A Venezuelan delivery driver was ‘disappeared’ after making a wrong turn. The Trump administration claims they know where he is
In January, a delivery worker in Michigan had picked up an order from McDonald’s and was on his way to its destination when he made a wrong turn on a bridge into Canada.
When Ricardo Prada Vásquez tried to re-enter the country from the Ambassador Bridge, the 32-year-old Venezuelan immigrant was detained by immigration authorities. On March 15, the same day dozens of alleged gang members were summarily removed from the country and sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison, Prada told a friend in Chicago he was detained in Texas, expecting to board a plane to Venezuela.
But he was not on a leaked list of 238 names of immigrants sent to El Salvador. He wasn’t identified in the photos of men filmed inside the jail getting their heads shaved in shackles. Attorneys and family members have no idea where he is.
Then, on April 22, only after his story was reported in The New York Times, Donald Trump’s administration said he was deported to El Salvador.
“We now have confirmation that he is one of many Venezuelans who are being held, at U.S. taxpayer expense, in horrific conditions in a foreign country and with no contact to the outside world,” Azadeh Erfani, National Immigrant Justice Center director of policy, said in a statement to The Independent.
“The Trump administration bears full responsibility for Mr. Prada Vázquez’s wellbeing,” she said. “Mr. Prada Vásquez’s story is only the latest sign that we are living in an environment of mounting authoritarianism, under an administration that is trampling basic principles of fairness and humanity. Now that we know Mr. Prada Vásquez’s location, we call on the Trump administration to confirm his wellbeing and return him to the United States to ensure he has access to proper due process.”
The case is raising alarms from immigration attorneys and advocates who fear he is not the only one to seemingly disappear, or that more people have been removed from the country than previously reported.
“It’s like he’s fallen off the face of the planet or dropped into some black hole,” according to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.
“Everyone deserves equal treatment under the law and a fair day in court, no matter one’s immigration status,” Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told The Independent.
“Without a fair process, the greater the risk for wrongful deportations or for someone to simply disappear within the system, as we’re already seeing,” Gupta added. “The lack of accountability and transparency for these deportations is scary because it sets a precedent for unchecked abuses of power across our government, which is something that should concern every American.”
A leak of names on the initial Alien Enemies Act flights includes 238 people — but not Prada. At least 27 other alleged gang members were deported to El Salvador in recent weeks. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele says there are 252 Venezuelans from the United States in his custody. It is unclear whether others are missing.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not disclose his destination. The Independent has requested additional information from ICE about Prada’s whereabouts.
“This is textbook enforced disappearance,” according to Adam Isacson with the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group.
Cornell Law School immigration law scholar Stephen Yale-Loehr said the case “shocks the conscience.”
