Mirelys Casique was ready to be reunited with her son, 24-year-old Francisco Garcia Casique. In March, Francisco called Mirelys from an ICE facility to say that he was being deported back home to Venezuela the following day. After 6 years apart, they would finally see each other again.
But Francisco would never arrive on Venezuelan soil.
Instead, he was deported to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison along with more than 230 others.
“I was so hopeful, waiting for him on the couch, waiting for the news that the planes were arriving in Venezuela,” Mirelys told Daily Kos.
But when images began to circulate on social media of the shaved and shackled men forced to kneel on CECOT’s concrete floors, Mirelys knew that Francisco would not be coming home.
“I wanted to bang my head against the wall, refusing to believe my son belonged in that place,” she said.
Francisco, like many of the people who President Donald Trump deported without just cause through use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, had no prior criminal convictions. Rather, he was targeted because of his tattoos and the fact that he’s from Aragua, the Venezuelan town home to the Tren de Aragua gang.
And while the Trump administration has labeled Francisco a dangerous criminal to justify keeping him in El Salvador, his mother says otherwise.
“He was always a barber, a worker, responsible,” she told Daily Kos.
Before arriving in the United States in 2023, Francisco was living in Peru working as a barber. Ultimately, Francisco would cross the border illegally into the United States and later turn himself in, beginning a lengthy process of mandatory court hearings as he attempted to become a legal resident. In the meantime, he lived and worked in Texas.
“He left Venezuela to help his family as the eldest son, not to end up abused and locked in a prison as if he were a terrorist,” Mirelys said.
And while the Department of Homeland Security insists that Francisco is a member of Tren de Aragua, the young barber was part of an administrative mixup in the past.
An online Texas database listed suspected gang members, including Francisco. But the photo was incorrectly identified and was actually of an older, bearded man completely unaffiliated with Francisco. Despite being listed in the database, Francisco was released from ICE custody, given an ankle monitor, and labeled nonthreatening as he awaited trial.
But after Trump took office, Mirelys told Daily Kos, everything changed. On Feb. 6, ICE agents broke down Francisco’s door and violently abducted him in the middle of the night.
“It was a kidnapping,” she said.
Mirelys, like many other relatives of the Venezuelan men being held in CECOT, has not heard from her son since he boarded the deportation flight.
“Francisco is a humble young man. We are low-income people, but that doesn’t mean we should be labeled criminals or bad people,” she said.
On June 16, Mirelys—along with four other relatives of detained men—traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to plead for the United Nations to step in. Many have also tried traveling directly to El Salvador to see their loved ones. But even with lawyers at their side, the trips have been unsuccessful.
And while Mirelys’ story of a heartbroken mother may resonate with the citizens of Geneva, she has returned to Venezuela without the results she was hoping for.
“Many have spoken out in support, but we want action,” she told Daily Kos. “We want this to end soon. We don’t know the extent of their physical and mental deterioration.”
As reports have surfaced regarding the torture inside CECOT, the wellbeing of the deported Venezuelan men is a top concern.
It’s unclear what the next legal steps will be as people like Mirelys await their relatives’ hopeful release. While the Trump administration previously said that the responsibility to release anyone was in the hands of El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has now insisted that El Salvador is simply holding them as a favor for the United States.
For Mirelys, all she can do is continue to tell her son’s story and hold onto hope.
“I want the world to know that even though we are going through this great pain and we are destroyed because this is an injustice—because evil wants to stalk us and hurt our families—we still believe in God, and God is just and good,” she said. “He will return our children to us.”
