NBC News Reports Trump Admin ‘Effectively Disappeared’ Migrant Refugee Who Entered the U.S. Legally

MSNBC anchor Katy Tur spoke to NBC News national correspondent David Noriega this week about Widmer Josneyder Agelviz Sanguino, a Venezuelan refugee who entered the U.S. legally but has since been arrested, deported, and jailed in El Salvador.

“He entered the United States legally. He was thoroughly vetted by the government’s refugee resettlement program, and he’s got no criminal record to speak of. Yet, Widmer Agelvis is sitting in El Salvador’s CECOT prison,” Tur began, before asking Noriega for more details.

“The question at the very core of these deportations to the Salvadoran mega prison is one of due process, right? Why were these men not given an opportunity to contest the claim that they are gang members who deserve incarceration, not just deportation, but incarceration?” Noriega said, adding:

And this case and two others like it that we’re aware of really bring that into relief because in these cases, these men spent months of extensive vetting proving to the U.S. Government that they did not constitute a threat to public safety. Take a look at what I heard from his family.

“Before they ever set foot in the United States, Lisbeth Sanguino and her sons went through months of vetting, in-person interviews, and background checks to be resettled as refugees from Venezuela,” Noriega said, adding:

So she was shocked when the family arrived at the Houston airport and immigration agents arrested her 24-year-old son, Widmer Agelviz. The reason? A tattoo of a rose and a clock, which an agent wrote are associated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But experts say Tren De Aragua does not use tattoos as markers of membership.

And government documents show that Agelvis had no criminal record or other evidence linking him to the gang. And yet he ended up here in a notorious supermax prison in El Salvador designed to lock up gang members and terrorists indefinitely with no contact with the outside world.

He’s one of hundreds of men deported to the prison without a court hearing under the Alien Enemies Act, a convention of due process that Advocates have challenged in court as unlawful. But which Trump officials have justified by calling the men a Threat to the nation.

MSNBC then played a clip of Trump aide Stephen Miller, saying, “Our job is to send the terrorists out before anyone else gets raped or murdered.”

“We found, through government documents and interviews with lawyers and families, that at least three of the men, including Aguelviz, had been carefully vetted to come to the U.S. Under the Refugee Resettlement Program, a process for people fleeing war and persecution,” Noriega reported, adding:

My son, Sanguino, says, is not a gang member or a terrorist.

He’s a soccer player and an aspiring engineer who looks after his younger brothers. His tattoos are references to his childhood, his grandmother’s rose garden, and an owl that used to visit their home every night.

The family’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court alleging violations of due process.

But for now, Agelviz has effectively disappeared. For more than two months, his mother has had no contact with him or received any information about his condition. She feels guilty when she eats, she says, because she doesn’t know if he’s eating.

“How does this change your perception of the United States?” Sanguino then asked Agelviz’s mother.

“Completely, she says. She thought the U.S. was a place where things happened according to the law,” he replied, translating her words.

“Katy, we did hear from the Trump administration on the case. A senior DHS official told us that they are confident in their law enforcement intelligence, but did not offer any additional evidence tying Agelbis or any of these other cases to gangs. One thing to keep an eye out for is that the main case regarding Venezuelans already deported, that case in D.C. before Judge Boasberg. We should be getting some kind of order in that case soon, and if the Trump administration is ordered to bring any of those people back, the real question is, will he do so, or will he defy the courts?” concluded Noriega in the report.

“Yeah, David Noriega, that is the question. Thank you very much,” concluded Tur.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.