Thank You for Not Leaving Us All Alone

Deported Venezuelan soccer player, Jerce Reyes Barrios with his older daughter Carla and baby Isabella. (All photos courtesy of his family)

On a recent evening, I sat in the San Diego office of immigration attorney Linette Tobin. Her two- year-old pug, Cujo, played at our feet. I waited for her to make a FaceTime call to the common-law wife of Venezuelan soccer player, asylum seeker, and now deportee, thirty-six-year-old Jerce Reyes Barrios.

Linette stared at her computer, exhaustion etched across her drawn face. She had been awake since four in the morning, worrying about Jerce. Four days earlier he had been flown to a supermax prison in El Salvador, along with more than 200 other Venezuelans. The White House had invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and used it as a shortcut to deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Department of Homeland Security alleged that a tattoo on Jerce’s left arm showing a crown atop a soccer ball with a rosary and the word Dios, Spanish for God, was proof of his gang membership. Jerce had actually chosen the tattoo because it resembled the logo of his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.

In a letter submitted to Linette on Jerce’s behalf , the tattoo artist, Victor David Mengual Fernandez, from Bogota, Colombia, wrote, [Jerce] wanted a tattoo related to soccer. We searched the internet and were drawn to the ball with the crown as a representation of the King of Soccer. [Jerce] liked the idea, then we added a rosary. I attest that Jerce Barrios is not related to any of the gangs he is accused of (trans. L. Tobin).

The DHS also reviewed his social media posts. They discovered a photograph of Jerce making a hand gesture that they alleged showed proof of gang membership. In fact, the gesture is the gesture is often used to express, I love you in sign language.

Jerce with friends, flashing the “I love you” sign

Linette sought and received confirmation from the Venezuelan government attesting to Jerce’s clean record. In a document submitted to Linette on November 27, 2024, the Minister of Internal Policy and Legal Security, Félix Ramón Osorio Guzmán, stated, It is verified after reviewing the database of the criminal records office and up to the issuance of this document, that the aforementioned citizen DOES NOT HAVE A CRIMINAL RECORD IN THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA (trans. L. Tobin).

Linette called and told me about Jerce the day after he was deported. After I got off the phone, I thought about how banishment of this sort was well beyond the ordinary understanding of deportation. During the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, the seizure and transfer without legal process of a person suspected of involvement with a terrorist group to another country for imprisonment and interrogation was called extraordinary rendition.

Jerce with six-year-old Carla

Later that afternoon, Linette sent me a picture showing Jerce kneeling beside one of his two daughters, six-year-old Carla. A toothy grin creased a youthful face outlined with a trim beard. He wore a cap pushed up from his forehead and a pale green and white soccer jersey, with black training pants and cleats. Jerce lived in northwestern Venezuela, in a village outside of Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia state, known as the center of Venezuela’s oil industry. Yellow and orange colonial buildings line the narrow streets of Maracaibo, beneath the shadows cast by skyscrapers.

Linette recalled when she took Jerce on pro bono as her client. She first met him at the Otay Mesa Detention Center near the San Diego-Tijuana border crossing in November 2024. He had already been held there for about six months. He was sweet, nice, she said. Soft-spoken, sincere, but very direct. Articulate. She had the impression that he had had a good education. He talked about missing his children. He said he didn’t support Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The record of human rights in Venezuela has been frequently criticized by human rights organizations. Concerns include attacks against journalists, political persecution, harassment of human rights defenders, poor prison conditions, torture, extrajudicial executions by death squads, and forced disappearances.

Jerce participated in two protests against Maduro’s regime in February and March 2024. At the second demonstration, authorities detained him. He was removed to a clandestine site where he received electric shocks and a form of torture that induced the first stages of asphyxiation. Despite his ordeal, he didn’t regret participating in the protests. He wanted his daughters to grow up in the Venezuela he remembered from his childhood, rather than one corrupted by the autocrat Maduro. This is dangerous, his wife, Mariyin, told him. Well, Jerce told her, I have to do what I can to build a better country for my daughters. But after his detention, he knew the police would target him. After his release, he left Venezuela for the United States.

I’m so tired, Linette said. But if I’m tired, can you imagine what he must be feeling?

She last heard from Jerce on March 11, 2025, from the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Without offering any explanation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had informed him the previous day that he would be transferred to a detention center somewhere in Texas. Transfers created uncertainty, Linette knew. Would his case remain in Otay or get referred to a new court, one where he would have to start his asylum appeal all over again? Could he keep Linette as his attorney? He sounded nervous, worried. Very worried. Perhaps, Linette thought, he had become convinced that no one from Venezuela could win an asylum case.

While she appreciated his concern, it never occurred to her that he would be exiled to El Salvador. He had an asylum hearing—known as a full removal proceeding—coming up in April, less than four weeks away and almost a year to the day when he was first detained. At an asylum hearing, an immigration judge can order an individual’s removal from the country, but only after hearing evidence and reaching a decision, and the government must prove its case by clear and convincing evidence.

