It’s a normal Friday night for Chiqui Versace. He is singing along with a mariachi band at El Marinero, a Mexican seafood restaurant in Warwick. The song is “No Llega el Olvido,” which roughly translates to “I can’t forget.” It’s a warm summer evening, and though there’s an outdoor patio, everyone is sitting inside in the large dining area, enjoying the music.
Versace is a promoter by night, furniture salesman by day. He has over 39,000 followers on Instagram alone. This is part of why he’s hired as a promoter: to attract his followers to restaurants and clubs. The other reason is his natural ability to get a crowd going – and when Versace decides it’s time to have a singalong with the Mariachi band, he gets the whole restaurant to join in.
Chiqui Versace is not his real name, but José Velasco Salcedo – Versace’s birth name – doesn’t really fit the persona. Most days he wears makeup, at least eyeliner and mascara. At times, Versace likes to wear dresses and skirts. He is flamboyant, and has created a community that adores him for it.
Versace has an impressive sunglass collection, something he’s very proud of. According to him, he has about 55 different pairs of designer glasses. They are all neatly laid out, and remain under lock and key when he isn’t showing them off.
He shows me one pair that he says go for $1,500 online. They were made famous by Rapper Notorious B.I.G. I ask him if he wears any of them. “I just keep them there,” he said with a laugh.
Versace’s apartment is tidy, with huge pictures on the walls – including a massive cutout of the Versace logo, which he got from a Versace store that was closing down. Statues of deities and orishas are everywhere. There are numerous pictures of Versace posing. Hanging on a wall in his bedroom is a large picture of him sprawled out on a couch, like the infamous “draw me like one of your French girls” scene in “Titanic.” There are also many photos and statues of his dog, Snow.
“I would rather die before him because I think the pain would be…it’s a lot,” Versace said, choking up. He got emotional pretty much every time he spoke about Snow. “He’s like a son, like a kid to me,” he said.
Versace got Snow seven years ago, and the white Bichon mix has been his close companion ever since.
Versace is 49 years old. Since coming here from Colombia at 16, he has achieved success, even fame. He has friends, family and community. Perhaps most importantly, he was able to come out as gay, and dress and be exactly who he wanted to be, without persecution.
Versace showed me photos of himself when he was 19 years old. At the time, he was trying to blend in as a straight man. Now he styles his hair, wears makeup, and makes sure his eyebrows are neat and perfectly arched.
Although Versace wanted to do all these things before, he felt that he couldn’t really be himself. “It was tough,” he said.
Versace didn’t come out as gay until his mid ‘20s. These days, he feels like he can be himself. Besides his love of makeup, he likes to match tight-fitting suit jackets with tight jeans. He likes a little sparkle on his shoes and jackets. And of course, he loves anything Versace.
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“It always was a dream”
Versace adores his mother. He chokes up every time he speaks about her. He says she is the one that wanted him to leave Colombia – in part, he suspects, because she knew that life would be difficult for him there as a gay man. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in 1981 in Colombia, during the 80s and 90s most gay people still felt the need to hide their sexuality in a country where machismo was deeply entrenched.
So, with his mother’s blessing, Versace left his hometown of Cali, Colombia in 1989. He came to the U.S. on a tourist visa for a trip to Disney World. Arriving in Florida, he said, was a huge culture shock. “I remember when I came and had my first McDonald’s, and I was like, ‘My god, what is this?’”
Versace, like many immigrants who come to this country, saw the U.S. as an opportunity to work hard, provide for his family and to finally be himself. “It always was a dream. It’s always a dream in our countries to come to the USA,” he said, “and to be able to make a good living and help out our family in Colombia.”
But this dream has come with a price. A big one. Versace is not an American citizen. He doesn’t have a green card. And until recently, José Velasco Salcedo, his real name, didn’t exist – at least not on North American documents.
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Versace Comes to America
After arriving in Florida Versace went to Queens, New York, to be with his brother and sister-in-law. Versace lived with them for a while, adjusting to his new home. A year later they moved to Rhode Island, where Versace’s brother quickly found work. Versace, however, did not. Unlike his brother, he didn’t have papers. With few options and mounting pressure from back home to send money, Versace made a decision that would affect him for the rest of his life.
“So that’s when the whole story starts,” Versace said. “That’s when the problem starts.”
Versace’s brother started working at an auto body shop in Pawtucket. He made some friends there, and explained Versace’s situation.
“He mentioned to them that I needed to work, but I didn’t have a [social] security,” Versace said. “So the gentlemen mentioned to him and his friends that they could help me by selling me a social security number.”
Versace can’t remember the exact amount, but for somewhere between $2,500-$3,000, a Puerto Rican man sold him an identity that would allow him to work in the U.S. “I remember, they gave us a birth certificate,” Versace said. “A very old certificate, and a social security card.”
