Maiker Espinoza Escalona, his partner Yorelis Bernal Inciarte and their one-year-old baby, Maikerlys entered the United States in May, 2024 and requested asylum, hoping that after turning themselves in to authorities they would be released and allowed to begin their new life as a family.But that would never happen.
The three have been separated since they turned themselves in,their family told ABC News. Yorelis was detained at a detention center in El Paso, Texas, the baby has been in government custody. Maiker, a tattoo artist and barber with many tattoos, was first sent to Guantanamo and is at the notorious prison CECOT in El Salvador.
A White House official said Maiker is a “confirmed Tren de Aragua gang member convicted of prostitution and recruiting.”
But ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt, who is representing Maiker, said that it was the first he had heard of any of these accusations, and that those charges were “not in his file” when he was apprehended.
“We have serious concerns about the government’s sudden allegations against him, which is precisely why he and others being sent to the Salvadoran prison must be given due process to test the government’s assertions,” the lawyer said.Maiker’s family say that he has no ties to any gang and no criminal record.
Yorlis, Maiker’s partner was kept in a detention center for nearly a year and and then on April 24th, 2025, Yorelis was deported to Venezuela without her daughter, who is now two years old.
The coordinator of the Return to the Homeland Plan, Anais Arismendi, told the multi-platform news channel teleSUR that the girl, Maikerlys, is in a foster home, so "she is institutionalized, she is in what would be a foster home there, so the State has more responsibility, because knowing where she is, they should have handed her over."
Yorelis reported that that she believes one of the foster families her daughter stayed with was linked to an investigation into child sexual abuse.
(info from teleSURTV, Madelein Garcia on X, ABC news- Laura Romero, Yorelis' tik tok, Washington Post- Arelis R. Hernández and Natalie Allison)
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