At least one detainee from the immigration detention facility in Aurora has been sent to an El Salvadoran prison, an immigrant assistance group confirmed Thursday.
Nixon Azuaje-Perez, 19, is a Venezuelan migrant who was held at the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center before being transported to Texas, then sent on a plane to El Salvador, said Andrea Loya, the executive director of Casa De Paz. Her Aurora-based organization visits immigrants at the detention facility and provides assistance upon their release.
The Trump administration has sent four planes carrying a total of more than 250 detainees — many of them Venezuelan migrants — to El Salvador to be housed in a prison, with the most recent one flying Sunday. Officials have said they are gang members, but the gang ties of some of the men have been disputed — including those alleged against Azuaje-Perez, 9News reported.
Loya said Azuaje-Perez was moved out of Colorado before a March 11 court date, and March 14 was the last that anyone had heard from him.
His name appears on an “internal government list” — reported by CBS News on March 20 — of Venezuelan men moved out of the U.S. to El Salvador’s maximum-security prison.
The Aurora Police Department announced last year that it had arrested Azuaje-Perez on July 29 on an allegation of “tampering with evidence” tied to a July 28 shooting that took place on Nome Street. 9News reported that Azuaje-Perez resided in a nearby apartment complex — since shuttered by the city — and cited court documents saying he told police that he didn’t want law enforcement to believe he was involved in the crime; he said he picked up shell casings and threw them into an area with rocks.
Police said in a September statement that they suspected Azuaje-Perez was a member of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.
The names of three other men who were also arrested by police at that time weren’t included on the list reported by CBS.
ICE directed questions to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request to confirm Azuaje-Perez’s circumstances and provide further details about why he was detained and deported to El Salvador.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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