Versace said that he was sold these documents by the nephew of the man to whom the papers belonged. At that moment José Salcedo Velasco became who, for legal reasons, we are going to call G.N. Versace got a job, and was doing really well. He was well liked at work, and he started to climb the corporate ladder. To everyone around him, he seemed to be a normal U.S. citizen.
Maribel Hiraldo is a good friend of Versace’s. She’s also from Colombia. She said that Versace was one of the first people she met after arriving in the U.S. At that time, Versace was working at Rent-A-Center, a rent-to-own electronics and furniture store. “I thought he was an American citizen because everything was very above board with him,” she said. “Everything had to be paid properly. He was always the first one doing his taxes,” she said.
Everything was going well for Versace. He was making good money, getting awards at work, paying taxes, and just living his life – until one day, when he received an unusual letter.
“I got a letter from the child support [office] in Puerto Rico saying that they were going to start taking money out of my check,” he said. Versace was confused; he had no children. But he decided to stay quiet, because he was afraid that, if he did something, the truth about his undocumented status would be discovered.
The Puerto Rican child support office known as ASUME had tracked down Versace with the social security number he had been using. Apparently, the man that had sold Versace his documents had two kids in Puerto Rico. ASUME, thinking that Versace was the real G.N., started automatically taking money out of his paycheck for two children. At one point they were taking as much as $150 a week. According to Versace, this went on for ten years.
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The problem with Puerto Rican birth certificates
Historically, in Puerto Rico, you needed a birth certificate for just about everything: summer camp, school, church groups. As one government fact sheet put it in 2010, “many common official and unofficial transactions in Puerto Rico unnecessarily required the submission, retention, and storage of birth certificates.”
This led to many birth certificates being stolen and sold on the black market. At one point, 40% of passport fraud cases investigated by the U.S. government involved the birth certificates of people born in Puerto Rico. It was so prevalent that in December 2009, the Puerto Rican government enacted a new law that required all Puerto Rican-born individuals to renew their birth certificates. The government claimed that the new document would have enhanced security features, making it more fraud-resistant.
When this new requirement was announced, that’s when the real G.N. – the Puerto Rican one – showed up at Versace’s doorstep. Chiqui Versace meets the real GN
Versace invited him in. It’s not clear how the real G.N. found Versace, but it was probably easy enough through a quick Google search. Even today, when you Google G.N.’s name, all of Versace’s past addresses come up.
“We sat down for like about two, three hours,” Versace said.. They talked over coffee, empanadas and pastelitos made by Versace’s mom, who was visiting at the time.
Ultimately, G.N. said that Versace could continue using his ID – but that he would have to start paying for it.
“So that’s when the type of extortion starts,” Versace said. G.N. demanded that Versace give him cash. Versace said he gave him what he had, and promised to send him more.
According to Versace, at that point the real G.N. was flying back and forth from Puerto Rico and the mainland U.S. G.N.’s son lived in Connecticut, so he would spend time there. Every month, Versace would drive to Connecticut to give G.N. whatever money he could spare. “Five hundred, whatever I had – a thousand, two thousand, whatever he demanded,” he said.
G.N. even demanded that Versace buy his son a car, which he did. Versace felt stuck. He liked his life here, and he needed to continue to support his mother back home. Giving up G.N.’s social security would mean losing his job. Going to the authorities would mean he would be jailed, deported or both.
So Versace continued to give G.N. what he wanted whenever he asked. G.N. eventually asked Versace to stop working so that he – the real G.N. – could go on Medicaid.
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“They’re looking for you”
Versace said he didn’t do anything because he didn’t want to stop working. He also felt that, after decades of paying into the system, that money was rightfully his.
According to Versace, G.N. had started to have health problems and would come to Rhode Island for healthcare appointments. On one of those visits in 2018, the real G.N. went to Rhode Island Hospital – the same hospital where Versace had received treatment many times, and where they had a picture of Versace on file under G.N.’s information.
“That’s when everything exploded,” Versace said. Apparently, government authorities were notified of this discrepancy as a potential identity theft or fraud case.
According to Versace, government agents later questioned the real G.N. He said that he had no idea who could have his identity, that it must have been stolen. Versace later told government agents that this was around Nov. 1, 2018.
After the agents left, G.N. called Versace from an unknown number. Versace said that G.N. warned him: “They’re looking for you. You need to run, disappear, hide, die, whatever you have to do, because they’re looking for you now.”
After his call with G.N., Versace called a friend, Joseph Molina Flynn, who is now his immigration attorney. Flynn told Versace to keep living his life. Until the day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement or another government agency came looking for him, Flynn said there was nothing that they could do legally in the interim.
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“The worst day of my life”
That day arrived on May 6, 2019 – the day after Cinco de Mayo. “Good thing that I didn’t drink that much that day,” Versace joked. Though he can laugh about it now, he described it as “the worst day of my life.”
