Criminal Docs Blow Apart Media Narrative About Migrant in El Salvador Prison

A deported illegal migrant whose family claimed he had no criminal history has previously been accused of several crimes, including carrying a loaded firearm near a school in February, records show.

New York police arrested 19-year-old Merwil Gutierrez Flores on Feb. 25 on three felonies and a misdemeanor a day before immigration authorities arrested him, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. After being sent to prison in El Salvador, Gutierrez-Flores has been at the center of sympathetic media coverage publicizing his family’s claims that “he’s never been accused of a crime.”

The document reveals Gutierrez Flores, a Venezuelan, was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, carrying a loaded firearm on school grounds, fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and unlawful possession of ammunition feeding devices. President Donald Trump’s FBI contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) about Gutierrez Flores a day later.

The DHS report alleged Gutierrez Flores “has been identified as [an] Associate/Active of” the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Officials deported Gutierrez Flores to the “Terrorism Confinement Center,” or CECOT, in El Salvador on March 15, the DHS said in a statement to the DCNF.

“Merwil Alberto Gutierrez Flores was deported to CECOT because he is an associate of Tren de Aragua — a foreign terrorist organization — whose criminal record included an arrest for having a loaded firearm and ammunition feeding devices at a school,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. “The Biden Administration released this dangerous criminal into our communities in 2023. President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem are getting these criminals off our streets and out of country.” (Read more from “Criminal Docs Blow Apart Media Narrative About Migrant in El Salvador Prison” HERE)