TAMPA, Fla. — Luis Carlos José Marcano fled poverty but often found he was discriminated against for his tattoos. Frengel Reyes hoped for a better future but was branded a criminal.

They came seeking new opportunities but were deported. They thought they would be sent back to their home country, Venezuela. Instead, they were taken to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

Marcano and Reyes were removed a month ago from the U.S. under a wartime law few had heard of. They were accused of ties to a gang the government has yet to prove.

The deportations occurred amid a wave of arrests and hard-line immigration executive orders announced by President Donald Trump in the early days of his administration. But in the rush to curb immigration through fast-tracked policies, innocent people’s lives are being upended without a proper legal process or a chance to defend themselves.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have left their country over the past 20 years due to insecurity, hyperinflation and political crisis. President Nicolas Maduro’s regime has silenced opposition voices and created what global experts have called a humanitarian crisis.

Marcano, 26, came to the U.S. from Chile after a long and dangerous journey through Latin America and Mexico with his girlfriend Angela Leal, 22, and their two daughters, Adelys Isabela, 3, and Krishna Antonella, 8.

The couple worked hard to save $7,000 for the journey. They traveled 4,700 miles to the U.S. border and survived smugglers and other obstacles.

The family crossed the Darien Gap, a sprawling, mountainous jungle between Colombia and Panama. They walked for eight days, enduring rain and mosquitoes. They were extorted by a smuggling gang and released after paying $900.

The family entered the U.S. through the southern border in November 2023, applied for political asylum, and settled in a small apartment in Bradenton. They hoped to turn that status permanent someday.

“It was our dream for us and our family to come,” said Leal. “We planned everything to start a new life.”

But their dreams were dashed two months ago when Marcano received a letter that said he had to report on Feb. 5, at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa, and not on Feb. 27 as was originally scheduled.

This wasn’t by chance. It was part of what came next.

At the Tampa office, Marcano was detained and transferred within hours to the Krome Detention Center in Miami. Later, he was moved to Texas. Marcano was then deported on March 15 to El Salvador.

The maximum security prison there, called the Terrorism Confinement Center, is one of the biggest in the region and can hold up to 40,000 people.

Marcano was one of more than 230 immigrants deported that day under the authority of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members. The law has only been applied three times in U.S. history, according to The Associated Press.

Leal said the last phone call she had with her husband was the day he was deported. Marcano told her he was being sent to Venezuela.

“After that day we didn’t hear anything else until we found out he had been sent to El Salvador,” Leal said. “I thought it couldn’t be real, I thought it was a nightmare.”

Leal said her husband was mistaken for a member of Tren de Aragua, a gang born more than 12 years ago in a prison located in the central state of Aragua. U.S. authorities believe certain tattoos are related to this group.

Marcano has the names of his daughters and his grandfather tattooed on both arms, along with an image of Jesus Christ’s face on his torso. But it is the crown tattoo on his chest, with the phrase “One Life,” that immigration authorities allegedly used to link him to the Tren de Aragua.

Leal said the story of the crown is far from any alleged criminal connection.

Marcano got the crown tattoo in Venezuela eight years ago for a girlfriend he dated while living on Margarita Island, where he is originally from. According to what Marcano told Leal, the girlfriend had a matching tattoo with the phrase “One Love”.

“The only thing Luis Carlos (Marcano) has done in the United States is work to support his family,” Leal said.

Marcano had never been charged with a crime in the U.S., according to his immigration records.

Marcano and Leal met in the city of Concepción, about 300 miles south of the capital, Santiago, while he was working as a barber at a shop where Leal used to take her younger brother.

From the start, there was a strong connection between them, she said.

“I always knew him as someone who took care of me and worked a lot. I would even tell him sometimes that he needed to take a break,” Leal said. “He worked seven days a week. But when he had time, he liked to watch baseball games. That was his biggest passion.”

Leal said her two daughters are always asking about their dad. The older one, from a previous relationship Leal had in Chile, knows that “he was taken to a prison,” but she doesn’t know exactly where or why, Leal said. The younger daughter thinks her father is traveling.

To support her family, Leal works at an apartment complex doing maintenance and spends most of her modest income on the $1,200 monthly rent for a room she shares with her daughters. They miss Marcano’s smile, his hugs and kisses, and the way he used to say goodbye to each of them every morning.

“It’s a very hard situation because I’m alone in this country,” Leal said.

In Venezuela, Marcano’s family and local authorities have also asked for his release from the prison in El Salvador, where inmates can leave their crowded cells for only 30 minutes each day.

Reyes’ case is not much different from Marcano’s.

He was detained and deported under the same wartime law, accused of ties to a gang without clear evidence, and led to believe he would be sent to Venezuela.

Reyes, his wife Liyanara Sanchez, 36, and her 10-year-old son, Daniel, also risked their lives crossing the Darien Gap on their way to the southern U.S. border, where they entered in December 2023, a month after Marcano’s family.

Reyes was detained during an immigration appointment on Feb. 4, his wife’s birthday, and transferred to the detention center in Miami. He was moved to Texas, and was later deported to El Salvador, accused of gang affiliation without tattoos or credible proof.

Sanchez said that in her last phone call with her husband, he told her that authorities were saying flights to Venezuela had been approved.

“I told him that if that was going to be the case, we’d leave soon to reunite with him,” Sanchez said. “Why? Because we never thought something like this would happen to us. None of this makes sense.”

Reyes’ immigration file is also full of errors, said Sanchez.

The form reads he has no criminal history but still claims he may be associated with the Tren de Aragua. The Department of Homeland Security form indicates that “the subject expressed fear of returning to Mexico or ‘her’ country of citizenship,” using the wrong pronoun. But on another page, the same form lists his name as “Ortiz Morales,” and “does not claim fear if returned to Venezuela.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Tampa Bay Times.

Sanchez said her husband enjoyed family life, his dog and the peace of home. He worked as a painter and cared for Daniel like his own son.

“He was very strict about my son’s education, but at the same time he was loving and encouraged him to be a good student,” said Sanchez.

Reyes was always on time and took his work seriously, according to Sanchez.

“Because of his hard work, we always had food on the table and paid the rent on time. We never owed anyone,” Sanchez said.

Months before his arrest, Reyes bought Sanchez a used car with $4,500 he saved in a year. She sold it to pay for a legal defense that didn’t do much, she said.

Now, Sanchez just wants her husband free and back with his family. She cries often but keeps going.

“We need him, and we want him with us. This has deeply hurt all of us,” said Sanchez.

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