Federal agents have been sweeping up Venezuelan migrants and sending them to a Salvadoran prison based in large part on tattoos depicting stopwatches, Michael Jordan logos and other ink art they claim betrays an allegiance to the Tren de Aragua street gang.
But internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI documents obtained by USA TODAY reveal federal authorities for years have questioned the effectiveness of using tattoos to identify members of Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA.
“Gang Unit collections determined that the Chicago Bulls attire, clocks, and rose tattoos are typically related to the Venezuelan culture and not a definite (indicator) of being a member or associate of the (TdA),” reads a 2023 “Situational Awareness” bulletin on the criminal gang written by the U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s El Paso Sector Intelligence Unit.
In another DHS document, titled “ICE Intel Leads,” a former Venezuelan police official interviewed by authorities said tattoos are “the easiest but least effective way” of identifying members of the criminal gang.
The internal documents, provided exclusively to USA TODAY by the open-government advocacy group Property of the People, come as pressure mounts on the Trump administration for refusing to provide information about the arrest and expulsion of hundreds of Venezuelans they claim are TdA members. The group requested the documents under open-records laws.
Attorneys for the detained migrants have said their clients have been swept up without due process and have been labeled gang members with flimsy evidence.
It was never supposed to be evidence. It was supposed to be an excuse.
Exactly, it’s a pretext and the people are immediately removed from the country without due process so they never have a chance to defend themselves
When you take away due process, accusations become convictions, without sentencing maximums.