English. It says brother, brothers, and the other says familia. I mean, like you could not have more innocuous tattoos yet. That seems to be how he got in this dragnet it's quite the cover for being a gang member you know volunteering at a youth autism uh you know swimming meet camp um the he said he was the one that you guys

specifically said uh i guess you said hernandez spoke to alvarado was that his boss yes that's right yeah so his boss spoke to him before he sent el salvador and he said there are 90 of us here we all have tattoos we're all detained for the same reasons. From what they told me, we're all going to be deported. So that's like a first person evidence that that's what they were telling them. It was these tattoos were the reason they were being sent to, well, they didn't know at the time being sent to El Salvador, but that was essentially the justification. Yeah. And that's the second time that that had come up in this case. And that's why Hernandez is such a, I think, important witness here is because he's a U.S. citizen.

He's Venezuelan, but he's lived in the United States for about three decades. And so he was able to visit Neri in detention as this was happening in a way that a lot of these family members in Venezuela were not able to. So he actually visited Neri one day after he was detained as well. He was detained on February 5th by ICE. They showed up outside of his apartment and said, Neri Alvarado, we're looking for you. They ended up bringing him into the Dallas field office. And there they said, do you know why you're here? And according to Hernandez, they said, we're looking for people with tattoos, Venezuelans with tattoos. We know you have them. Why don't you explain them? He

ends up explaining his tattoos. And just like any normal person, this apparently Puerto Rican ICE agent said, you're good, but why don't you go down the hall and just check maybe with my supervisor or another ICE agent? And for reasons that remain unclear to me, they ended up hauling him into detention anyway, even though an ICE agent said, yeah, you don't have anything to do with Trande Aragua. You know, there's been some great reporting about this in the Washington Post and elsewhere. It seems like a lot of these Venezuelan men were targeted, you know, for ICE detention sometime in like late January and February, picked up during, you know, your routine ICE check-in over suspicion, you know, about their tattoos. Like we show in our piece, a lot of them with most of them without any, you know, relevant as a signal of any type of you know

criminal activity or or tied to gang affiliation so yeah the um you lead the story uh with another example of arturo trejo i might be butchered yeah arturo suarez trejo yeah yes and um as a three-month-old child and is a singer and I guess I guess you spoke to his wife and also a similar situation where where no criminal record this is all based on the tattoos talk about that conversation yeah so that one we had come across a Venezuelan news outlet LST Malo had had covered him and got in touch with um so older brother Nelson and Natalie through that and yeah I mean last year late last covered him and got in touch with his older brother, Nelson, and Natalie through that. And yeah, I mean, last year, late last year, him and his wife, Natalie, were planning to

go to the United States together. They realized that she was pregnant and pretty far along into her pregnancy. So he ended up going by himself because he was going to work in the United States, as he ended up doing, to help support his wife and newborn baby girl. And instead, he ends up also getting detained in early February. In that case, it seemed like ICE had gone to his house because they were looking for someone there. They found that person. Then they just ended up arrest arresting everyone who was in the house. And like a lot of the other cases we highlighted, he had an upcoming court date. He's supposed to

be in court. I think it's on this Wednesday or Thursday. And he's not going to be there because he is in El Salvador. And he's one of the people, his wife recognized him in the video. He has a tattoo of a hummingbird on his neck, which she told me, you know, it's supposed to represent, you know, harmony and good vibes, good energy, very innocuous. And like you said, yeah, he's a singer. He's a very good singer too. If you watch his music videos under the name Suarez VZLA, like, they're good music videos.

Someone who was coming here to advance that career and also work here and support his family. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like that story also was like, okay, well, if I'm going to get deported, at least I'm going to get deported back to Venezuela so I can see my baby. And instead, like, we sent him to a gulag. Right. It's like these people had no idea that they were going to be sent to a foreign country, right? They were told directly in many cases that they were going to be deported to Venezuela. And in some cases they expressed relief that they were going to be reunited

with their families and meet their newborn children. So a lot of the family members described to us this situation as a kidnapping, essentially, and their loved ones being tricked by the U.S. government and sent to El Salvador. Are there any other examples? I mean, you talked about this Frisco, Garelth, William. I mean, just talk about any of the other specific, you know, folks who you spoke to their families.

Yes, we talked to Fritz Gero's brother, Carlos, who is in Caracas, Venezuela. And, you know, he talked about how they had, they owned this like streetwear, you know, sportswear brand in Venezuela, this business. And that Fritz Gero came to the United States in hope of expanding, you know,wear brand um in venezuela this business and that fritz jerof came to the united states in hope of expanding you know that business um he waited for several months in mexico for cbp one appointment um he was um if you know he was with other family members who were kind of let in and had um and he was held back um supposedly supposedly over his tattoos and he was sent to an ICE detention in Louisiana. And we also, we got to see some messages that he actually sent to his family while he was detained in Louisiana, you know, talking about how he never imagined that

he would be imprisoned over tattoos. He had obtained a declaration from his tattoo artist, essentially saying, you know, this is a creative, you know, kind of work. There's nothing, you know, meaningful behind this. Like, you know, he's someone who has no criminal record. He didn't have an order of deportation. And, you know, still he thought he was going to be going to Venezuela. And he too ended up in El Salvador. And there was another sister we talked to who said that her brother didn't even have a tattoo before he left Venezuela.

