Brit with 'gangster tattoo' fears he'll be banged up in Guantanamo Bay on US holiday
A British man who booked a holiday to the US is worried he's going to end up in prison after he spotted one of his tattoos was being used to identify suspected gang members in America.
Donald Trump has been deporting people suspected of involvement with gang activity to a mega-prison in El Salvador where inmates have their head shaved, are not allowed outside and spend all their time cooped up in massive cells with loads of other prisoners.
The place has been described as the 'worst prison on Earth' where inmates are subject to a series of 'inhumane' rules, and some of those deported from the US are not even involved with gangs.
Families of many of those deported have protested at their loved ones being taken to the mega-prison without being convicted of anything, and the US has admitted that it did send a Maryland man to the prison due to an 'administrative error', and now it can't get him back because he's in the hands of the El Salvadorean justice system.
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Another man deported to the prison had a Real Madrid tattoo, and his lawyers say he had no involvement with gang activity but since there was a crown on the tattoo and crowns are listed as signs of gang members, he was sent to the horrific jail.
British man Pete Belton booked an August holiday to Miami with his family, but according to the BBC he's now quite worried he'll get 'a six month all-inclusive holiday to Guantanamo'.
That's because a picture of the 44-year-old's arm showed up in US government documents used to show officials what gang tattoos to look out for.
Pete's got a rather marvellous arm tattoo that prominently features a clock, and a picture of it ended up being the example US Homeland Security Investigations used in their materials, according to court documents.
The Brit said it was a 'bit strange, bit funny at first' to see his own tattoo being used for the purposes of 'detecting and identifying' members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) criminal gang.
A lot of the pictures appear to have been taken from websites and social media posts which have nothing to do with gang activity, and the picture of Pete's tattoo seems to come from an Instagram post made years ago.
The same picture with a tattoo of a clock on it was used last year in a document from Texas officials.
The US guidelines for deporting people says it takes more than tattoos, but there are people who've been deported to the El Salvadorean mega-prison whose lawyers insist have had no affiliation with gangs.
Given that they also deported a man and later admitted they'd made an 'administrative error' but couldn't get him back out of the prison, it's not a guarantee of safety.
A British woman was recently detained for 19 days in a processing centre after backpacking around the US when she was denied entry into Canada and it was judged that she had violated her tourist visa because she helped an American family with their housework in exchange for accommodation.
Joe Harker