Court Docs: Street Clothes, Tattoos, and Dubious Claims of Gang Affiliation
The requirements to “validate” someone as a Tren de Aragua gang member are as suspicious as many thought
Recent documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) titled the “Alien Enemies Act Validation Guide” show that someone’s gang association is often confirmed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents simply saying a tattoo or something as simple as a logo on branded street clothes is associated with a gang. The document leaves the door open for false designations based on myriad biases, as we have seen with many arrests.
Sure, requirements are good. They set guidelines for actions to help prevent abuse. But what happens when guidelines are open-ended and don’t provide enough specificity? One recent bill comes to mind: the “Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act.” The way the act was written leaves openings for unqualified individuals to demand women and children expose themselves so their gender can be determined. After it was brought to the Republicans' attention on the House floor, they refused to amend the bill to provide rules for determining someone’s gender.
The requirements for ICE to determine who is an “Alien Enemy” per the guidelines have a similar impact due to a lack of regulations. The document allows for the bigotry and racism that is rampant in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies to be weaponized against nonwhite people deemed “undesirable” by the Trump administration and its supporters, many of whom work in these agencies.
Here’s how it works. To declare someone a Tren de Aragua gang member, ICE must first identify if the person is 14 years old or older and from Venezuela. Then, they must allocate 8 points on a scoring chart wholly invented by ICE officials. For example, if a migrant is over 14 and has alleged gang tattoos and displayed brand “logos” they associate with gangs, then that’s 8 points – four points for the tattoos and four for the logos.
The history of using tattoos to criminalize people, especially nonwhite people, is broad and complex. Part of that complexity is the use of gang databases filled with seemingly random tattoos that are associated with gangs for no justifiable reason. A quick look at some of the tattoos that ICE uses to determine gang affiliation is evidence of this. The vast majority of these were downloaded from the Internet, as noted after doing a simple reverse image search.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE have embraced the local and state law enforcement tactic of using tattoos to criminalize someone. Since their embrace, federal agencies under DHS have become notorious for finding questionable ways to justify deporting people. Making false claims about migrants based on their country of origin and claiming a migrant is guilty by association because of tattoos are two of the more prominent methods.
Historically, freedom of speech and expression have been employed to villainize nonwhite people and incarcerate them. Now, the federal government is using the same tactic to disappear people outside of the country where both international and U.S. human rights laws cannot be enforced. This outsourcing of inhumanity is intentional to take the burden off the Trump administration. However, the fact that the White House initiated it must never be forgotten.
The targeting of Latinos, whether in the U.S. legally or U.S. citizens, is something many of us warned about before Trump’s re-election. It’s a continuation of his Latinophobic policies from his first term as president. Targeting Mulsim or Arab students for their speech condemning a genocide alongside targeting Latinos for expressing themselves through culturally significant tattoos makes their motivations obvious.
It’s clear that they are inventing laws to target nonwhite groups, and if they are willing to deny noncitizens certain rights, what's to stop them from accusing any person of terrorism, revoking their citizenship, and disappearing them too?
If you think your citizenship protects you from an out-of-control fascist administration, you should probably read up on history. Let this serve as a warning, just like the warnings about Trump we sent across the Latino community. It’s only a matter of time before it’s you they’re after.
Read the Full ACLU Document
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I'm still reeling from the fact that this pendejo’s admin admitted that it mistakenly deported someone to El Salvador due to an administrative error, and won’t do anythig to bring him back.
I wondered about the tattoo thing... My neighbor's daughter and SIL returned to the US from Bali, where they'd been living for several years. They both have lots of tattoos, but I worry sometimes for him because he's got face tattoos. Like, his whole face. And he wears dreads. And we're in red NC. Oh, dear... The only saving grace, I hope is, small town, everyone will get to know who they are in a short span of time, I hope, I hope, I hope...