CBP Agents Can Have Gang Tattoos — as Long as They Cover Them Up

When Franco José Caraballo Tiapa arrived at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in early February for a routine check-in, he thought he had little reason to worry.  Caraballo, 26, had arrived in the U.S. in 2023 after fleeing persecution in Venezuela, lived with his wife in Dallas, and had no criminal record, his immigration attorney Martin Rosenow told The Intercept. He’d checked in with ICE regularly while waiting on his asylum claim. But when an agent took special interest in his tattoos, they detained him and put him on a bus to the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas — and eventually on a plane to CECOT.  For Caraballo and at least half a dozen other men, U.S. officials’ assumptions about their body art played a significant role in classifying them as gang members and disappearing them to the notorious prison in El Salvador. The Intercept found that a very different standard applies for the federal agents tasked with keeping migrants out of the country and rounding up those targeted by President Donald Trump’s deportation obsession. On a public “grooming standards” webpage aimed at prospective Customs and Border Protection agents, the agency advises that any tattoos and brandings must be concealed if they are “obscene or gang-related.” In other words, agents are allowed to have the very markings for which Caraballo and others were disappeared into a Salvadoran gulag — as long as they keep them out of sight. “It’s like saying ‘our gangsters are okay,’” Rosenow said. “But a young man fleeing persecution from his home country, a father of two little girls who likes to have ink on his body to commemorate his daughters, he is going to be subjected to this kind of horrifying shit?” One of the tattoos for which Caraballo was targeted showed a watch face, which Rosenow said depicted the hour of his daughter’s birth. Neither Rosenow nor Caraballo’s wife has been able to speak to him since he was sent to CECOT in March. “If you have tattoos it’s proof-positive you’re a gang member, yet CBP is authorized to hire people with these tattoos as long as they cover them up?” Like Caraballo’s pocket watch tattoo, many of the markings U.S. officials have singled out as evidence of gang affiliation strain credulity. Jerce Reyes Barrios, a 36-year-old former professional soccer player and coach from Venezuela, was held without bond pending his asylum application and later whisked out of the country to indefinite detention in CECOT over a tattoo of a soccer ball with a crown — a nod to his support for Real Madrid. “It’s the height of hypocrisy,” said Linette Tobin, an immigration attorney in San Diego who was representing Reyes in his asylum claim. “According to this administration, if you have tattoos it’s proof-positive that you’re a gang member, yet CBP is authorized to hire people with these tattoos as long as they cover them up?” CBP officials did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. The grooming standard does not necessarily imply that active or ex-gang members are welcome in federal agencies, which employ rigorous background checks and have a clear incentive to weed out prospective employees with problematic histories or conflicting loyalties. CBP, which draws many recruits from areas along the U.S.–Mexico border, has itself recognized an uncomfortable pattern of corrupt agents who work with family members and associates in criminal operations to assist in the smuggling of people and drugs and other contraband. Related CECOT Is What the Bukele Regime Wants You to See But the guidance appears to indicate a gang tattoo would not in itself be disqualifying. Gang experts have repeatedly argued that tattoos are an ineffective way to identify members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang to which U.S. officials assumed Caraballo, Reyes, and other men sent to CECOT belong. The trait is more associated with MS-13 and other Central American gangs. Gang tattoos have a sordid history in some law enforcement agencies, most notably the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where deputy gangs have long shown their loyalty — or notch their belt after killing someone — with body ink. Tattoos on federal agents have also raised the possibility of infiltration by white nationalists and other extremists. On Martha’s Vineyard, controversy erupted in June when an ICE agent was photographed with a tattoo on his arm of a Valknut, a Nordic and Germanic symbol that has been appropriated by white nationalists. (At the time, a DHS spokesperson objected to allegations that the tattoo was a marker of extremism on the part of the agent, claiming that it symbolized “warrior culture.”) Other federal agencies have their own standards for tattoos. The U.S. Marshals Service does not allow any face, hand, neck, or scalp tattoos, and stipulates that any tattoos that are “vulgar, sexist, racist, offensive” or could be “otherwise inappropriate, disruptive, or bring embarrassment or disrepute” must be concealed while on duty. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has drawn criticism for his tattoos, including one in Arabic that spells out “infidel,” and another that reads “Deus Vult,” a Latin slogan that means “God Wills It” and has been used by right-wing Christian extremists as a call to arms. Grooming standards for ICE agents do not appear to be publicly available, but while agents often cover their faces, visible tattoos are commonplace. On a recent day at New York City’s 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE agents have spent nearly two months making daily arrests of people outside immigration court, The Intercept saw multiple heavily tattooed agents, including at least one with markings on his hands and neck. For those on the other side of the equation, the nightmare shows little sign of ending. Caraballo, Reyes, and other immigrants banished to CECOT for their tattoos continue to be held essentially incommunicado. Only through the intervention of the Red Cross do their families know they are alive, their attorneys said.  “Franco’s wife to this day barely makes ends meet,” Rosenow said, referring to Caraballo. “Her big concern now is that they’re going to detain and deport her simply because she’s his wife and he has those tattoos.”  The post CBP Agents Can Have Gang Tattoos — as Long as They Cover Them Up appeared first on The Intercept.