OutofCECOT

Andres Guillermo Morales Rolon, 26, is a Colombian-Venezuelan dual citizen. Andres loves to cook, only rests one day a week, and doesn’t like many sports. He is a family man who loves to go out with his wife and daughters to parks. He migrated to the US in 2022.

According to his wife, Deicy Aldana, also 26, Andres had a legal work permit in the United States as part of his U.S. asylum application. His work authorization was verified independently by Reuters.

Andres, who worked for an air conditioning company and then a cement company, had multiple tattoos, Aldana said, but none were connected to any gang. He had his parents’ names on his arms, with a clock next to his father’s, as well as a star and music notes on his neck and a Bible verse on his ribs.

Deicy, a Colombian citizen, shared paperwork showing her husband, who has a Colombian mother and was raised along the two countries’ border, has no criminal convictions in Colombia. Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the document with its own records search.

Andres was arrested on February 5th, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. in Denver, Colorado when ICE agents took him from his apartment in front of his wife.

“The day ICE came to the apartment, even though we showed them the documents, it meant nothing to them—they threw them on the floor, handcuffed him, and took him away along with his father, an elderly man,” Deisy said.

Three days after the incident, Deisy learned that Andrés was being held in a detention center in Colorado. Fifteen days after his arrest, he appeared before a judge and requested voluntary departure, but the court told him that legally it would be classified as a deportation.

“He told them that all he wanted was to return home [to Colombia]. He received his deportation order, and the papers were sent to the Colombian consulate in San Francisco. I personally spoke with consulate representatives, and fifteen days later they were aware of the case but were waiting for fingerprint verification. Everything was already prepared—they sent his passport number and told him he would be returned in a few days.”

“He’s a hard worker,” said Aldana, as she held back sobs. “I don’t know why they connected him to the Tren de Aragua if he has nothing to do with that, he doesn’t have a criminal record in Colombia, he doesn’t have a criminal record in Venezuela, if he had one in the United States, they would have left him there to serve time.” Reuters searched and found no criminal records in the US for Andres.

Deisy says she was able to talk to him through a tablet provided to detainees in those facilities, but since Friday the 14th, she hasn’t heard from him. “I checked the [US online detainee tracker] app and it said he had been released, and there was no record of him on the ICE website.

Andrés Guillermo was no longer in the United States. Since then, I know nothing more about him. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know how he is. He was sick. He hadn’t received his medicines.”

Confirmation that Andres had been sent to El Salvador and incarcerated in the notorious CECOT prison came on March 20th when a list of detainees was published.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry has told Aldana they are following the case. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Deicy is staying with her mother in the Venezuelan city of San Antonio del Tachira, just across the border from Colombia after returning from the U.S. following her husband’s detention in Denver.

“I will do whatever I can to get him out,” Deicy said. “I have proof to show he’s not a criminal.”