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.
A portrait of Merwil Gutierrez-Flores, a suspected Tren de Aragua member who was charged with illegal weapons possession and other crimes in New York in February. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security)
“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.”
“When Americans break the law, they face consequences,” McLaughlin said. “Now, criminal aliens and gangs finally do, too.”
The law firm representing Gutierrez Flores did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gutierrez Flores’s deportation prompted claims that he was not the intended target of the ICE investigation that led to his arrest. Media outlets also reported that he had “no criminal record,” though his arrest records were not widely available at the time.
“Merwil became what Border Czar Tom Homan has referred to as ‘collateral,’” ABC7 said in a feature story on Gutierrez Flores.
“Merwil was detained for hanging out with friends and was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” attorney William Parra said in a Newsweek story. “ICE was not looking for him, nor is there any evidence whatsoever that Merwil was in any gang.”
Trump’s immigration officials have made a large priority of deporting suspected Tren de Aragua members despite ongoing court challenges. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele began assisting the U.S. with housing allegedly dangerous deportees after Trump returned to office.
Gutierrez Flores and his father crossed the border illegally and applied for asylum in 2023, ABC7 reported. The Trump administration says his case reflects the flaws of former President Joe Biden’s approach to immigration policy.
“Under our backlogged immigration system, this criminal illegal alien was allowed to live in our country and terrorize our communities till his February 1, 2027, immigration hearing,” the DHS told the DCNF.
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