Linette believed Jerce had a strong case. After she had explained the meaning of the hand gesture and submitted the Venezuelan government statement that he had no criminal record, he had been removed from maximum security at Otay Mesa. She had also provided multiple employment letters, including one from the Dancy Bravo Youth Soccer Foundation, and the declaration from the tattoo artist. Still, it puzzled her that he had been transferred to Texas so close to his hearing.

In the days following her conversation with Jerce, Linette began receiving tearful voice messages from his mother, sister, and Mariyin. They had not heard from him since his transfer. Linette didn’t know which detention center held him, so she called Texas ICE offices all over the state to find him. Most of her calls went unanswered. Finally, someone in the San Antonio office picked up the phone and told her Jerce had been deported on Saturday, March 15. She wasn’t told the destination, but by then it was all over the news that the United States had flown alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Linette assumed Jerce was among them. Her suspicions were confirmed when his family sent her a news photo of a young man sitting on a floor with other young men in white uniforms, all of them with their hands behind their shaved heads. The young man staring at the floor, they said, was Jerce. Then on March 20, CBS News released an internal government list of 238 names of the Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador. Jerce’s name appeared on the list.

News photo where, according to his family, Jerce appears

The absurdity of the situation left Linette speechless. The Venezuelan government confirmed that Jerce had no criminal record. He did not enter the U.S. illegally. He did it the right way. He registered with the CPB One app, developed by the federal government as a portal to various Customs and Border Protection services. On the app, asylum seekers were required to answer questions to receive an appointment with the Border Patrol. He did that. He also presented himself on time on the day of his appointment. He was allowed into the country but held in detention while he waited to present his case to an immigration judge. But now he’s been deported, based on false accusations, without being allowed to appear in court. Did the people who sent him away know anything about tattoos? The meaning behind certain hand gestures? Clearly, Linette said, they didn’t.

But perhaps none of that mattered. Perhaps gang association had nothing to do with any of it. Perhaps someone in authority believed that power depends on lies, intimidation, and cruelty. Blame crime and economic stresses on immigrants, then foment public bias and hatred against powerless people seeking new lives in the U.S., so that they no longer seem human, so that they become an ill-defined, shapeless threat that needs to be crushed, along with those who support them. Perhaps it is all simply some skewed notion of projecting strength through cruelty.

Shall we call Mariyin now? Linette asked. It will be getting late in Venezuela. Yes, I said.

She tapped the keys on her laptop. A loud, droning ring blared out of the speaker. After a moment, the face of thirty-two-year-old Mariyin Araujo Sandoval appeared on the screen. She had black hair pulled back from her face and wore a loose, navy blue T-shirt. I heard children talking behind her. She had made her way from Venezuela to the Shelter of Jesus the Good Shepherd for the Poor and Migrant, a refugee shelter in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico for Latin American migrants. She was planning to meet Jerce after he won his asylum case.

This situation is very difficult, sad, she said in an insistent voice. It’s not correct. Jerce’s such a good person, a good father. He thought after he had his hearing that everything would be fine. He had hoped to continue playing soccer. He was an excellent goalie. He learned soccer from his father and made a good living. Teams were always trying to recruit him. He knew how to lead. He directed the other players, and they listened to him. He loved his family and his fans.

When he told Mariyin that he was leaving Venezuela for the U.S. for his own safety, she felt conflicted. She knew he didn’t want to leave her and the children, but he wanted a better life for all of them. They had two girls, six and three, and she had two boys, fifteen and nine, from a previous relationship. Jerce treated them all as his own.

As he traveled north, he’d called and described the difficulties of the trip through Mexico. He told her the huge country made the trek feel very long. He made his appointment with CBP in Mexico City and then continued on to Tijuana, nearly 1,800 miles farther north. Despite the many people he encountered who disliked migrants and tried to take advantage of them, he always sounded upbeat. He sent selfies and smiled his wide grin in each one. When he reached the United States, he thought everything would work out. He didn’t sneak in. He had followed all the rules. He had requested asylum with the app like he was supposed to. He would wait for his appointment. Even when he was detained in Otay Mesa and investigated for gang affiliation, he remained positive, but his treatment saddened and angered Mariyin. Why is this happening to you? she demanded. It’s all right, he replied. If you are going to rent to a stranger, you would want to see their references, no? This is the same thing. They’re making sure I’m okay. Don’t worry. I’ll do everything they tell me, and it will be fine. Mariyin wondered if he believed that, or if he was just trying to keep her spirits up.

A sad smile wreathed Linette’s face as she listened to Mariyin. I was reminded of memorial services I’ve attended, where speakers commented on deceased friends, revealing a side of them I never knew—moments of generosity, patience, and wisdom that made the pain of their absence even more pronounced.