Versace was arrested. Agencies involved in the case included Homeland Security, Department of Labor, the Social Security Administration and a couple others. This was a serious situation for Versace, but for the first time in 30 years, he was able to stop pretending to be someone else.
“I cried and I cried and I cry,” Versace said. “When they arrest me, it was the first time that I was able to use my name, so it’s a relief – it’s a relief now that I can be Jose Velasco. I don’t have to be the other person anymore.”
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The United States of America versus José Velasco Salcedo
Versace went to jail for 30 days. This is when he met Kevin Fitzgerald, an assistant federal public defender in Providence. Fitzgerald said he quickly became intrigued by Versace’s “compelling and different story,” and that he’d never had a client quite like him.
Versace finally got his day in court on May 17, 2022. It had taken three years just to get a date – partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because of the investigation into the real G.N.
A group of friends and family came to support Versace, including his brother and sister-in-law, who now own a local restaurant. He was dressed in a gray suit jacket with a black shirt underneath. His hair was slicked back and he wore no visible makeup that day. I’m not sure why, but it was the first time I realized that Versace could be facing some serious jail time. Years, in fact. Waiting outside to be called into the courtroom, Versace said that he wasn’t nervous, but I could tell that he was. I was nervous for him.
The day before, Fitzgerald had sent a memorandum to the court. It was titled “United States of America versus José Velasco Salcedo.” The first paragraph reads:
“Jose Velasco comes before this Court for sentencing having pled guilty to violations for the use of another’s identity. The unique circumstance for Mr. Velasco is that he really has a claim to 3 different identities. The first, and most pedestrian, is Jose Velasco Salcedo. The second, which encompasses a curious tale and is the root of the charges here; G.N. The third identity, Chiqui Versace, represents his true personhood and how he is seen in the community. Telling the story will not take long, but at the end the Court should conclude that a non-incarceration sentence is appropriate.”
The judge had a lot of questions. “What happened to the real G.N?” “Why wasn’t he prosecuted?” He seemed puzzled by the case.
Despite The U.S. Attorney’s Office recommending jail time, Versace received none. In the judge’s final remarks to Versace, he said that it would be punishment enough that Versace would never be able to obtain U.S. citizenship.
Versace would also have to pay restitution back to the state. A sum of $40,867, to be exact. That was later amended to less than $4,000, which Versace has nearly paid off.
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“I would rather kill myself”
Versace cannot apply for any type of status here in the U.S. due to his run-in with the law.
“All I ask is just an opportunity to get a number to pay taxes,” Versace said. “Going back to Colombia is just throwing me into the gutter to die.” Despite advances in legal protections, many in the LGBTQIA+ community still experience persecution in Colombia. “I told them I would rather just kill myself,” he said.
For now, all he can do is hope that ICE doesn’t come for him and deport him back to Colombia. If deportation proceedings were initiated, his immigration attorney, Flynn, would step in.
Flynn said that, if it can be proven that Versace’s life would be at risk if he was deported, then he might be able to stay and obtain a work visa – but if he’s not granted this type of status, he would be deported.
“I had several conversations with him about whether he thought the risk was worth it or not,” Flynn said. Chiqui decided that “perhaps living undocumented wasn’t so bad, if the alternative was to voluntarily submit himself to deportation proceedings that he could either win or lose,” Flynn said.
I asked Flynn if he knew of other undocumented individuals who had bought someone’s identity and ended up being extorted. “More than you would think, unfortunately,” he said.
“I know enough people that are still in these extortionate relationships, but they’re kind of damned if they do and damned if they don’t.” If they go to the authorities, Flynn said, they will most likely face deportation proceedings. Because of that, he said, many people prefer to remain in these relationships in order to remain in the country.
Flynn also said that, because the pathway to U.S. citizenship is so convoluted and difficult, some individuals feel like they have no other choice but to buy papers. Most of the time there is no pathway for individuals already in the U.S. illegally, so purchasing a U.S. ID is one of the only ways to reduce the risk of being deported by ICE.
I scheduled an interview with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Rhode Island, but they canceled. When I asked to reschedule, they sent this email response: “As these types of cases may be the subject of ongoing investigation and prosecution, we are going to withhold discussing them at this time.”
To my knowledge and everyone else’s that I had spoken to, Versace’s case was closed. Did this mean they were looking to prosecute the real G.N.? When asked if that was the case, they emailed back: “It is the policy of this office and the Department to neither confirm or deny whether we are or are not investigating a matter.”
Like millions of immigrants living in this country, Versace came here to work, pay taxes, support his family and to be himself. Now, every day Versace lives with the possibility that he will be sent back to Colombia – a country that he doesn’t even really know. A place where he would have to hide a large part of who he is. Although his future here is uncertain, at least for now he is free.
Free to be Chiqui Versace.
