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By Efrain Otero
CARACAS (Reuters) - Friends and relatives of Venezuelans deported from the U.S. to a maximum security prison in El Salvador held a vigil in front of colorful murals of their loved ones' faces painted on a Caracas street, calling for due process after the U.S. accused them of being gang members.
Paola Paiva told Reuters her brother Arturo Suarez was a singer. His wife said to local media that he had gone to the U.S. to boost his emerging music career.
"Due process needs to be carried out," said Paiva. "We don't know what is happening to him. This is practically a kidnapping. We haven't heard any news of my brother for 16 days."
Suarez was arrested on February 8 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who raided a house in North Carolina where he was making a music video with Darwin Hernandez, a barber, and Hernandez's brother, according to Darwin Hernandez's wife Aida Diaz.
Diaz said her husband told her before he was deported that he had been asked to sign a paper saying he was a member of Tren de Aragua, but he marked no. She said she realized he had been sent to El Salvador after his name appeared on a list of those deported released by CBS.
Both Paiva and Diaz said their loved ones did not have criminal records in any country. Reuters saw proof that Hernandez had no criminal record in Venezuela but could not independently verify records beyond that.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on either case.
The U.S. government has said that all the Venezuelans it deported were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but lawyers and activists have challenged this. An ICE official said in a sworn statement last month many did not have U.S. criminal records.
The U.S. has acknowledged that a Salvadoran man was deported and sent to the prison in error, but said it has no legal authority to bring him back.
(This story has been corrected to clarify that friends and relatives held a vigil in front of murals, not painted them, in paragraph 1)
(Reporting by Efrain Otero in Caracas, Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Sarah Kinosian in Mexico City; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
