A tattoo belonging to “just an average middle-aged man from Derbyshire” has been wrongly used in a US government document to identify members of a deadly Venezuelan gang. The image has left Pete Belton shocked and concerned after discovering that photos of his arm are being used by Donald Trump’s immigration squads.
The 44-year-old, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, has no connection to Tren de Aragua (TdA), whose members are being hunted for deportation from the US. Pete said he was stunned to find an image of his forearm – featuring a tattoo commemorating his daughter’s birth – on the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guide. “I’m just an average middle-aged man from Derbyshire,” he said.
“It was a bit strange, bit funny at first,” he added. “But now I’m worried our family holiday to Miami could turn into a six-month all-inclusive stay at Guantanamo.” The DHS document, intended for use by immigration and border enforcement officials, includes a compilation of tattoo designs believed to be associated with TdA.
Among the nine tattoo images is Pete’s ink – a detailed clock face bearing the exact time and date of his daughter’s birth.
The use of tattoos as potential indicators of gang affiliation has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly as the Trump administration and its immigration agencies have stepped up deportations of suspected gang members.
Hundreds have already been expelled to high-security prisons in countries like El Salvador. In some cases, deportees and their legal representatives claim they were misidentified solely based on body art.
The document in which Pete’s tattoo appears states: “Open source material has depicted TdA members with a combination of the below tattoos,” including stars, crowns, and sports imagery. However, several of the tattoos featured in the document appear to have originated from publicly available online sources, rather than from law enforcement intelligence.
A reverse image search traced Pete’s tattoo image back to a 2016 Instagram post by a Nottingham-based tattoo artist. The image in the DHS document is lower quality but clearly shows the same tattoo and forearm. The same image also appears in a September 2024 report by the Texas Department of Public Safety concerning TdA activity in the United States.
Despite inquiries, neither the DHS nor the Texas authorities have explained how or why the image was sourced or included in official gang-identification documents.
In a brief email response, DHS said it stands by its law enforcement intelligence, stating its assessments “go well beyond just gang affiliate tattoos and social media.”
However, Pete remains concerned. “In my head, I’m thinking if I’m working in border force and I saw me walking through, I’d think ‘hey up, we’ve got one – he’s the one in the document’.”
Pete has provided multiple images of his tattoo to the media to prove its authenticity and ownership, and he stresses he has no ties whatsoever to Venezuela or any criminal organisation.
Court filings suggest that immigration officials use a points-based scoring system known as the “Alien Enemy Validation Guide” to determine suspected gang affiliation.
Tattoos can account for up to four of the eight points required to justify arrest or deportation. The guidance notes that if all points stem from tattoo-based evidence, officials should consult further before classifying a person as a TdA member. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official testified last month that no individuals have been deported solely on the basis of tattoos.
Nevertheless, legal experts warn that the inclusion of misleading or unrelated imagery in official documents raises serious concerns about due process and mistaken identity.
For Pete, the episode has turned an innocuous family keepsake into a bureaucratic nightmare ahead of his August holiday to the States.
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