Venezuelan mothers organize on chat group to fight Guantánamo detentions

Almost every morning the Whatsapp group chat wakes up to two words: Buenos días. 

Those words — good morning — are often followed by words of panic:

“Have you heard about the detainees in Guantánamo?”

“I haven’t heard from my son yet.”

“If you hear anything about my son … Please post it here.”

“I’m just a mother who needs to know that my son is OK.”

The messages are all from Venezuelan moms living in Venezuela, Colombia, and the U.S. They are desperate for information about their sons now detained at the U.S. naval station on Guantánamo Bay, Cuba as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to target what he says are migrants who have committed crimes in the U.S. or abroad.

The moms are using the Whatsapp chat group to share information about their loved ones, and to push back against claims their sons are part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragual.

The chat group is like a virtual version of Argentina’s Plaza de Mayo, where mothers whose sons had disappeared by the Videla dictatorship demonstrated for years.

The mothers say their sons don’t have criminal records in their home countries, or in the U.S., and that the men are being targeted just for having tattoos.

They have vowed to fight until their sons are freed, and some have joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the detainees’ lack of access to “attorneys, family or the outside world.”

The chat

The Whatsapp group was created by Jorge Leal, an alderman from the municipality of Sucre in Venezuela, after doing a livestream with the family members of a man sent to Guantánamo. After that, his social media inbox and cell phone was inundated with people asking for help to find their loved ones.

“My phone has stopped working at times because of the new messages,” he told NPR from Venezuela.

Leal said he’s received criticism for being so involved in identifying who has been sent to Guantánamo.

“They said I was crazy, that I was speaking on behalf of possible criminals,” Leal said. “They forgot I’m a public servant.”

Leal says it’s been gratifying to help parents like Doris Arapé find information about their sons.

Arapé’s son, Mayfreed Durán Arapé, tried to enter the U.S. in 2023, when he was 19 years old, via a CBP One app. That’s a mechanism created by the Biden administration, cancelled by Trump on his first day in office, that allowed entry to asylum seekers while they waited for their asylum claims to be heard.

But Mayfreed Durán Arapé was detained and never released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He turned 21 while in detention, and now he’s in Guantánamo Bay.

“If I could get a boat, a helicopter to go there and release him I would do it because he is my baby,” said Doris Arapé, Mayfreed’s mother, from her home in Seattle.

Her son remained in detention after being convicted of aggravated assault for kicking a public safety officer during a 2023 riot in an El Paso immigration facility.

But Arapé told NPR her son does not have any criminal record in Venezuela, and has no ties to Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization, despite U.S. government claims that he does. The Trump administration this week designated that group – and several other drug cartels – as global terrorist organizations.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Guantánamo Bay “will hold the worst of the worst,” and that the administration is going after those who have committed crimes while in the country with no legal status.

Arapé describes her son as honest and hardworking. He’s worked as a barber since his teenage years.

“When people meet Mayfreed they fall in love,” she said.

She said she learned about Mayfreed’s transfer to Guantánamo on Feb. 7 after receiving a call from another man who was in the same detention center as Mayfreed. She later saw a photo, published by the U.S. government, in which she saw her son.

“My son looked so scared in that photo,” she said. “He looked like a wounded puppy.”

Arapé says her son had told her weeks ago he was depressed and anxious. She now worries he might be suicidal.

“We are desperate, I don’t like the silence,” she said, adding she hasn’t been able to talk to her son in weeks. “And what if in one of those depressive episodes he finds a blanket, and hangs himself? Who is going to tell me?”

She told NPR she believes her son’s tattoos have led to his long-term detention and now transfer to Guantánamo because he’s been accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua. He has a tattoo of a snake on his shoulder and his mother’s name on his chest.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told NPR in an email that “every single alien at Guantanamo has a final deportation order from a judge.”

The spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about the reasons for Mayfreed Durán Arapé’s continuous detention.

Law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, have said members of the Tren de Aragua often have tattoos of stars, crowns, firearms, trains, roses, and predatory felines. The law enforcement agency said the phrase “sons of God” is also tied to the organization.

But parents and immigration observers say migrants with tattoos have been unfairly targeted. Susan Phillips, a professor at Pitzer College who researches the role of tattoos in gangs, said the Trump administration is “being very clever about the optics of this.”

“You know, you put anybody in shackles, you’re going to make them look like a criminal, and that becomes how people contextualize their tattoos,” she said.

‘His record is clean’

Angela Sequera has been helping mothers connect to attorneys in the U.S. Her son, Yoiker David Sequera, had been in detention since September 2024. He was flown to Guantánamo by the Trump administration and his mother has not heard from him since the first week of February.

Sequera is part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU.

“My son must be desperate because he is a young man, who is kind and timid,” she told NPR in Spanish from her home in California.

Angela Sequera said her son was given a deportation order in January, a month before he was transferred to Guantánamo. The transfer came as a surprise to her since President Trump had said he was sending to Cuba the ” the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”

“I panicked, and I kept asking myself the same question a thousand times: Why are they transferring my son there if he’s not a criminal?” Sequera said in Spanish. “He doesn’t have any ties to gangs — his only offense is that he tried to reenter the country.”

NPR confirmed Yoiker Sequera does have a record for illegal entry. Under federal law, illegal entry is a misdemeanor criminal offense. DHS confirmed the charge, and did not offer any evidence he was Tren de Aragua.

Angela Sequera said she believes her son’s tattoos have played a role. He has a turtle, a razor that represents his job as a barber, and a crown on his wrist with the word “David” in honor of the ancient king of Israel.

Terror for what’s next

Also in the Whatsapp chat are mothers whose sons are in detention centers across the U.S.

They are desperate, and they worry their sons might be the next ones to be sent to Guantánamo.

Maidorys Vegas’ son, Enderson Román Vegas, has been in an ICE detention facility in Monroe, Mich., since Feb. 5. She said her son landed there after being arrested after a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. No charges were filed, but he currently appears in ICE’s detainee locator system.

This is Enderson Román Vegas’ first time in jail, the mom said. He was temporarily allowed in the U.S. in 2023 as he awaited his asylum hearing.

“When you send someone to a detention center, you are also putting their family in a sort of detention, too,” Maidorys Vegas told NPR from Venezuela.

She said her son would send money back home to help his family. She also said he has no criminal record in Venezuela. He has a tattoo of a wolf, a cross, and the initials of his siblings.

Maidorys Vegas has been able to talk to her son, and she said he’s depressed and worried about what lies ahead.

“Why is he in detention?” she asked. “Why?”

DHS didn’t respond to questions about Ederson Román Vegas’ detention or record.

A spokesperson with the agency said Yoiner Purroy Roldán, a 21-year-old Venezuelan in Guantánamo, is a member of Tren de Aragua. The agency didn’t provide any evidence.

His mom, Yohana Roldán, said her son was detained when he presented himself to his CBP One appointment in September 2024. He has been in detention ever since and was recently transferred to Guantánamo.

“My son is hardworking, unafraid,” Yohana Roldán told NPR from her home in Venezuela. Yoiner Purroy Roldán has a 3-year-old daughter in Venezuela.

Government records from Venezuela provided by Roldán say her son has no criminal record in his home country.

She said her son told her immigration officers had taken interest in his tattoos: a clock, his dad’s name, and “family.”

“I know that my son has not committed any crime and he doesn’t deserve to go through everything he has gone through just for wanting a better future,” Yohana Roldán said, adding that she’d like her son to be deported to Venezuela because, “one can no longer be in the U.S.”