Tito Alejandro Martínez Borrego is an only child from the Miranda State of Venezuela. According to his parents, Lorena Borrego and Tito Martínez, Tito worked with his family, while in Venezuela, as a taxi driver, as a street vendor and a scrap metal merchant. Tito does not belong to any gang and has no criminal record according to his family.
In 2023, Tito decided to go to Colombia with his wife and their one-month-old baby, but when they arrived in Colombia, they decided to continue to the United States. The journey was difficult. “They went through the jungle, got on the Black Beast (rode the commercial trains), all that stuff,” Tito’s father said.
Tito, his wife and baby, turned themselves in to Border Control at Ciudad Juárez, gate 36, to cross into El Paso Texas, on December 7th, 2023. Tito was detained for a week and released with an ankle monitor. His wife was also detained and kept in detention with their daughter.
When he was released, Tito worked in construction, in a mattress factory, and harvesting walnuts in Texas. He was going through the immigration process and showing up for his check ins. Tito also hired a lawyer to help his wife get out of detention, which was eventually successful, and the family was reunited after a nine-month long separation.
Tito’s next court appointment was March 17th, 2025, but he was arrested at a traffic stop on his way to work on February 7th, 2025, and put in detention. “When they realized he was a Spanish speaker, they asked him if he had a tattoo. So, yes, he showed them the tattoo, and that's when the ordeal began,” his mother said. According to his wife, Tito has tattoos of his daughter's name, his wife’s name, and religious images.
First, Immigration sent Tito to a detention center in Montana where he stayed for about a month, then they transferred him to another prison, a week before he disappeared. “The last day we heard from him, was [March] 14th [2025], when he told us that they were going to transfer them to Venezuela, so we waited and waited. In the afternoon, he contacted his wife and said that they hadn't been able to leave because there was a sandstorm, but that the next day, the 15th, they were going to be sent here, to Venezuela,” his mother said. “It turns out that we waited and he never arrived, nothing.”
On Sunday the 16th, the family learned that the planes had arrived in El Salvador, and they realized that the Venezuelans who had been told they were going to be brought home, to Venezuela, had gone instead to CECOT prison in El Salvador. They got confirmation from when Tito’s name was on the leaked list a few days later, “because we had never seen it on video, never anything,” she added.
Tito was never seen by a judge or given a trial before his incarceration, according to his family. After Tito’s arrest, a member of the family who was living in Mexico was able to get Tito’s wife and child to Mexico and Tito’s parents flew her and the baby home to Venezuela.
The family is frantic for news of Tito and worried about the treatment he is getting in prison. “I call on that government, the Trump administration and the Bukele administration as well, to reconsider this issue, that there is still time to do so. These young men are not criminals, that they do not live like criminals. I know my son, I gave birth to him, and I know who he is. Please, I beg you, I beg you as a mother. That is what I am asking. Please, have a little consideration for us,” Lorena Borrego said.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRCYN0w38So
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYyI4SddeFA
https://www.tiktok.com/@eucaris.gonzalez48/video/7486585301784169783
https://www.tiktok.com/@ncprofunda/video/7485051105504759046