The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has recently become a source of fear for many immigrants in the U.S. The agency has been targeting numerous individuals, and its latest focus is a teen from Texas. Carlos Daniel Terán Aguilar is allegedly connected to the notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. ICE also claims that the young man is wanted in Chile for involvement in narcotics and weapons trafficking. On January 26, ICE agents arrested the boy at his home in Cedar Park.
Carlos Daniel Terán Aguilar is a Venezuelan immigrant living with his father, Juan Carlos, and stepmother, Marian Terán, along with his younger brother, Juan Felipe. When ICE agents arrived to arrest him, the Texas teen insisted on his innocence. “He was really scared. He kept saying, ‘I haven’t done anything,’” Marian Terán told Texas Monthly.
Three weeks passed before ICE issued a press release announcing Carlos Daniel Terán Aguilar’s arrest. Then, on March 15, his name appeared alongside 237 other Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador. As if things weren’t bad enough, the teen was sent to a notorious megaprison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). After learning of his son’s fate, Juan Carlos Terán maintained his son’s innocence. He admitted that Daniel had gotten into trouble in Chile after being caught with drugs and a gun, but he stressed that this did not make him a gang member. He said,
“My son made a mistake, smoking marijuana and having the kind of friends who have a gun. But that doesn’t mean that he deserves this kind of injustice, to be in such a prison, somebody who is just a kid who didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything wrong here.”
Immediately after Daniel’s arrest, his parents contacted attorney Edna Yang. She planned to request a removal hearing on March 25, but the Texas teen was swiftly transferred to the megaprison. Upon hearing that Daniel had been taken, Yang demanded evidence to support ICE’s baseless accusations, but the government failed to provide any.
What happened to Daniel was both shocking and unacceptable, sparking widespread condemnation of ICE’s draconian actions. “This is f***ing insane,” one Redditor said. Many criticized the organization, calling it atrocious. “ICE is an atrocious organization, literal Gestapo, even before Trump and his far-right allies empowered them to terrorize community members. History will judge us for this time, and if you ever wondered what you’d do as the Reich rose to power, this is it,” another user remarked.
