Milelis Kasikh last spoke to his 24-year-old son on Saturday morning while in custody at a detention center in Laredo, Texas. He told her he was being deported in a group of Venezuelans, she said, but he had no idea where they were heading.
Shortly afterwards, his name disappeared from the websites of US immigration authorities. She hasn't heard from him since.
“Now he's in Deepby, where there's no one to save him,” Kasik said in an interview from his home in Venezuela on Sunday.
This weekend, the deportation of 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador created panic among families who feared that their relatives would be among those handed over to Salvadra authorities by the Trump administration.
The man, by White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt, has “saved the lives of countless Americans” who were recently arrested as “terrorists” belonging to the Tren de Aragua gangster, she said. However, some relatives of men believed to be in the group say their loved ones don't have a gang bond.
On Sunday, the Salvadora government released images of a man marching into the infamous mega prison where the man was handcuffed overnight, and shaved his head with a fresh shaving.
Like other Venezuelan families, Kasik has no evidence that her son, Francisco Javier Garcia Kasik, was part of the group and was transferred to El Salvador on Saturday as part of a contract between President Naive Buquere and the Trump administration. Salvador's leaders offered to retain Venezuelan immigrants at the expense of the US government.
But Kashik said his son's name disappeared from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website, but he also recognized him in one of the recently arrived outcasts that the Salvadoran government circulated. When she saw him in the photo, she said, she felt “injust and broken” of what was going on.
Neither government has released the names of the Venezuelan fortress, and a spokesperson for the Salvador government did not respond to requests to confirm that Kasik's son is part of the group. The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration and customs enforcement, did not respond to requests to see if Garcia was deported to El Salvador.
Kashik said he identified Garcia with the tattoo on one side of his arm, his build and complexion, but he couldn't see his face. The photo shows a group of men wearing white shirts and shorts with shaved heads, their arms restrained behind their backs.
In recent years, Venezuelans have moved to the United States in record numbers as their country was caught in a crisis under the government of Nicolas Maduro. Unlike most other leaders in the region, Maduro doesn't accept regular deportation flights from the United States, so the Trump administration was looking for other ways to deport Venezuelans.
On Sunday, the Venezuelan government forced the move of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, saying the US used the 1798 alien enemy law – to carry out illegal operations that violated both American and international law.
Since the start of the presidential election, Trump has focused on Tren de Aragua and its presence in the United States. When he deported a large group of Venezuelans to Guantanamo, a US military base in Cuba, last month, Trump said Denner was in the gang.
Neither the US nor the Salvadoran government, which originates from Venezuelan prisons, provides no evidence of immigrant ties with Tren de Lagua, a gangster that is now spread throughout Latin America. Trump, who the government designated it as a terrorist group, focuses on an incident showing the existence of Tren de Aragua in the United States.
Bukere said the exiles were detained for at least a year, working hard under a program called “Zero Idol” and attending workshops.
Kashike said her son was not a gang affiliation and had joined the United States in late 2023 to seek asylum after working in Peru for several years to support his family. During his journey north, he was injured in Mexico after falling off a train, she said.
Garcia, who handed over to US border authorities, was detained in a routine appearance before immigration officers last year after finding his tattoo, Kashik said.
The tattoo she calls it, including the crown, which includes the Spanish word “peace,” and the names of his mother, grandmother and sisters, led authorities to place Garcia during the investigation and label him as a suspected member of Tren de Aragua.
Garcia stayed at the Dallas detention center for two months, his mother said, but the judge ultimately determined he would not pose a risk and allowed him to be released as long as he was wearing electronics to track his movements.
The New York Times could not independently confirm the reason why he was taken into custody and released.
Garcia was worried after Trump took office this year, but Kasik remembered that he told his son there was nothing to fear.
However, on February 6th, authorities arrived at Garcia's door and took him into custody.
“I told him that he wasn't a criminal and that at best they would banish him,” Kashik said. “But I was very naive. I thought the law would protect him.”
Gabriel Labrador contributed to the report from El Salvador's San Salvador.
