1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

Free Frengel Reyes Mota, a Venezuelan immigrant with no criminal record in the States or in Venezuela. He's not part of a gang. He's not said anything about Gaza or Israel. He's just a house painter who left his home country due to the unrest and difficulties there, and came to the US legally seeking asylum. He didn't show up for his asylum hearing this week, though, because when he showed up for his regular ICE check-in -- which he should as a legal immigrant in the US -- ICE arrested him and soon deported him to the largest prison in Latin America, the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. There are a number of controversies and allegations of human rights violations in this prison. What did Reyes Mota do so that ICE took him into custody without charges and illegally removed him from the court system before transferring him to an extra-national prison for terrorists? Nothing. In fact, when ICE showed up at his asylum hearing this week and revealed the arrest paperwork it HAD THE WRONG NAME IN IT SIX TIMES. And not a misspelled name, it was talking about someone named Carlos Ortiz-Morales. Other sections referred to Reyes Mota as "she" and "her" and at least once a different person's immigration number was listed in the description. It was arrest by Chatgpt hallucination or gross human incompetence or both. And when this was pointed out in court at Reyes Mota's asylum hearing by his lawyer this week, when the judge asked ICE if they made a mistake, the ICE lawyers said they'd "look into it." As more of these cases are coming out, I keep hearing well-meaning people say "There's more to the story." I get it. It's disorienting to think that a country that says things like "innocent until proven guilty" or "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" would also arrest an innocent man and fly him off to a gigantic horror show of a prison. So there MUST be "more to the story" even though Reyes Mota has no criminal record, isn't part of a gang, doesn't have a gang tattoo or even have a tattoo at all. If there's more to the story the US government should have just rolled into the asylum hearing this week and proved it. But they didn't because their paperwork DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE RIGHT NAME ON IT throughout the document. And they couldn't prove it anyway, because there's nothing to prove. PLUS: to remove an asylum applicant without a court order is ILLEGAL. This is a very clear case where -- unlike Reyes Mota --ICE broke the law. So, here's your "more to the story": Reyes Mota is married. He married a woman who already had a son, so he's the father to a 9 year old boy. He's got a dog that he loves named Sacha. The family doesn't have tons of money, so Reyes Mota carefully plans the budget so he can occasionally buy his dog treats. Reyes Mota is a hard worker, a legal immigrant, a good husband and father, a financially responsible tax-paying part of the US community.