He followed all the immigration rules but still ended up in one of the world's most notorious prisons

Reporting by Melissa Sanchez/ ProPublica , Mica Rosenberg/ ProPublica , Ronna Rísquez/ Alianza Rebelde Investiga , Perla Trevizo/ ProPublica and The Texas Tribune , Jeff Ernsthausen/ ProPublica & Adrián González/ Cazadores de Fake News

José Manuel Ramos Bastidas never set foot in the U.S. — at least not as a free man. He left Venezuela in January 2024, hoping to earn enough money to pay for his newborn son’s medical needs. Born with a respiratory condition, the family’s “milagrito,” or “little miracle,” had severe asthma and repeatedly needed to be hospitalized. The cost of treatment had become impossible to manage on the meager wages Ramos made washing cars in Venezuela’s collapsed economy, so he trekked thousands of miles through a half dozen countries