Trump framed the deportation of more than 230 Venezuelan men as a long-overdue campaign to rid the country of immigrants who have committed violent crimes. The facts tell a different story.
Perla Trevizo
Perla Trevizo is a Mexican-American reporter born in Ciudad Juárez and raised across the border in El Paso, Texas, where she began her journalism career. Trevizo spent more than 10 years covering immigration and border issues in Tennessee and Arizona before joining the Houston Chronicle as an environmental reporter. She has written from nearly a dozen countries, from African refugee camps to remote Guatemalan villages, with the goal of broadening readers’ understanding of the global issues that impact the local communities where she has worked. Her work has earned her national and state awards including the Dori J. Maynard Award for Diversity in Journalism, French-American Foundation Immigration Journalism Award, and a national Edward R. Murrow for a story done in collaboration with Arizona Public Media. She was also honored as the 2019 Arizona Journalist of the Year by the Arizona Newspaper Association. She is based in El Paso.
He came to the U.S. to support his sick child. Then he disappeared from a Texas detention facility.
Like most of the more than 230 Venezuelan men deported to a Salvadoran prison, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas had followed U.S. immigration rules when he arrived at the Texas border with Mexico. Then Trump rewrote them.
Trump administration knew most Venezuelans deported from Texas to a Salvadoran prison had no U.S. convictions
Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees to El Salvador were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws.
Trump is spending billions on border security. Some residents living there lack basic resources.
The president has reportedly urged Congress to pass $175 billion for border security. But residents of Del Rio, Texas, and Douglas, Arizona, say basic needs — like safe drinking water and hospital access — aren’t being met.
Trump is sending migrants from the U.S. to Guantanamo. One mother speaks out about her son’s detention.
Yoiker Sequera’s mother reflects on her fears after finding out her son had been detained in the infamous prison in Cuba for two weeks before being deported to Venezuela.
U.S. claims migrants held at Guantanamo are “worst of the worst.” Their families say otherwise.
The Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrants from El Paso to Guantanamo Bay. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune identified nearly a dozen of them and spoke to relatives of three of them.
Donald Trump’s immigration executive orders: Tracking the most impactful changes
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune took a snapshot of the blitz of executive orders Trump has signed since taking office by tallying nearly three dozen from his first day.
Trump’s near sweep of Texas border counties shows a shift to the right for Latino voters
The former president captured 55% of Latino voters in the state, according to exit polls. He also won 14 out of the 18 counties within 20 miles of the border, a number that doubled his 2020 performance in the Latino-majority region.
Watch: How the race for sheriff on the border became a referendum on immigration
Del Rio Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez’s run for reelection provides a glimpse at how new patterns of immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border have coincided with, if not driven, changing attitudes among voters who live there.
A pro-gun, anti-abortion border sheriff appealed to both parties. Then he was painted as soft on immigration.
Immigration is not part of Joe Frank Martinez’s job. But in Del Rio, like in other majority Latino communities across the country, the issue is high on voters’ minds and is disrupting long-standing political allegiances.

