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He Came to the U.S. to Support His Sick Child. He Was Detained. Then He Disappeared.

2 0
18.07.2025

by Melissa Sanchez, ProPublica; Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune; Mica Rosenberg and Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica; Ronna Rísquez, Alianza Rebelde Investiga; and Adrián González, Cazadores de Fake News

Leer en español.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans, and Alianza Rebelde Investiga and Cazadores de Fake News.

On Feb. 15, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas called his wife from inside a Texas immigration detention facility.

He asked her to record a message so there would be some lasting evidence of his story.

“They detained me simply because of my tattoos. I am not a criminal.”

The Trump administration had sent dozens of Venezuelan immigrants to Guantanamo. He was afraid the same would happen to him.

“Just in case something happens to me, so you can be aware.”

Uncertain about his fate, Ramos wanted to make sure there was a record of what happened to him.

A month later, he was gone.

Ramos never set foot in the U.S. — at least not as a free man. He left Venezuela in January 2024, hoping to earn enough money to pay for his newborn son’s medical needs. Born with a respiratory condition, the family’s “milagrito,” or “little miracle,” had severe asthma and repeatedly needed to be hospitalized. The cost of treatment had become impossible to manage on the meager wages Ramos made washing cars in Venezuela’s collapsed economy, so he trekked thousands of miles through a half dozen countries to reach the U.S. border.

When Ramos arrived, he didn’t sneak into the country. He followed the rules established by the Biden administration for immigrants seeking asylum. He signed up for an appointment through a government app and, when he was granted one, turned himself in to request protection. An immigration official and a judge determined he didn’t qualify, and Ramos didn’t fight the decision.

The government kept him in detention until he could be deported back to Venezuela.

In the months that followed, Donald Trump was elected president for a second term and began his mass deportation campaign. Among his first actions was to fly groups of Venezuelan immigrants whom he had labeled dangerous gang members to a U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ramos, 30, panicked and called his wife to say he was worried that the same was going to happen to him. On a video call his wife recorded, he held up a document he said was proof that immigration authorities had agreed to deport him to Venezuela. But he worried that they would not honor that promise.

“I have a family,” he said, staring directly into the camera. “I am simply a hard-working Venezuelan. I haven’t committed any crimes. I don’t have a criminal record in my country nor anywhere else.”

A month later, a more upbeat Ramos called again. He seemed confident that U.S. officials would send him home. Ramos’ family started preparing for his return. They planned to bake him a cake, cook his favorite chicken dish and go to church together to thank God for bringing him home safely.

They never heard from him again.

First image: Bastidas........

© ProPublica