Trump insisted to a group of reporters in the Oval Office, “I was told they went through a very rigorous review process, and that will continue in El Salvador.”
Venezuelan Jerce Reyes Barrios Deported from the U.S. to El Salvador for Tattooing Real Madrid’s Crest
“We will definitely keep up that review process. We don’t want to make that kind of mistake,” the president added, according to EFE.
Trump was responding to reports from relatives and lawyers of some of the more than 200 deportees, who claim the migrants had no criminal ties, no records, and were detained simply because of their tattoos.
“If there’s something like that, of course, we want to know,” Trump said. However, he insisted they were “a bad group, a really dangerous group.”
On Saturday, the U.S. deported more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, accusing them of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.
The deportees were imprisoned in gang detention facilities under President Nayib Bukele’s government, which received about $6 million from Washington to cover their incarceration for a year.
The U.S. government has not disclosed the migrants’ identities or provided evidence of their alleged links to criminal organizations.
