Jerce Reyes Barrios was a pro soccer player in Venezuela — an underdog living a sports-movie dream. Then he became an immigrant to Trump's America: The administration accused Jerce of being a gang member. ICE flew him to a terrorist prison in El Salvador. And his family hasn't spoken to him since. All of this... for a tattoo about his favorite football club. Paola Ramos reports on how Jerce escaped one dictator, only to be trapped by another, thanks to the very collapse of American democracy itself. • Read Paola Ramos' book, "Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America" https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741645/defectors-by-paola-ramos/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Jerce Reyes Barrios and what is his connection to Real Madrid?
Your fandom for Real Madrid is... It's real in the sense that I grew up in Madrid in the 90s when it's sort of exploding. I played basketball. Basketball was my thing. But there was no way to not love Real Madrid as a kid during those years. Everyone sort of was pulled into the game.
They incentivized young kids growing up around Spain to be a frontrunner.
You felt it in the streets. You felt it everywhere. It was amazing.
Watching this team, this club, excuse me, come to power, for people who don't know anything about Real Madrid, don't give a about soccer, what was that like?
That was like, to me, like 1998, I believe. It's when it happens. I think I'm like 10 years old. It's one of the first times that my mom lets me stay up super late. And we're all watching the Real Madrid team parading through the streets of Madrid, ending up in this huge fountain called Cibeles. They take off their shirts and they're just like drinking champagne.
There's this like turning point, no? In who Real Madrid is.
Yes, they become globally popular. They're globally... A brand that lots of people know and care deeply about who didn't grow up in Madrid like you. When it comes to your favorite player, though, the soccer player that you were most entranced by on this team, who would that be?
Well, I remember Iker Casillas. And I'll tell you, even as gay as you can get, but Iker Casillas. Everyone loved Iker Casillas, even my old little young gay self.
I am as straight as it gets, and I also love... So we're going to love each other.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of Jerce's tattoo and how did it impact his life?
We're literally talking about a tattoo. This is a story about the tattoo from hell. We're talking about 2018, the small town of Venezuela. And this tattoo is inked by this guy called Victor. And during that time, one of his best friends, Jersey Reyes Barrios, walks in, and he asks for a tattoo of the Real Madrid, the favorite soccer team of Jersey Barrios.
Jersey is someone that ends up becoming a goalie, ends up becoming a professional soccer player in Venezuela, but his very favorite soccer player is also Iker Casillas from Real Madrid. I mean, that was his dream and his idol growing up. He has a bunch of other tattoos. He has musical notes, a map of Venezuela, a goalkeeper, a hand with the pinky and the index fingers going up.
I'm imagining like the rock and roll thing, right? A pinky and index finger up like that. Exactly.
That's exactly that. And he also has tattoos of his two daughters. That's who Jersey is.
And so he walks in and he wants a new one. And his specific desire for this new tattoo is going to be what?
It's all based on his love for Real Madrid. And he asked for something very simple, and that is a ball with a crown sitting on top. If you zoom into this tattoo, it's the ball, a crown on top, a rosary.
But the Real Madrid part, I guess to do the little bit of Spanish translation I could do, Real means royal. That's right. And in this specific case, Real Madrid, more than any other club, has claims to being the royal franchise of Spain. This is sort of its own heritage is that it does have a crown as certainly the most distinguishing part of its own logo.
When Dircy walks into that tattoo parlor, he's specifically thinking about this team. And that's what the tattoo artist will tell you, that when he walks in and he gets this inked in his skin, it is all to sort of romanticize Real Madrid.
He might have been thinking at this moment about Iker Casillas as a goalie himself.
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Chapter 3: What mistakes did the Trump administration make regarding deportations?
A screw-up. Mr. Garcia was not supposed to be sent to El Salvador. He was sent to El Salvador.
Now, the case of Mr. Garcia and the men sent to El Salvador with him is held up in the courts right now, including the Supreme Court, as we wait to see, I suppose, if the rule of law under the Trump administration is going to hold. But meanwhile, we have been promised something. We have been promised that this is not a pattern.
I don't see any pattern here. I mean, you know, someday things may fly, but I doubt it.
But there is a pattern emerging, and you may have heard about this part too, these other horrifying ordeals for these alleged gang members.
Among hundreds of alleged gang members deported this past week to El Salvador was a Venezuelan migrant with a job and no criminal record. A gay makeup artist with no criminal record in this country or in his home country, Venezuela.
at least 44 of the individuals who appear on the list obtained by CBS News do not appear to have criminal records in the US or Venezuela.
And in fact, this administration this week has decided to display the faces of these alleged terrorists on the lawn of the White House itself, just in time, as it happens, for Saquon Barkley and the rest of the Philadelphia Eagles to visit and celebrate their big Super Bowl win.
all of which helps explain why the person sitting in our studio today is the Emmy-winning journalist Paola Ramos, most recently the author of a book called Defectors, The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America. And Paola is here with me because she has been reporting on immigration for a decade now.
And in fact, she just returned this week from the jungles of the Darien Gap between Latin America and South America. And she has also reported for Vice on the exact intersection of where our story is going to take us today. Tattoos, abductions, and now sports. This is a sports story in which we have a disappearing soccer player, a mystery around this tattoo from hell, as you called it.
