Mother stunned after spotting barber son in notorious El Salvador prison after Trump's mass deportation

A Venezuelan mother was shocked to find that her barber son was one of more than 100 gangsters the Trump administration deported to a notorious El Salvadoran prison this week.

Myrelis Casique López told the BBC she knew her son, 24-year-old Francisco Jose Garcia Casique, was being deported for living in the United States illegally - but she had believed he was being sent back to Caracas.

She then spent the day waiting for her son, whom she had not seen since he left the country in 2019, only to realize he wasn't coming.

Casique was just sitting at home watching the news the next day when she spotted her son among the Tren de Aragua members who were brought to El Salvador's maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center.

The gang has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings in the United States. It became a household name after video of them storming an apartment near Denver surfaced in August.

Casique says her son was photographed from above, his head bowed and his hands handcuffed behind his back, in a group of other men - all of whom where wearing white prison garb.

But the terrified mom and her other son, Sebastian, are certain it was Garcia.

'We got a photo, we zoomed in and we were able to recognize him,' Sebastian told El Estimulo. 

'A mother's instinct never fails. A brother's instinct never fails... I recognized him: he has an arm with a sleeve [full] of tattoos and he is chubby. I recognized his ears, everything.'

Casique has since taken to TikTok to tell her son's story as she claims that he is not a member of the violent Venezuelan gang - which the Trump administration has classified as a global terrorist organization. 

'He doesn't belong to any criminal gang, either in the US or in Venezuela,' she said. 'He's not a criminal. What he's been is a barber.

'Unfortunately, he has tattoos,' the worried mother said, claiming that the rose imagery and names of family members that adorn his body led US immigration officials to believe he was in Tren de Aragua.

The Trump administration says they used evidence collected during surveillance, police encounters or testimonies from the victims to identify the gang members.

'Our job is to send the terrorists out before anyone else gets raped and murdered,' Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said on Wednesday.

Yet it remains unclear if or when Garcia joined the gang.

He had left Venezuela in 2019, originally settling down in Peru as he sought new opportunities.

He spent six years there, working as a barber to earn an income, before he crossed illegally into the United States in September 2023. 

Garcia turned himself over to authorities at the US border and was detained for two months, from February to April 22, 2024, according to El Estimulo.

He was then released with an electronic bracelet, and spent the next few years working at the Hulk Barber Shop in Longview, Texas.

But when Trump took office in January, Garcia started to express concerns about his future in the United States, his mother told the New York Times. 

'I told him to follow the country's rules, that he wasn't a criminal and at most, they would deport him,' Casique recounted. 'But I was naïve - I thought the laws would protect him.' 

On February 6, authorities arrived at Garcia's door and took him into custody.

'Now, he's in an abyss with no one to rescue him,' the mother said.

She is not the only one who claims she found her child in the crowd of suspected gang members.

The mother of Mervin Yamarte, 29, also told the BBC she identified her son in the video released by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

'I threw myself on the floor, saying that God couldn't do this to my son,' she said.

She told how Yamarte left his hometown in Venezuela and traveled to the United States through the dangerous Darien Gap with three friends: Edwar Herrrera, 23; Andy Javier Perozo, 30' and Ringo Rincon.

He has since worked at a tortilla factory, where he would sometimes spend 12 hour shifts. On Sundays, he would also play soccer with his friends, with whom he shared a home in Dallas, Texas.

'He's a good, noble young man,' Yamarte's mom said.

'There's a mistake,' she insisted. 

Trump deported the gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, declaring that the US was facing an 'invasion' from a criminal organization that has been linked to kidnapping, extortion, organized crime and contract killings.  

He has claimed that he is justified in invoking the act to deport Tren de Aragua members because he claims the gang has ties to the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Under his order, all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are determined to be members of the gang, are within the United States and are not naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the country are 'liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.'  

The directive also notes that the notorious gang 'has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens.'  

He contended that the gang is a hostile force noting members of the gang were 'conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States' with the goal of destabilizing the nation.

But Judge Hames Boasberg blocked the Trump administration's use of the wartime law when the deportees were already in international airspace.

He had ordered the plane to return to the United States, but because he never included it in his written order the Trump administration was able to claim it did not disobey the order.

When the plane then landed on Sunday and the gang members were seen being led into their prison cells, Trump blamed his predecessor and the Democratic party for letting them into the country into the first place. 

'These are monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats. How dare they!' the president posted on his Truth Social page Sunday night.

'Thank you to El Salvador, and in particular President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of Democrat leadership,' he continued.

'We will not forget.'

Rubio had also said in a separate statement that 'hundreds of violent criminals were sent out of our country.'

'I want to express my sincere gratitude to President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador for playing a pivotal role in this transfer.'

Of those now being held at the maximum security prison, 137 are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang

There were also 101 of the deportees to the Salvadoran prison were Venezuelans removed until Title 8, 21 were Salvadoran MS-13 gang members and two were MS-13 ring leaders and 'special cases' for El Salvador, a senior White House official confirmed to Fox News.

They now face a 'black hole of human rights,' with human rights groups detailing 'horrific overcrowding, disease, systematic denial of food, clothing medicine, and basic hygiene.'

They will be confined to cells of 70 inmates for all but 30 minutes a day, held in dire conditions, forbidden from going outside or having visitors, and are made to sleep on steel cots without mattresses.

 A team of 800 prison guards, meanwhile, patrol the hallways with riot gear, and inmates are watched 24 hours a day with CCTV camera.

The few areas in the prison carved out for respite - break rooms, dining halls, a gym - are reserved for the guards.