A tattoo of Real Madrid: The Trump administration’s ‘proof’ for deporting a Venezuelan to El Salvador

A tattoo resembling the logo of Real Madrid, his favorite team, appears to have been enough for the Donald Trump administration to decide that 36-year-old Venezuelan professional soccer player Jerce Reyes Barrios was a dangerous terrorist and a member of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang. The children’s soccer coach was deported to El Salvador on one of the Saturday flights that transferred more than 200 Venezuelans subjected to a 300-year-old wartime law that denied them due process.

This is the argument made by his attorney, Linette Tobin, in a brief submitted to Judge James E. Boasberg of the Washington District of Columbia. On Saturday, this judge ordered a halt to the deportations and, if the flights had already taken off, ordered them to turn back. But the planes did not return. The U.S. government claims that by the time the judge issued his ruling, the planes were already flying over international waters and had left his jurisdiction.

According to Tobin, Reyes Barrios had entered the United States legally in September of last year. A professional soccer player, back in Venezuela he had participated in two protests against Nicolás Maduro’s regime, in February and March 2024. The second time, he was detained and tortured in a clandestine building where he, along with other protesters, was subjected to electric shocks and waterboarding.

“Shortly after that arrest, he fled Venezuela for the United States,” the attorney’s statement said. The athlete crossed the southern U.S. border legally, having requested and obtained an appointment through the Customs and Border Patrol’s CBP One app to process his case. He was taken into custody by U.S. authorities at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, California.

Former president Joe Biden had expanded the use of CBP One so that asylum seekers could obtain appointments through the app to legally cross the border and present their case. Trump rescinded that option immediately upon his return to the White House last January.

Reyes Barrios, who has no criminal record in Venezuela, applied for political asylum in December 2024. His case was scheduled to be heard on April 17 in the Otay Mesa immigration court. But on Saturday, without any communication to his family or lawyers, he was put on a plane and deported. It wasn’t until March 18 that his loved ones were able to contact an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent to confirm that he had indeed been taken to El Salvador.

The U.S. government claims — without providing a single piece of evidence or disclosing the identities of those affected — that only “dangerous criminals” were deported on these flights, proven members of the Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan criminal gang that the conservative right in the U.S. portrays as a dangerous league of criminals controlling the Maduro regime and seeking to destroy the United States from within. The Trump administration has included the gang on its list of foreign terrorist organizations. It also alleges that this group is perpetrating “irregular warfare” and therefore is subject to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to expel citizens of other countries that are at war or planning an invasion against the U.S.

In her brief, Tobin states that her client has no connection to the Tren de Aragua. And that the alleged evidence cited by the Department of Homeland Security to assert that he does is flawed. One is a tattoo, which, according to ICE, depicts gang symbols. The attorney includes photographs in her argument to explain that her client chose that design, a football topped with a crown, because it is similar to the crest of Real Madrid, his beloved soccer team. The crest that Reyes Barrios has engraved on his arm is surrounded by a rosary and the word “God” in Spanish.

The second is a photograph found on his Facebook profile, in which the immigrant raises several fingers. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it’s an identifying gesture for the Tren de Aragua. The lawyer explains that it’s part of sign language, used to say “I love you,” and has become a common gesture in the world of rock ‘n’ roll.

“Mr. Reyes Barrios was/is a professional soccer player in Venezuela. He has never been arrested or charged with any crime. He has a history of steady employment as a soccer player and as a youth and children’s coach,” the lawyer explains. However, the photo and tattoo led to his identification as a gang member and his transfer to the Otay Mesa maximum-security center.

His lawyers presented a criminal record certificate from Venezuela, which states there is no record of the footballer ever having committed any crime; multiple letters from Reyes Barrios’s employers; a sworn statement from the artist who inked the tattoo; and numerous online photographs showing tattoos of balls and crowns similar to those of the immigrant, as well as online explanations of the meaning of the gesture. With this documentation, their client was able to leave maximum security.

“However, on March 10 or 11, he was transferred from Otay Mesa to Texas without any notice. On March 15, he was deported to El Salvador. His lawyers and family have lost all contact with him and have no information about his whereabouts or his condition,” Tobin writes.

After U.S. authorities failed to turn around the planes carrying Reyes Barrios and other Venezuelans, Judge Boasberg ordered the government to hand over, under seal, detailed data on the times, routes, and passengers of those flights. Justice Department lawyers are refusing to comply, citing national security concerns, and are even considering invoking state secrets laws to block this information.

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