No He’s Not the One!
Guest Op-Ed originally postd on Facebook by Mathew Mikalatos and on Substack
An ICE agent grabbed Merwil Gutiérrez and one of his fellow agents said, “No, he’s not the one.” Merwil Gutiérrez is a 19-year-old asylum applicant who lives in the Bronx. He was the “wrong one.” ICE wasn’t there looking for him.
“Take him anyway,” came the reply.
Let’s get it all out of the way:
* Merwil Gutiérrez came to the US legally as an asylum seeker
* In fact, he didn’t cross the border until he had an appointment with an immigration officer
* He has no tattoos (not that it’s illegal to have tattoos)
* He has not been making political speeches (not that it’s illegal to make political speeches)
* He’s not a member of a gang and has never been a member of a gang
* He has no criminal record in the US or overseas
* There is no arrest warrant. There is no charging document. His father can’t get ANY documents from the US government.
And yet, he’s in the infamous El Salvador prison that is supposedly for criminals, terrorists, and gang members… but that appears to be more and more a convenient place for ICE and the US government to stash innocent immigrants.
Merwil, his father Wilmer, and his cousin Luis walked much of the way from Venezuela to the US border in Mexico. They sometimes were able to take a bus. It took them about a month to hike and ride from their home to the Mexican border town of Juárez.
They applied for and received Temporary Protected Status (a legal US immigration status) and then applied for asylum (asylum seeker is also a legal US immigration status). They were sent to Texas, then Denver, and eventually New York, where they managed to find work (again, legal given their status). They got work permits and social security numbers (allowing them to pay taxes but not to receive benefits).
They got their immigration papers that told them their official court date to determine their future status: February 2027.
On March 15 of this year, Merwil was snatched by ICE agents on the front steps of his apartment as he was returning from doing some errands. His cousin Luis saw it from inside, and heard one agent say that Merwil wasn’t who they were looking for, and another say, “Take him anyway.”
Wilmer hasn’t been able to get ahold of his son since a phonecall on March 16. The ICE locator says his son is in Pennsylvania, but no one will confirm this… and his name has appeared on the list of people deported to the prison in El Salvador.
I’m not personally sure we can continue to honestly call this prison in El Salvador a “prison” and not a “concentration camp.” The Holocaust Encyclopedia makes this distinction:
”What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.”
This is certainly true for Merwil, and it is true of many others on the list.
So we need to face up to the fact that the United States government is funding a concentration camp. The United States government is illegally arresting legal migrants, illegally deporting them, and illegally incarcerating them in a concentration camp.
This is an example of us doing it to a teenager.
We also have the example of Maryland father Kilmer Abrego Garcia, who the US government has admitted was deported to the prison/concentration camp due to “administrative error.”
President Trump said he’d try to get him back if the US Supreme Court said he should be brought back, which they did in a 9-0 decision. But when President Bukele of El Salvador visited the White House today, he said he didn’t have the power to send him back. And President Trump said he didn’t have the power to get him back. Suddenly no one has any power to do anything. It’s just surprising to see the world’s best dealmaker so easily beaten, and two incredibly powerful men who often say they can accomplish impossible things shrugging and saying something to the effect of, “I wish I could help but my hands are tied”… even when the government admits that they sent someone to this concentration camp by mistake.
Of course this is political theater. Bukele could have brought him back on the same plane he flew into D.C. President Trump could make a simple phone call.
Why do we tell these stories?
Not to create fear.
We tell these stories so we can help each other understand what time it is in our culture right now.
We are a nation that is abducting and deporting legal migrants and placing them in US-funded extra-national concentration camps.
That’s important to face, and it’s important to acknowledge.
We tell these stories so we can prepare ourselves for when we will be asked to be a part of these injustices.
We need moral police officers and ICE agents to refuse to participate in illegal arrests instead of wearing masks.
We need the private prisons paid for by our tax dollars to refuse to house those illegally arrested instead of saying “we take whoever is sent to us.”
We need lawyers to refuse to work cases for the US government when they are clearly immoral.
We need airlines like Avelo — which has made a financial deal to operate deportation flights — to make a stand and refuse to be a part of these things. (And people that fly Avelo to let them know those are not our values.)
We need American citizens to vote, to speak up, to protect our neighbors, to reach out to vulnerable populations in our own communities and make sure that whatever comes they know we will be working to make sure they are treated with dignity and respect, that there will be due process, that we will live up to the American values we often claim but are struggling to live out in this moment.
There’s an teenager out there somewhere who came to the United States to follow the American dream. He walked here from Venezuela. He came legally. He did everything we asked him to do. He got snatched up as he walked toward his apartment in the Bronx.
An ICE agent grabbed him, and one of his co-workers said, “No, he’s not the one.”
And another ICE agent said, “Take him anyway.”
His name is Merwil Gutiérrez.
SOURCES:
This post is also up at Substack:
https://thesestories.substack.com/p/take-him-anyway
Read the full story at THE CITY.
A post in Spanish from El Tequeño:
A post shared by @eltequeno
Here’s a video from Merwil’s sister.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia definition and description of a concentration camp (including the quote above).
As we already know, 75% of the people the US has sent to this concentration camp have no criminal record.
The names of the first people sent to the concentration camp in El Salvador.
Intro to Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Notes on today’s meeting between Presidents Trump and Bukele.
Avelo airlines has made a deal to deport immigrants on behalf of the US government. I feel certain they would love to hear from you.
