The Trump Administration Is Using Tattoos, Logos, and Clothes To Identify Supposed Gang Members
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Venezuelan makeup artist Andry Hernandez Romero in 2024, it suspected he belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet ICE provided no “official records, media reports, and correspondence,” “intelligence information received from other agencies,” or “validation” or “confirmation” by “law enforcement, Corrections, or sending jurisdiction,” to prove that Hernandez Romero was tied to the gang.
Instead, ICE officials flagged Hernandez Romero as a potential Tren de Aragua associate based on two of his tattoos: the words mom and dad, topped with crowns, on each wrist.
“The crown has been found to be an
identifier for a Tren de Aragua gang member,” noted ICE officials. The tattoos seem to be why Hernandez Romero was one of over 200 Venezuelans sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison on March 15. The Trump administration claimed they all had connections to Tren de Aragua, but some of the deportees’ lawyers have questioned how the government reached that conclusion, blaming misinterpretations of their
clients’ tattoos for their imprisonment.
The Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March to target Tren de Aragua, a group it claims has “perpetrated irregular warfare within” the United States. It relied on that law to conduct immediate deportations of over 100 people it deemed members of the gang, denying them due process, and evidently relying on shaky subjective criteria to decide whether someone should be deported.
A March court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed a document that the government is allegedly using “to determine whether Venezuelan
noncitizens are members of Tren de Ara
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