Mariyin wiped tears from her eyes and took a moment before she began speaking again. She had last spoken to Jerce on March 14, the day before he was deported. He told her he was being flown to another detention center. He called it a prison. He sounded cheerful as always. The next day she saw an image on social media of a man sitting on a floor in a crowded room in a Salvadoran prison among many other men. His hands were folded behind his recently shaved head. That looks like Jerce, she thought.

Mariyin stopped talking and stared into the camera phone at us, hundreds of miles away. I could not interpret her haggard expression. She must have been left hollow, unable to feel anything but the weight of her grief, heavier each passing day with Jerce’s ongoing silence. Governments in Syria, Argentina, Chile, and Pakistan, among other totalitarian regimes, do such things. Each of them has been accused of or engaged in the practice of enforced disappearances. Under the guise of national security, the U.S. has perpetrated the same crime.

What happened to Jerce was wrong, Mariyin said after a long silence. He is a good person, a good father. He thought when he had his hearing everything would be fine. She has no idea what she will do without him. She’ll wait and see. She can’t make plans without him.

To President Donald Trump, she would say, Please take a careful look. You’ll see he is not a gang member. He is a learned person who has never committed a crime. With her heart in her hands, she would tell him, immigrants are good people.

She became quiet again and stared into the camera. The raw simplicity of her words made them all the more heart-rending. It seemed cruel to end the call. To say simply, “thank you, goodbye, good luck.” But she had children to tend to, and I had nothing more to ask her. 

I’ll keep you in my thoughts, I said. Thank you, she said, for not leaving us all alone.

Linette said goodbye, then the screen snapped off like a slap and Mariyin vanished. Silence fell over us like a shroud. I shut off my recorder, closed my notebook, put my pen in my pocket. Done. I would write this up and continue on with my evening. I wondered if Mariyin still lingered over the blank screen on her phone.

Thank you for not leaving us all alone, Linette repeated. I’ll run out of things I can do for them, and then I’ll leave them. And it kills me.

We gathered our jackets, turned off the lights, and stepped out of her office into the empty hall. Her colleagues had left. The empty desks cast long, angular shadows. As we walked down the hall, Cujo waddling in front of us, Linette told me she was trying to find a large law firm with experience litigating against the government. She wanted to ask them to file a lawsuit for damages on behalf of Jerce and demand his return to the U.S in time for his April hearing.

It would be great, she said, if someone volunteered to help.

I followed her to her car. Traffic emerged from the slog of rush hour and raced by us. The dark sky reflected only city lights in the cold air.

Why should anyone care? I asked Linette. She stopped and gave me a curious look. She repeated the question before she answered.

He’s been removed from this country without being allowed to make his case to a judge, based on an accusation of gang affiliation, without anyone determining its merit. If we allow people to be imprisoned or deported on the basis of accusations, as opposed to proof and a judge’s determination, then we have done away with the rule of law.

When we reached her car, Linette turned around and gave me a hug. It starts with immigrants, she said, but it won’t stop with them.

She reminded me of a recent afternoon when I had visited friends in Tijuana. After I crossed back into California, a CBP officer asked for my passport. I gave it to him. He then asked who I had seen in Tijuana. Friends, I told him. What did you do with these friends? he asked. We had lunch, I told him. What did you have for lunch? he persisted. Tacos, I said. What kind? he said. Before I could answer he stopped me. Mr. Garcia, if you don’t give me specifics you’re not coming back in here.

I left Linette, walked to my car, and drove home. When I pulled into the driveway my phone pinged with a message. Oh, dear God, Linette had texted, Jerce’s sister just sent me videos. Children in his town shouting messages for Jerce and praying for him. Heartbreaking.

I shut off my phone, wondering how many stories like his there were, and how many more there will be. This was the beginning of something, not the end.

That night, I knew, I would not sleep either.

Video Transcription

(Children from the Dancy Bravo Youth Soccer School, with one adult male, heads bowed, children repeating words of the adult)

Original audio: Gracias por este dı́a y también por nuestras familias. Pedimos que nos ayude también a los familiares de la familia. Ayuda a Jerce que fue buen entrenador para nosotros, guı́alo a donde ande, ayúdalo a liberar que salga libre de donde ande. Señor, dale fuerza y animo y que sepa que está con nosotros los Venezolanos. Amen.

English translation (Lauri Jo Elliott): Thank you for this day and also for our families. We ask that you help us and also members of the family. Help Jerce, who was a great coach for us, guide him wherever he is, help to free him, that he be liberated from where he is. Father, give him strength and courage and let him know that we Venezuelans are with him. Amen.

J. MALCOLM GARCIA lives and writes in San Diego. His latest work of reportage, Alabama Village, will come out with Penguin Random House in October 2025.