Editor’s note: Edwin E. Chavez, co-author of this article is Gabriel’s brother and the son of Señora Hurren.
Gabriel V. Chavez was a California prison resident for more than 30 years. After finally being released, Chavez was then held in an ICE detention facility for two years. Now, Chavez, 50, is again incarcerated in a Salvadorian prison—an especially dangerous environment for someone covered in tattoos.
In March 2022, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, in response to extreme gang violence in Central America, enacted the “Association With Illicit Activities” law. This law criminalized tattoos in an attempt to give police the power to suppress gangs. Any tattoos, ranging from the Virgin Mary or praying hands, may be interpreted as gang-related under the new law.
“As a mother, after my son was deported and incarcerated, I felt like I was dying,” said Chavez’s mother, Maria Elizabeth Hurren, in an interview.
Hurren, who lives in Riverside County, sends the Salvadoran government $7 a day to ensure her son has food and a place to sleep while behind bars. She noted that if she doesn’t pay, she fears her son will starve to death.
Neither Hurren nor any of Chavez’s family have been able to contact him. Complete isolation has left his family wondering if Gabriel, who is in remission for brain cancer, is alive or dead. He was diagnosed more than a decade ago.
“I am depressed and I can’t even focus on a daily basis because I don’t know if my son is alive or if they’re treating him for his medical conditions. Not having any contact with my son is hard. Practically, he is kidnapped,” said the mother.
Gabriel Chavez’s story is not an anomaly. The United States has been deporting incarcerated people to places all over the world, from El Salvador to Cambodia. Those who support deportation for people convicted of aggravated felonies say that people who commit those crimes should not be permitted to continue living in the United States.
Fear of deportation is one more concern facing incarcerated people. They already have to navigate rehabilitation, family reunification, and overcoming feelings of guilt for crime.
“If I was deported to El Salvador my life would be endangered because I disassociated from the criminal and gang membership lifestyle,” said Arturo Melendez, an SQ prisoner.
Melendez’s own family, he said, would be unwilling to help him for fear of retaliation from the Salvadoran government. Like Chavez, Melendez also has tattoos, posing an addition threat if he’s deported.
President-elect Donald Trump supported mass deportation policies during his 2024 campaign. Melendez feels that U.S. immigration policies are unfair and inhumane.
“Families are being broken up,” Melendez said. “When they are sent back, they are being put in harm’s way by throwing them into poverty.”
San Quentin residents like Enrique Mejia said this system of repeated incarceration, known as the “prison to deportation pipeline,” is not okay. If a person has done their time, CDCR should not be sending people to ICE for additional incarceration and displacement, Mejia argued.
Another San Quentin resident Galicia Juares noted that two of his uncles were deported to Guatemala. One of Juares’ uncles was later executed after being extorted by an organized crime group, Galicia said.
Detention has pervasive effects on the family members of detainees. Many deportees also have undocumented relatives living in the U.S. illegally and are at risk of deportation, even without committing a crime.
Despite knowing they may face deportation themselves, and having had family members deported, some San Quentin defend Donald Trump’s deportation stance.
“I agree with deporting every person that isn’t legally in this country and who has a criminal history, and who would be a danger to the community,” said prisoner Anicasio (CQ) Garcia.
A native of Guatemala, Garcia held a minority viewpoint among those interviewed. Most of those contacted by San Quentin News declined to comment, citing fears of retaliation.
For those with ICE detainer’s, the looming knowledge of deportation causes confusion about their futures after incarceration.
“I can’t continue to grow in school and self-help programs. At night, I cannot sleep — I wake up in the middle of the night,” said Gabriel Lopez. “In here [SQ] there others like myself who are striving for a better future. We are graduating from school…preparing to help out others so that they won’t re offend.”
For others, genuine fears of safety and getting a job in a new place can be an added pressure while incarcerated in San Quentin.
According to Luis Orozco, an SQ prisoner, many deported people found it difficult to return to Mexico, where it is harder to find a job, a place to live, or other reentry services.
Prisoners like Tomas Ochoa said that the biggest challenge in returning to Mexico is navigating the cartels, which are often waiting to recruit people into their criminal enterprises. Ochoa, like other Mexicans, worries about being killed for not wanting to join the cartels after being deported.
According to CDCR statistics, 15% to 20% of the incarcerated population are foreign-born. However, many men at San Quentin facing deportation left their homelands as children and no longer identify with their birth county’s culture, and do not speak the language of their motherland.
In August and September of 2022, San Quentin State Prison transferred seven people to ICE, according to report by the ACLU.
“At 63 years, it is very hard to start again in a new country that I have never worked in,” said Parra Ivo Yuri, a Guatemalan immigrant serving a term at San Quentin. “I have lived almost all of my life in this country.”
Editors’ Note: The interviews featured in this story were all conducted in Spanish, and have been translated.
