Attorneys for the more than 200 Venezuelans deported to an El Salvador prison this month say immigration agents used an unorthodox check-list form to tally points to determine if the migrants belonged to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang
In documents filed in federal court in Washington D.C. by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants' Rights Project, one exhibit features a form titled "Alien Enemy Validation Guide." The name is a reference to the 1798 Alien Enemies Act the Trump Administration used to deport the Venezuelans without due process.
"It's essentially a scorecard that lets them decide you're a gang member without any judicial hearing," said Miami immigration attorney Martin Rosenow, who represents Venezuelan asylum-seeker Franco Caraballo, one of the group of 238 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador earlier this month.
"I was floored when I saw it."
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Attorneys like Rosenow say they fear the form gives agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) wide latitude to decide who is a member of a gang, particularly the violent Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua, which has been accused of crime sprees in U.S. cities like New York and Aurora, Colorado.
The form protocol does require the agents to consult with any agency supervisor and legal advisor before concluding a migrant is a gang member.
President Trump's immigration czar, Tom Homan, said recently that the Venezuelan migrants were investigated "at the highest level" and that he's confident the charges of gang membership are valid.
But even ICE officials and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have since acknowledged that many of the Venezuelans, like Caraballo, have no criminal records either in the U.S. or in Venezuela.
Attorneys say the six evidence categories used — which include past criminal history, "association" and "symbolism" such as tattoos — hardly yield conclusive proof that a subject is involved with a criminal group like Tren de Aragua.
In one case cited in the ACLU filing, even a Venezuelan who scored fewer than eight points on the form — a gay make-up artist named Andrys — was accused of Tren de Aragua membership and deported because he wears a tattoo ICE agents have determined is a favorite of the gang.
Tren de Aragua experts have since pointed out that the gang is fond of many tattoos that are popular with non-criminal Venezuelans, such as one of a clock showing the time of a child's birth.
Factors like that are a big reason a U.S. District Court Judge, James Boasberg, tried to halt the Trump administration's deportation of the initial group of 238 Venezuelans on March 15. The administration insists the plane was already over international waters enroute to El Salvador when Boasberg issued the order.
Boasberg has since ordered a halt to any more deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. But over the weekend, the administration deported 17 more Venezuelans to the controversial CECOT prison in El Salvador, accusing them of being gang members.
It's not clear if the administration violated Boasberg's order or used another legal channel to carry out the latest Venezuelan deportations.