He got a tattoo in Mexico, a tattoo of a clock that he got as a gift from his roommate as they were both waiting for the CBP1 appointment. And this roommate got the date before him, and to celebrate, they went and got a tattoo together. So he didn't even have a tattoo when he was in Venezuela. And I think that speaks a lot to. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. So you spoke to 10 of the 10 folks or, you know, or family members or lawyers, whatever, related to 10 of the people that have been sent there. It doesn't seem like the one that's gotten the most attention that we've been talking about a lot is this makeup artist, Andre, and he isn't in your story even. So that's another person.

What is your set? In these conversations, do you talk to anybody and you're like, I don't know, that guy might be a gang member. I mean, it's hard to believe. And it's one thing to say, one or two people got through. We need to focus on elevating these stories. It was a up we need to get the makeup artist home and i believe that so another thing to like seem like if it if it is at scale that that potentially many of these people are are wrongly accused what's your sense for that yeah we probably so after cbs published this list we've now searched for a majority or not a majority, but probably close to 100 of the people on that list. And yeah, in a minority of cases, I want to say 10%, maybe I've seen evidence that such and such person was arrested in this place for some sort of criminal offense. Doesn't mean necessarily that they were convicted either of that offense, but that was a small minority of the cases.

And from the ones, you know, we weren't, we were talking to anyone we could talk to. And it's quite telling that all 10 of them had tattoos. We weren't looking for people with tattoos and we weren't sure what the story was going to be when we started it because it was all so new. And yeah, I mean, like you said, and when Neri mentioned, he's in this detention center in Texas and he looks around basically and says, oh, everyone here, there's 90 of us. We all have tattoos. I've also been told they were looking for people with tattoos. I guess that's why we're here. And of course, you know, maybe some of those people who had tattoos had a prior arrest, but

you know, from what we've been able to see so far, that's a minority of the people. And it also would help here if the government who has sent these people to El Salvador with no due process or recourse would provide any information, you know, like before we published the story, every single person who's named in the article, we sent their name to ICE and DHS saying, you know, if you have evidence that this person is a criminal or a terrorist or to use their language, they're calling these people heinous monsters, you know, please provide anything and zero response and zero response even after this article.

And we've seen the DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, like sending things. And I think this is important because this is what the government's saying right now. She's like quote tweeted or whatever various people online who have been pointing out that these cases seem very weak

by saying, oh no, we have more evidence. We have more evidence. It's not just the tattoos. And she said things in that regard. And I think that is creating at some level like a chilling effect on people speaking out particularly politicians speaking out i think that there is a

concern you know if you're a democratic politician you're like i don't want to stick my neck out and have you know and have then it come afterwards that the person that i was saying was wrongfully detained actually was a gang member and trying to argue or actually committed a rape or whatever. And I, and so I think that they're like in a vague assurances that no, they've got more material and all these people is contributing. So I don't know. And what, what is your guys? And I think that's the important part of like continuing to tell more and more of these stories, right? Because there, there is this caution to towards speaking out about it. And, you know, I mean, the administration themselves, they've admitted in court filings

that many of these Venezuelans have no criminal history. You know, they have tried to, like, reassure, I guess, the American public that, you know, they are going through this rigorous process to identify the alleged gang members and, you know, talking about how they are not just relying on social media posts or hand gestures or tattoos. But, you know, since our story came out, there has been more evidence that the ACLU obtained is, you know, internal documents that shows that DHS appears to be relying on this, you know, Alien Enemies Act validation guide, where they attribute points to, you know, the alleged gang members to be deported. So, you know, a tattoo is worth four points, you know,

being associated in some way, leaving the same residence as someone who is alleged to be a Tendera Agua member, you know, so that's kind of the system that they seem to be following. And, you know, there are plenty of the system that they seem to be following and you know there are plenty of experts experts out there that can tell you that you know tattoos are not really uh you know a trustworthy um kind of signifier of of Trandyaragua membership yeah and two oh two quick things out on that is like one with the judge one of these in a different legal case this came up in the Trandyaragua accusation know, the government submitted its evidence for why this person was Trendy Aragua. A federal judge like said, I was like, it was the end of the day. And I was kind

of falling asleep at that point of the day. And I read your declaration and it was so horrific that it woke me up. Like I would normally in a criminal case, I would throw you out of court if you tried to submit this kind of evidence. And the second thing is like, this is why we have due process in this country. Like we shouldn't be having this conversation now, us as journalists saying like, Hey, these people who are disappeared in El Salvador, you know, to the best of our knowledge are completely innocent of the allegations. Like this should have been happening in a courtroom before a judge or the prosecutor and the defense attorney. And just to be clear, like even since your story is out, you've not heard from any spokesperson with government,

anybody, anybody at DHS, like offering more tangible evidence that these people are criminals beyond the tattoos. Zero on or off the record. Nothing. Truly remarkable. Guys, thank you so much for your work. Noah and Isabella, we'll keep monitoring as you guys are covering this story. And we'll talk to you soon. All right.

Thanks for having us on. Thank you.