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Joe Saldeno, 48, a Masters track runner, needs our help.
By Ray Glier
This isn’t a story about politics. It’s a story about values. Mine.
I have written about how masters athletes face and overcome hardships and this is one of those stories. I can’t ignore a Geezer Jock story because it might offend somebody politically.
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Jose Saldeno, 48, is training for the World Masters Athletics championships in Gainesville, Fla., next March ….in flip flops. That’s the cheap, easy, runaway-proof footwear they give inmates at the immigration prison in Natchez, Ms.
Jose is a guy who deals with what comes at him, so he rallies other inmates for circuit training, even in flip flops. The group runs laps around a rectangular room housing 160 men. They lift bottles of water and soft drinks banded together as weights. Most of the seven to 10 group members get tired and drop out after a while. Jose keeps going, as many as 6 kilometers per session.
“He knows God gave him this gift to teach people to exercise and be healthy,” said a friend, who didn’t want their name used. “Right now, he’s using it to help cope with this tragedy.”
The food is not good for prisoners, especially athletes. No fresh fruit and daily rations of processed soy. The lights in the room stay on throughout the night making sleep difficult. Saldeno doesn’t have to juice the conditions. It is well-accepted conditions are poor in the prisons.
A 400-meter guy, ranked 4th in the world in his age group and with multiple wins in USATF Masters nationals meets, Saldeno has a blend of speed, power, and endurance. If the WMA started tomorrow he would be seeded No. 1, based on those who have declared for the event.
The WMA is a longshot, but his friends, Masters track athletes Karl Ross, Tony Echiandea, and Hector Betancourt, still signed him up for the world meet in Gainesville. Another Masters champion, Moses Washington, talked him up.
“We ran a 600 and a 400. I was in the 40–44 age group, and he was in 45–49—and man, he blasted me! He showed me the caliber of athlete he was, how much he understood the sport, and how seriously he took care of his body,” Moses said.
“But what stayed with me most was what happened afterward. He noticed my shoes and gave me a brand-new pair of his own. He told me they would be better suited for the 800 and wanted me to have them to compete in. He didn’t ask for anything. I still have those shoes today, and I still compete in them.
“That’s Jose: competitive enough to push you, generous enough to help you.”
Saldeno was a superb runner in his native Venezuela. He was a top junior athlete and represented his country in international track meets in the 400 and 800. On top of that, Jose earned a degree as an agricultural engineer and was a highly-regarded physical education teacher.
But…the politics were brutal. Athletes supported by the state were expected to vote for Venezuela's leftist dictator, Hugo Chavez. They were accompanied into voting booths by party minders just to make sure. Many of Venezuelas' athletic hubs served as polling places for the country's sham elections. Such corrupt practices continued under the regime of Chavez's successor, Nicolas Maduro.
Saldeno hoped to compete in Lyon, France, at the WMA outdoor championships in 2015 and went to the sports ministry in Caracas to request funding for travel. He and several other masters athletes were met with hostility, and accused of being traitors. They were told, "You don't fit within ours plans," and escorted out of the building.
On the street, they were attacked by armed thugs. A female athlete was grabbed by her hair and beaten. "We know who you are ... We are going to come for you," they were told. They came for Jose with their boots. He was kicked in the knee during a protest and eventually it needed surgery.
It got worse. At a protest he attended in late 2016, Jose and other protesters were attacked by armed men on motorcycles known as "colectivos," the Maduro regime's roving henchmen. He recognized a leader of the teachers' union at the school where he worked, a man known and feared as a violent enforcer.
Jose was fired from his job, He was banned from all the state athletic facilities for refusing to take part in the propaganda and political indoctrination efforts using athletes. The regime made sure opponents, particularly well-known opponents, had trouble getting ration cards.
When the government threatened his family, Saldeno and his wife and two children were part of the wave of 2.5 million people who fled the oppression. Jose eventually got to the U.S. and was given temporary protection status by the U.S. government and allowed to work, like the thousands of Cubans who fled here to escape dictator Fidel Castro in the 1960s and 1970s..
Saldeno burst onto the scene at the USATF Masters Indoor Championships in 2022 when he entered the 400 as an “exhibition” runner and beat Durran Dunn in the 400. Jose, an interloper from another country, took Dunn’s spotlight in the biggest of cities and Durran still counts Saldeno as his friend.
In the 2022 outdoor nationals, Jose got silver in 52.06 while Dunn grabbed gold at 51.96. Durran electrifies Atlanta Braves fans as “The Freeze” challenging fans to mid-game races along the warning track after giving them a huge head start.
In 2023, indoors at the nationals in Louisville, Saldeno won the 400 and 800. He repeated in Greensboro outdoors in the nationals winning the 400 and 800.
In 2024 in Chicago in the indoor nationals, Jose won the 400. All the time, he ran as an “exhibition” in Venezuela’s colors. As much as Saldeno rejoiced in representing his country on the track, he knew it wasn't safe to go home.
In 2025, as his status became more precarious with the U.S. government, Jose’s training waned under pressure. In November, 2025, TPS was revoked for many Venezuelans by the U.S. He applied for asylum. It did no good.
On August 18, walking home in Hallandale Beach, Fla., from a YMCA workout, Jose was detained by ICE agents. They didn’t know his name, and they weren’t looking for him. He just looked Hispanic.
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Here is what I think. We should not have open borders. We cannot solve the hemisphere's economic issues, though the morbidly wealthy could do more, Teachers in Georgia, for instance, have told me their resources are stretched thin by overcrowding and parents could do more. Criminals who come here and commit crimes should be dragged off.
That said, Saldeno wasn’t arrested because he’s a criminal. He never broke any laws, as far as stealing and robbing people. He ran track and cross country. He coached young kids. He volunteered at youth camps. The Police Athletic League of Hallandale supported his asylum bid.
A Geezer Jock, with two children and a wife at home, without him, needs your help. I can’t ignore that, even if some of you think I am mixing politics in a sports story.
Jose’s prospects are grim. In all probability, he will not get out of jail in the U.S. Saldeno could self-deport to Venezuela, but that will take months and his safety could be in jeopardy. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently detainees can be sent to “third countries,” even if those countries are on the U.S. State Department list of countries the U.S. warns Americans from visiting because of human rights violations.
The U.S. invited Jose to stay while his asylum application was processed. The government gave him a work authorization. He proceeded to live here with permission. Then, in a flash, they took it away.
Jose’s imprisonment aligns with wider administration efforts to tighten entry standards and restrict lawful immigration pathways. I understand elections have meaning, no matter what side you are on. The majority of voters chose this path in 2024. The will of the voters has to be obeyed. Still, the U.S. government first gave Saldeno permission to stay.
Now, his family is in real trouble. They are not asking for your tax dollars, just help from whoever can give it.
A friend of mine talked to Jose by phone in prison.
“I’m not going to tell you I’m not worried,” Jose said.
Meanwhile, his wife and children scrape along.
“If it wasn’t for the church, we’d be on the street,” his wife told a friend of mine.
I have written just two stories that have been pleas for help in the last three years. This is one of those and I supplied necessary background. This isn't politics, Geezer Jocks. It is values.
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