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Chapter 4: Who is Paola Ramos and what perspective does she bring to this story?
But the interesting thing is that Jersey's dad is a portero. He's a goalie. Then Jersey started to see Papi.
So Diercy kind of grows up watching his dad playing soccer, and then he starts to sort of love the game and love the sport. Diercy's father starts training his son. Slowly, Diercy kind of forgets about baseball. He's completely focused on soccer, and this love for Real Madrid starts, this obsession with the game starts.
Chapter 5: What was Jerce's early life and soccer career like in Venezuela?
One of the things that his sister told me repeatedly was, I mean, literally, when his sister talks about Jersey, it's just football. That's literally all that she talks about because that's the image that comes to her mind. The thing about Yersin, that's what his sister describes, is that he kept going, like he kept fighting for this dream.
He starts training with one of his dad's former teammates. It's this coach named Yogerse Jose Viloria.
My name is Yogerse Viloria.
This coach is still in the very same town where Diercy grew up.
So describe what we're seeing here, this place that he grew up.
What was, I think, beautiful about this conversation that I had with the coach is that he was just like kind of, he couldn't wait to get out of that room and show me the field where he watched Diercy grow up. So there's this moment where he literally like takes me out. He's like, come with me. And he walks down the street and he starts, you know, he flips his camera the other way.
And he literally shows me this very humble field in the middle of nowhere. And you can see there's literally like not much around there. This gives them so much pride. This gives them so much dignity. And this is the field where this coach watches Jersey grow up.
So when he's climbing the ladder, what does his ascent look like through soccer to the pros?
He joins these travel teams. So he gets to travel across Venezuela, different regions, different cities. He then becomes a starting keeper on a champion under-16 national team. He actually made it to a tournament in Barcelona. So I'm just picturing Dirce. Oh, it's a dream. Exactly. This kid that is obsessed with Real Madrid. And he eventually makes it... knowing the Venezuelan pro football league.
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Chapter 6: Why did Jerce leave Venezuela and what challenges did he face as an immigrant?
We're very much involved with the Venezuela crisis. It's a horrible thing, a horrible situation. It's been brewing for many years.
A country that for many years at this point has been in the midst of a political and economic crisis.
Breaking news out of Venezuela where the political and humanitarian crisis has reached a boiling point.
So this football crisis, in the context of the larger crisis then of Venezuela, for people who are not familiar with the character of Maduro, how would you introduce him?
Nicolás Maduro is someone that many people in Venezuela and around the world would call a dictator.
President of Venezuela, Maduro, the now dictator. Dictator Maduro.
Nicolas Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power.
Because he's someone that continues the legacy of Hugo Chávez. Chávez has raised Nicolas Maduro to the seat of power. But he's particularly known for his political repression.
For the good, we are very good. For the bad, we are fearful warriors.
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Chapter 7: What is the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro?
For the last seven plus years, there's been over seven million people that have left Venezuela, that have migrated. And so I'll put it this way. Many of the images that you may remember from those thousands of asylum seekers.
Thousands of asylum seekers are still there, waiting and hoping in makeshift camps and shelters.
Many of them were Venezuelans escaping the Nicolás Maduro regime.
We're talking about a guy in Maduro who, by the way, isn't a friend of Donald Trump.
Trump casts himself as an anti-Maduro, anti-socialist, anti-communist American president. So Nicolás Maduro is one of Donald Trump's biggest enemies. This is where Darcy's fleeing from. He's fleeing from Maduro.
And so to fit Herce into this political matrix in which there's Trump and Maduro on opposite sides— Where does he fit when it comes to how explicit his beliefs are about what's happening?
So Dersi did something that thousands of Venezuelans did. Dersi decides to take the streets. And it was really brave knowing that is that in February 2024 and in March 2024, he decides to protest against the Nicolás Maduro regime. And I say that's very brave because we're talking about a regime known for having political prisoners.
So in the second demonstration that Dersi participates in, things get really dark. From what we've been told, after one of these protests, he's taken to this clandestine building.
And what does it look like behind the scenes when that happens?
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Chapter 8: How did Jerce's activism against Maduro's regime affect his fate?
There's thousands of asylum seekers like him that have to live in limbo. He then goes through the legal system to apply for asylum and to enter the United States. What does he do? He opens his CBP One application.
Download the CBP One app from the App Store or Google Play. The app is free.
Right, so he's downloaded the official app. This is how it worked. And this was under the Biden administration, by the way. This is just last year, the spring of last year.
It takes him approximately five months from when he leaves Venezuela until he enters the United States through the CBP One application.
And so he gets not asylum, but an appointment to make his case that he is deserving of the refuge that the United States is offering.
Exactly. So here comes September 1st, 2024. Dersi presents himself at the border. He's permitted to enter legally immediately, but then he's placed inside an ICE detention center in San Diego.
The waiting room is an ICE detention facility in San Diego.
That's right. Dursey at this point is waiting in limbo for a month. He's waiting for his scheduled immigration hearing. And he's there for so long that by January 16th, 2025, he actually spends his birthday inside this detention center. He turns 36 years old inside.
And that is a useful date for us because now, tracking quite neatly alongside January of this year, is the changeover in power from Joe Biden to Donald Trump.
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