U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Salin Dahel Ramos Alvarez at Nashville International Airport Oct. 22, the agency confirmed Oct. 26.
Ramos Alvarez's arrest shocked Nashville's community of rideshare drivers as a video of officers detaining him circulated online with a caption claiming that he was a Lyft driver who was dropping off a passenger when officers approached him. An ICE spokesperson said that information was not accurate.
"ICE arrested Salin Dahel Ramos Alvarez, a known or suspected terrorist gang member of Tren de Aragua Oct. 22 during targeted enforcement operation in Nashville, TN," the ICE spokesperson said in a statement. "Ramos Alvarez informed ICE officers he was not a Lyft driver but had been paid by an acquaintance
to drive them to the airport."
According to information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Ramos Alvarez is a resident of Venezuela and first crossed the border into the U.S. on Aug. 29, 2023, near El Paso, Texas. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents detained him and later released him.
ICE said an immigration judge ordered Ramos Alvarez to be removed from the U.S. on Nov. 28. 2023.
"The Trump administration has made public safety and immigration enforcement priorities," the ICE spokesperson said. "ICE officers carry out that mission every day to advance the administration’s homeland security mission and protect the American people.”
Immigration-related arrests and detainments have continuously climbed in Tennessee since President Donald Trump took office for his second term in January 2025. ICE quickly made its presence in Nashville known on May 2, 2025, when it began a mass operation that led to the arrest of 544 migrants in the Nashville area over a six-week span.
Since then, the agency decided to open two offices in Nashville, including a call center near the airport to support ICE's partnerships with local sheriffs and police departments.
The Oct. 22 arrest also follows a statement from Nashville airport officials confirming BNA's use of Flock Safety, a nationwide system of automated license plate readers and surveillance cameras that thousands of law enforcement agencies can access.
Flock stated on its website that ICE does not have "direct access to Flock cameras, systems, or data, unless the agencies that control their data expressly and deliberately allow it."
An MNAA spokesperson said the airport does not search the database on behalf of ICE, but airport cameras have been utilized for immigration-related searches.
"The MNAA Department of Public Safety does not conduct specific immigration, customs enforcement (ICE) searches on their behalf; rather, the standard database is simply accessible to organizations with FLOCK system access," MNAA said in a statement. "These agencies throughout the country are conducting searches with key terms such as 'immigration' or 'immigration-related activity,' and all external agency searches are recorded in our MNAA audit log. Please contact the respective agencies for greater details."
Hadley Hitson covers business news for The Tennessean. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work,subscribe to The Tennessean.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: ICE says man arrested at Nashville airport was not Lyft driver
