It’s been a month since a young woman named YD last spoke with her partner, Yeison Rodrigo Jaimes-Rincon.
YD, a 33-year-old Venezuelan migrant living in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, spends her days scrolling through her phone. She hopes to hear news from her partner, wishing he could meet their newborn son.
Jaimes-Rincon had been under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision; he was arrested and taken into ICE custody Jan 31. The couple communicated regularly over the phone while he was in detention, but after they spoke the morning of March 15, he went silent.
YD had no idea Jaimes-Rincon had been deported to a prison in El Salvador until she saw a list published by CBS News with the names of 238 Venezuelans who had reportedly been flown there by the Trump administration. To protect her privacy and her family’s safety, WBEZ is not using YD’s full name.
Panicked, YD frantically searched online for more information on the whereabouts of her partner. That’s when she discovered a video, shared widely on social media, of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem touring the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. It’s a maximum security prison in El Salvador accused of widespread human rights violations, including lack of access to legal counsel, adequate food and health care.
YD easily recognized her partner, standing behind bars, with Noem standing in front.
“He comes out right in front of the screen,” YD said in Spanish. She described the emotions she felt as she watched the footage: “Such sadness. I cried, I just cried.”
In that moment, YD discovered Jaimes-Rincon had been deported to the maximum security prison by the United States without his family’s knowledge and without due process. He had no access to a lawyer, the legal system or any way to communicate with his family.
The Trump administration has alleged the migrants deported to CECOT are members of Tren de Aragua, a terrorist gang that originated in Venezuela. Arguing that gang members are “invading” the U.S., the administration is relying on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport them as part of its larger crackdown on immigration.
Linda Dakin-Grimm, an attorney and immigrant rights advocate, said the U.S. government has deported people to places other than their home country before. But deporting migrants to foreign, maximum-security prisons is new under President Donald Trump.
“It’s a terrible thing that we would be gathering up people, giving them no due process at all, sending them to countries that they’re not from, knowing that we’re going to have them imprisoned in one of the most notorious prisons in the world,” Dakin-Grimm said. “It is a huge violation of human rights.”
Legal experts and advocates say the government has failed to provide evidence that many of the deported migrants have ties with Tren de Aragua. The deportations have also been at the center of several lawsuits, including in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was protected from deportation to El Salvador by a judge in 2019. The U.S. government now admits he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador due to an “administrative error”; the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the government to “facilitate” his return to the United States.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said it’s up to the government of El Salvador to decide whether to send Abrego Garcia back. Last week, Noem said the men in CECOT “should stay there for the rest of their lives,” according to the news website Axios.
On Monday, in an Oval Office appearance with Trump, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said El Salvador wouldn’t return him.
Unlike Abrego Garcia, Jaimes-Rincon had a removal order. He and YD crossed the border illegally in the fall of 2023, after waiting months in Mexico for an appointment with U.S. immigration to request asylum. YD and her children were sent to Chicago, but Jaimes-Rincon was detained in an immigration facility in Laredo, Texas. He applied for asylum while in detention, without the help of an immigration attorney.
His asylum request was denied.
“The denial rate, particularly for the immigration courts that are in detention facilities, [is] very high,” Dakin-Grimm said.
He was released from detention last summer and allowed to reunite with YD in Chicago, with an ankle monitor and under ICE supervision. This included monthly check-ins with the local immigration office, which he attended regularly.
“The day he was arrested, he went to the local immigration office without an appointment because his ankle monitor was out of battery,” YD said. While the couple knew Jaimes-Rincon could be deported any time, YD never imagined it would be to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
She is barely surviving without Jaimes-Rincon. The couple was already struggling financially because they aren’t authorized to work, but they picked up odd construction, cleaning and hair-styling gigs. Now that YD is alone with a newborn, finding work is harder. She is several months behind in rent and has three other children to feed.
YD and her partner embarked on a dangerous journey seeking freedom and opportunities in the U.S., like hundreds of thousands of other families. But the reality here is different, she says.
There is also the heavy emotional toll. “While he was detained, we’d see each other through video calls. That’s how he met his son. When I gave birth, he called me to give me strength,” YD said, sobbing. “We haven’t been able to speak on the phone. We haven’t been able to encourage him so that he finds the strength to keep going.”
The Trump administration has not confirmed the names published by CBS or shared evidence to support claims that these men are Tren de Aragua members. According to CBS News, most men on that list have no criminal records. YD says that her partner, who worked informally as a barber in Chicago, has not committed any crimes. WBEZ did not find any criminal records for Jaimes-Rincon in Texas or Illinois. ICE did not respond to WBEZ’s questions about Jaimes-Rincon’s case, his whereabouts or evidence linking him to Tren de Aragua.
YD says she fears Jaimes-Rincon is accused of being a gang member because of tattoos on his chest and arm. He has one tattoo of his 7-year-old daughter’s name with a crown above it, which signifies that she is his queen, YD said. He has two additional small crowns on his chest, plus the name of his aunt, who was like a mother to him.
“We can’t put everyone in one category simply because of their tattoos,” YD said.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward, which filed a lawsuit soon after the March 15 deportation flights to El Salvador, have argued tattoos are unreliable markers of gang involvement.
“Once we start using wartime authority with no oversight, anything is possible. Anybody can be picked up,” Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in that lawsuit, said during an interview with the TV news program 60 Minutes.
In a declaration in the suit, a top ICE official said it “carefully vetted each individual alien to ensure they were in fact members of [Tren de Aragua],” according to NPR. “ICE did not simply rely on social media posts, photographs of the alien displaying gang-related hand gestures, or tattoos alone,” the official said.
YD, who has a pending asylum case, is afraid of what could happen to her and her children.
Last month, the Trump administration launched an advertising campaign in which Noem encourages immigrants here without legal status to leave the United States. If they don’t, Noem warns, they’ll be deported.
Dakim-Grimm says immigrants, including recently arrived migrants, need to assess their risk of getting picked up by immigration. She advises people to find legal help and be prepared.
“I’m a religious person, but I would not say, ‘I’ll just leave it up to God,’ because the system is going to eat people and your family will be hurt,” Dakin-Grimm said. “So, make some plans now.”
Adriana Cardona-Maguigad covers immigration for WBEZ. Follow her on X @AdrianaCardMag.