It was March 13th when Nedizon Alejandro Leon Rengel wished his brother Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel a happy birthday.
Alejandro never heard a reply from him. Federal agents took Adrien into custody on their way to work at a barber shop in Dallas.
For the next five weeks, Alejandro was looking for Adrien to learn where he was: Have he been deported to another country? Was it held at an immigration facility in the US?
He and Adrian’s live-in girlfriend, called Texas immigration and customs enforcement, moved from office to office with different answers.
Sometimes they were told that Adrian was still in custody. Another time they were told he had been deported to “the country of his origin”, El Salvador. (Alejandro provided voice recordings of the calls to NBC News.)
Their mother went to the detention centre in Caracas, Venezuela. There, Alejandro said he was detained when the citizen arrived from the United States, but she was told that no one was there in her son’s name.
They got the help of advocacy groups. Cristosal, a nonprofit in El Salvadoran, worked with deportee families to get answers from the US and Salvadoran governments, but there was no answer. It is the same as the United Latin American Citizens Federation known as Lelack.
Alejandro’s 6-year-old nie asked him almost every day: When will her dad call her?
“For 40 days, his family has been waiting to hear his fate,” said Juan ProAgno, CEO of LeLac.
Finally, Tuesday, answer. The Ministry of Homeland Security has confirmed with NBC News that Adrián has indeed been deported to El Salvador.
The news “murdered me a lot” and “smashed me down,” Alejandro said after hearing from NBC News about where his brother was.
DHS did not respond when asked if Adrián had been sent to Cecot, a mega prison in El Salvador. But Alejandro fears that it is, given the many Venezuelans sent from Texas to Secott a few days after he was taken into custody.
“The Buquere (President of El Salvador) is saying that the devil will enter hell,” Alejandro said of the prison. “And my brother is not a criminal. At this point, I don’t feel very good. The news is hitting me like a bucket of cold water.”
The Lengel family’s experiences reflect the experiences of others who have encountered the Trump administration’s efforts to expel the U.S.
The administration prioritizes deportees who are said to be members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, designated as a foreign terrorist organization under the wartime Chinese alien enemy laws of the 1700s.
“Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel illegally entered our country from Venezuela in 2023 and is a companion of Tren de Aragua.” “Tren de Aragua is a malicious gang raping, attacking and murder for sports. President Trump and (DHS) secretary (Christi) Noem will not allow foreign terrorist enemies to operate in our country and put Americans at risk. They will always put American safety first.”
Seeking details and documentation to support DHS criminal allegations, McLaughlin responded: “We don’t share intelligence report reports or undermine national security whenever a gang member denied that he was one. That’s insane.”
Adrian’s family has denied that he is a gang member.
“For me, it’s forced disappearance. He has no communication with anyone, so they don’t grant him any rights to anything. They don’t give him the right to defense.
“Then the only crime we have here is to be immigrants and become Venezuelans. And now the government is opposed to this nationality,” he said.
Adrián, 27, came to the United States in 2023 by appointing the CBP One app. Alejandro provided NBC News with print photos confirmed the appointment of the brothers on June 12, 2023.
Adrián also applied for temporary protection status on December 1, 2024, according to documents from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the DHS, which handles immigration benefits.
In November, Alejandro said he rode along with a colleague because Adrien’s car wasn’t working. Police in Irving, Texas stopped a colleague who had received a standout traffic violation and detained them after finding a marijuana groomer in her colleague’s vehicle, Alejandro said.
Police have charged Adrien with a misdemeanor of Class C’s possession of drug paraphernalia, punishable with a fine of up to $500.
“I don’t know why the charging was leveled against him, because the first one wasn’t his car,” said Alejandro, 32.
Document provided by Alejandro Show Adrián has pleaded the guilty/NO contest. The documents did not specify what he sued and were fined $492. Alejandro said his brother is paying fines in monthly installments.
Adrian had the first “Y” in his ex-wife’s name, and the crown tattoo on his hand, Alejandro said. When he was arrested in November, officers told him he was tying him to Tren de Aragua “for that tattoo,” Alejandro said.
That’s why he later covered it with a tiger tattoo, Alejandro said. Ice refers to tattoos that include those from Crown as an indicator of Tren de Aragua membership. Adrian also has a tattoo of his mother’s name on one of his biceps.
“We are not criminals. We are people who studied occupations in Venezuela. We had a career. We are not people associated with either of them,” said Alejandro, who had banks and insurance in Venezuela and other Latin American countries but now works in restaurants.
Adrian graduated from a high school in Venezuela with a focus on science, and Alejandro later said he took a barbershop course in the country’s gloomy economy.
Adrian moved to Colombia with his then-wife and daughter, where he worked for several years. When the area became dangerous, he returned his wife and daughter to Venezuela, went to Mexico and applied for the appointment of one CBP to enter the United States.
Adrian came to the US “because he knows the political, social and economic situation in Venezuela,” and he wanted to make enough money to buy his daughter at home, Alejandro said.
Before confirming that his brother was in El Salvador, Alejandro said he sometimes kneeled and prayed. “There were moments when I thought, ‘He’s going to call’ and then there were moments when I was shattered and didn’t know what to do. ”
“I didn’t expect to go through this situation,” he said. The only thing he thought would happen when he came to the US as an immigrant was, “They either give you asylum or they’ll expel you. Not forced disappearance.”
