At least one detainee from the immigration detention facility in Aurora has been sent to an El Salvadoran prison, an immigrant assistance group confirmed Thursday.
Nixon Azuaje-Perez, 19, is a Venezuelan migrant who was held at the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center before being transported to Texas, then sent on a plane to El Salvador, said Andrea Loya, the executive director of Casa De Paz. Her Aurora-based organization visits immigrants at the detention facility and provides assistance upon their release.
The Trump administration has sent four planes carrying a total of more than 250 detainees — many of them Venezuelan migrants — to El Salvador to be housed in a prison, with the most recent one flying Sunday. Officials have said they are gang members, but the gang ties of some of the men have been disputed — including those alleged against Azuaje-Perez, 9News reported.
Loya said Azuaje-Perez was moved out of Colorado before a March 11 court date, and March 14 was the last that anyone had heard from him.
His name appears on an “internal government list” — reported by CBS News on March 20 — of Venezuelan men moved out of the U.S. to El Salvador’s maximum-security prison.
ICE directed questions to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request to confirm Azuaje-Perez’s circumstances and provide further details about why he was detained and deported to El Salvador.
This is a developing story and will be updated.