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The administration appears to be using little more than body art to deport people that it says are members of Tren de Aragua, a move that critics say ignores decades of protocol.
April 16, 2025Updated 7:27 p.m. ET
In the early days of the first Trump administration, immigration agents arrested Daniel Ramirez Medina at his family’s apartment in a suburb of Seattle and accused him of being a gang member. Their evidence was a tattoo on his left forearm of a five-point star that read, “La Paz — BCS.”
Born in Mexico and raised in California, Mr. Ramirez had been able to work and raise his son without fear of deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Even so, he spent six weeks in a detention center, as the government tried to deport him. A judge eventually ruled that the tattoo was a reference to his birthplace and ordered him released.
This time around, the second Trump administration appears to be relying more heavily on tattoos to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants that it says are members of the gang Tren de Aragua, in a move that some critics argue ignores decades of police and legal protocol.
Tattoos are often just a starting point in an investigation, many law enforcement officials say. And Tren de Aragua is still relatively new in the United States, so any indicators of affiliation might be less reliable than what law enforcement has gathered over the years about other more longstanding street gangs.
What role do tattoos play in police investigations?
In February of last year, the New York Police Department began to receive reports from federal authorities about members of Tren de Aragua traveling from Denver and Colorado toward the East Coast.
The Police Department had little information on the Venezuelan gang, which was new in the country and in New York City. But one indicator, the police learned, were the tattoos that members bore to show their allegiance.
