Texas Gang Database Contained Incorrect Information About Man Who Has Since Been Sent to CECOT
Records obtained by American Oversight and reported on by USA Today reveal that the Trump administration may have sent the wrong man, one with no reported criminal history, to the notorious prison in El Salvador.
As the Trump administration has attempted to fulfill its goal of deporting as many as one million immigrants annually from the United States, it has ignored several key responsibilities of accountable and democratic governance. One is the fundamental and constitutional right to due process of the law. The other appears to be ensuring monumental decisions — namely, about removing people from the country — are based on correct information.
Records obtained by American Oversight and reported on by USA Today reveal that the Trump administration may have sent the wrong man, one with no reported criminal history, to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. That maximum-security prison, known as CECOT, is also where Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland was mistakenly sent based on an “administrative error.”
The revelations of another potential error was revealed in a September 2024 presentation from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which American Oversight obtained in response to a public records request. The presentation, which contains purported identifiers of affiliation with the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang such as tattoos and hand signs, included slides focused on specific individuals who’d had previous interactions with state or local law enforcement. The information about those individuals, many of whom would later be sent to CECOT, was pulled from the Texas Gang Database, or TxGANG.
One of those individuals was identified as Francisco Garcia Casique. But the mugshot next to his profile, which accused him of being a member of Tren de Aragua, was of a different man. Through its reporting, USA Today has identified the man in the photo as a man who had been questioned for potential ties to a Mexican gang and was removed to Mexico last year.
The real Garcia Casique, according to his family, is a 24-year-old who was working as a barber in Texas before Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him on Feb. 6, later sending him to CECOT. Like others who have been sent to the prison without due process, Garcia Casique’s family denounce the claims of alleged gang ties. And he has no criminal record, in the United States or Venezuela.
USA Today noted that TxGang has had issues with confirming that the entries to the database are correct. “A state audit conducted on the database in November found that of the 65,832 names in the system, 7,199 — or nearly 11 percent — had not been validated within five years as required by federal law.”
While the incorrect entry in TxGANG was reportedly removed last month when law enforcement officials realized the error, federal officials have insisted the database entry is not what prompted Garcia Casique’s removal, and have maintained that he is connected to Tren de Aragua. But as USA Today noted, neither the United States nor the Salvadoran government has offered evidence that migrants sent to CECOT have ties to the gang. And given the false statements the government has made about the erroneous removal of Abrego Garcia — who like Garcia Casique remains at the prison — serious constitutional and civil rights concerns remain with regard to the lack of judicial review.
Last week, the Supreme Court continued blocking the Trump administration’s use of the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants in Texas, ruling that the detainees had not been provided sufficient time to challenge their removals.