'Should horrify you': Lawyer slams Trump DHS's response to 'disappeared' migrant
The Trump administration responded Tuesday to a New York Times report that raised troubling questions about the whereabouts of a Venezuelan migrant in U.S. custody.
But even the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to clear up the confusion surrounding Ricardo Prada Vasquez, who friends say “simply disappeared,” sent alarm bells ringing for American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.
“It should HORRIFY you that it took a major news story for @DHSGov to say publicly that it imprisoned someone in El Salvador five weeks ago,” Reichlin-Melnick told his social media followers. “The man never once got a trial. No judge ever found him to be a public safety threat or a member of a gang. No due process. No nothing.”
The prominent immigration attorney was reacting to a DHS statement that unsurprisingly pegged Vasquez as a “confirmed member of Tren de Aragua,” who the agency said on Tuesday was removed from the country last month.
ALSO READ: You're overlooking something very important about Trump if you think Hegseth is finished
“On Jan. 15, Prada was encountered at the Detroit Windsor Tunnel in Detroit, Michigan attempting to enter the U.S. from Canada and was referred to secondary inspection,” the DHS statement said. “Further investigation resulted in Prada being designated a public safety threat as a confirmed member of TdA and in violation of his conditions of admission. Prada was apprehended and transferred to ICE Michigan for detention. On Feb. 27, an immigration judge ordered Prada removed from the U.S. On March 15, Prada was removed to El Salvador.”
That timeline appears to fit the Times’ reporting that stated Prada had not been heard from or seen since March 15, when the Trump administration flew out planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from Texas to El Salvador.
But, Prada’s name did not appear “on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day,” nor did he appear “in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads,” the Times reported.