CNN
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The two most important things in Jerce Reyes’s life, according to those who know him best, are family and soccer.
The former professional soccer player’s tattoos are a testament to those passions: of a soccer ball and other symbols on his left arm, as well as the names of his two daughters, which were all inked by his friend Victor Mengual.
Little did this Venezuelan player know that some of those drawings would, years later, lead to him being placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the United States in September.
This month, the 35-year-old was among the hundreds of Venezuelan deportees transferred to El Salvador’s most notorious prison after US President Donald Trump invoked an 18th century law to deport hundreds of undocumented migrants to the Central American country.
Part of the reasoning for Reyes’s deportation, US authorities argue, lies on his arms, which they say is evidence of his membership to an infamous Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.
In a statement to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security said Reyes’s tattoos are “consistent with those indicating Tren de Aragua (TdA) membership,” accusing Reyes of being part of a foreign terrorist organization.
“Jerce Reyes Barrios was not only in the United States illegally, but he has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating TdA gang membership,” a senior DHS official told CNN via email. “His own social media indicates he is a member of the vicious TdA gang. That all said, DHS intelligence assessments go beyond a single tattoo, and we are confident in our findings.”
DHS would not confirm to CNN which of Reyes’s tattoos incriminated him, and CNN was not able to verify which social media post indicated his supposed membership in Tren de Aragua.
But Mengual, who works as a tattoo artist in Venezuela and tattooed Reyes twice in 2018 and 2023, says this is all a misunderstanding.
In a phone interview with CNN, Mengual detailed the drawings he left on Reyes’s skin: a soccer ball topped with a crown to represent his favorite team, Spanish club Real Madrid.
Below the crown, Mengual had tattooed the word “Dios,” which means God in Spanish and is also the nickname of the late Argentinian soccer star Diego Armando Maradona.
World soccer stars like Brazil’s Neymar and Argentina’s Paulo Dybala also sport similar tattoos of crowned soccer balls, but Reyes’ lawyer Linette Tobin believes this particular drawing is what incriminated him in a court affidavit reviewed by CNN.
Mengual also told CNN Reyes got the soccer ball tattoo in 2018, at a time when Tren de Aragua was not a known syndicate among Venezuelans, let alone abroad.
Other tattoos Mengual drew on Reyes are the names of his daughters, Isabela and Carla Antonella, a map of Venezuela, a star, and a goalkeeper, his position on the pitch, he said.
Several of these tattoos are clearly visible in a photo of Reyes’s left forearm that Tobin shared with CNN. The picture was taken when Reyes was in ICE custody at the Otay Mesa Detention Center near San Diego.
US authorities have linked certain tattoos to the criminal group. Guidance on Tren de Aragua from the Texas Department of Public Safety states that tattoos of crowns, roses or stars are all widely used by the gang members, while two of its mottos include the words Real and Dios.
“It’s so unjust!” Mengual despaired. “I’ve read in the news that Tren de Aragua uses crowns or roses, but, so what? I don’t understand why an innocent man has to pay for it?”
‘This is not true’
In southern Mexico, Reyes’s partner denies the accusations against him.
“Jerce doesn’t even drink, he doesn’t smoke, he’s never been involved in any crime or bad situation! The only things he cares are his daughters and soccer,” Mariyin Araujo, 32, told CNN from the city of Tapachula, where she arrived in December with their daughters to try join Reyes in the United States.
The deportee’s lawyer Tobin said Reyes left the Venezuelan city of Machiques last March following political unrest. He arrived in Mexico and registered on the CBP One app, a Biden-era mechanism for migrants to legally enter the US.
Records show Reyes entered the US on September 1 for an appointment with migration authorities but was immediately detained, accused of being a gangster, and placed in ICE custody.
A legal battle ensued as Tobin tried to prove her client’s innocence. She presented documents from Venezuela that show Reyes’s has no criminal record in his home country, which CNN was able to verify as authentic.
She also showed reels of Reyes’s performances as a soccer player in Venezuela’s First and Second Divisions.
In December, Reyes and Tobin applied for asylum and withholding of removal and he was granted a hearing to present his case based on the political situation in Venezuela. A few months later, Trump was inaugurated and quickly launched an immigration crackdown.
According to his lawyer, Reyes is still due to appear in front of an immigration judge in San Diego on April 17.
The last time he was able to call her from the ICE detention center was on March 11, Araujo told CNN, saying Reyes sounded positive and hopeful to be released soon. She has not heard from him since.
On March 16, Araujo started scrolling through videos shared on social media by the Salvadorean presidency showing the deportees’ arrivals at the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum-security prison designed to hold El Salvador’s gangsters.
Amid clips showing deportees frog-marched in white uniforms towards their cell, Araujo was able to spot someone resembling her partner.
The following day Tobin got confirmation that Reyes had indeed been deported. His name later appeared in a list of deportees first published by CBS News, as claims of innocence from the families of the deportees began to sprout across the media.
“He’s innocent, and it’s not only the family who says it, everyone who knows Jerce knows this is not true,” Araujo claims.
A community calls for his release
In Reyes’ hometown Machiques, a small, rural city close to the border with Colombia, his old club Perijaneros FC is starting a campaign to demanding his release.
In footage shared on Instagram and TikTok, children from the soccer school recite a prayer for their former coach, who left town like so many others looking for a better future abroad.
“Many young people have left the club… some of them have got to the US, others are in Colombia, in Peru, they are all over the place, it’s no secret the economic situation is problematic here,” Yogerse Viloria, 48, who was Reyes’s coach in the youth system, told CNN in a videocall.
In the last decade, more than eight million Venezuelans have fled economic crisis and political repression under President Nicolas Maduro, who criticized the US and El Salvador for “kidnapping” his fellow citizens last week.
“People don’t really announce when they are leaving, but last year he [Reyes] told me he was going to try to go to the US because his father is very ill, and to find a better life for his family,” the old coach told CNN.
When the news broke that he had been deported to El Salvador, the community was shocked, he said.
“I don’t understand, how can you take a person and put it in a cell without a thorough investigation? How could they not look into this before condemning a person?”
CNN’s Thomas Bordeaux contributed reporting