Make-up artist Andry Hernandez Romero fled to America to flee persecution. The Trump admin as an alternative disappeared him and a whole lot of different contributors to a dictator’s infamous mega-prison
Andry Hernandez Romero hoped he’d discovered security after asking for asylum in the USA. Hernandez Romero, an overtly homosexual man and make-up artist who’d discovered regular work at a Venezuelan tv studio, had fled his dwelling nation after being harassed by armed vigilantes aligned with the Maduro authorities. Within the U.S., immigration officers decided “that his threats in opposition to him had been credible, and that he had an actual likelihood of successful an asylum declare,” his legal professional advised 60 Minutes.
Two crown tattoos had been the one proof the federal government offered in Andry’s asylum case earlier than he was despatched to a Salvadoran jail.Immigration authorities suspected the tattoo was gang-related, however his lawyer says his mother and father’ names are under the crowns, and so they honor his mother and pa.
— 60 Minutes (@60minutes.bsky.social) 2025-04-07T02:16:51.423Z
However regardless of passing his preliminary interview, Hernandez Romero was saved in detention. Like hundreds of thousands of individuals everywhere in the world, he has tattoos. His are crowns on every wrist, with the names of his mother and father beneath. “These crowns, based on the federal government, had been ‘figuring out components to conclude cheap suspicion,’” The New Yorker reported. Even if he was detained because of this innocuous set of tattoos, he had some hope he may ultimately win his freedom. However then Hernandez Romero didn’t present for court docket.
“Our consumer, who was in the midst of in search of asylum, simply disappeared,” legal professional Lindsay Toczylowski continued to 60 Minutes. “At some point he was there, and the following day we’re alleged to have court docket, and he wasn’t dropped at court docket.” Hernandez Romero had been amongst a whole lot of Venezuelan migrants who had been rounded up and purged to a infamous mega-prison in El Salvador, even though the overwhelming majority of them, 75%, had no obvious prison report in any respect, 60 Minutes mentioned in an April 6 phase. In a blockbuster report on April 9, Bloomberg mentioned its investigation confirmed that 90% of those males don’t have any prison report.
60 Minutes discovered no prison report for 75% of the Venezuelan migrants the U.S. despatched to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
— 60 Minutes (@60minutes.bsky.social) 2025-04-07T01:29:28.744Z
Toczylowski hadn’t been knowledgeable of his disappearance, nor had his household again in Venezuela, with whom he saved in touch by way of telephone. “However Andry did seem in pictures taken by Time journal photographer Philip Holsinger, who was there when the Venezuelans arrived at CECOT,” 60 Minutes reported. “Holsinger advised us he heard a younger man say: ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m homosexual. I’m a stylist.’ And that he cried for his mom as he was slapped and had his head shaved.”
“Our consumer, who was in the midst of in search of asylum, simply disappeared.”Lindsay Toczylowski represents 31-year-old Andry, a homosexual make-up artist from Venezuela who was flown to a infamous jail by the Trump administration after in search of asylum in the usMORE: www.cbsnews.com/information/venezue…
— 60 Minutes (@60minutes.bsky.social) 2025-04-07T01:53:26.399Z
This mass purging of immigrant contributors and asylum-seekers with no prison report to a infamous mega-prison – a Trump administration-created apply that’s netting El Salvador dictator Nayib Bukele’s authorities a reported $6 million in U.S. taxpayer {dollars} – ought to ship a chill down the spines of all People who care about their immigrant neighbors and are involved in regards to the due course of rights and freedoms of all people right here.
One of the crucial well-known abductions carried out by the Trump administration entails Maryland dad Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was despatched to the mega-prison though he had no prison report and had been granted protected standing by a federal choose underneath Trump’s first administration. Regardless of the administration ignoring the dad’s due course of rights and absolutely admitting that he was wrongfully shipped hundreds of miles away, the administration is actively refusing to deliver him again, combating a federal choose’s order and taking their despicable struggle all the best way to the Supreme Courtroom. These actions “pose a broader menace to the due course of rights and fundamental liberties and freedoms of everybody in America, noncitizens and residents alike,” America’s Voice Authorized Advisor David Leopold mentioned in his latest Washington Put up op-ed, noting that due course of is not any “mere authorized technicality.”
“It mandates that no particular person, together with noncitizens in the USA, be disadvantaged of life, liberty or property and not using a honest and simply course of. It’s enshrined within the Structure as a safeguard in opposition to arbitrary government energy,” Leopold wrote. “The Trump administration has used its first few months to focus on the due course of rights of immigrants. If left unchecked, its efforts will threaten the broader rights and liberties of us all.” And, the administration is overtly making these threats:
REPORTER: Over the weekend the president mentioned he can be prepared to have US residents deported to El Salvador. How would that work legally?LEAVITT: These can be heinous, violent criminals. These are violent repeat offenders. It’s an thought he has merely floated.
Throughout a White Home briefing this week, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt – who has beforehand said the administration’s outrageous stance that it believes all undocumented immigrants are “criminals” even when they really don’t have any report – issued a menace in opposition to the freedoms of all People by elevating the concept of sending U.S. residents to El Salvador. Leavitt claimed the proposal would contain solely so-called “heinous” “criminals” – however what was Andry Hernandez Romero’s crime? What was Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s crime? Trump, in the meantime, “responded positively to the concept,” Truthout reported. “‘I like that,’ Trump mentioned, including that he’d be ‘honored to offer them’ to that nation.”
And what would guarantee U.S. residents that they gained’t be caught up on this mass abduction and purging web too? In previous years, U.S. residents have been wrongly detained and deported by ICE. And whereas the all 9 Justices on the Supreme Courtroom mentioned within the Tuesday ruling lifting the short-term block on the 1798 wartime regulation that focused immigrants are entitled to due course of to problem their deportation, Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent provided a terrifying warning. “The implication of the federal government’s place is that not solely noncitizens but additionally United States residents may very well be taken off the streets, compelled onto planes, and confined to international prisons with no alternative for redress if judicial assessment is denied unlawfully earlier than removing,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
Trump administration officers are telling us precisely what they need to do – imagine them. Throughout a latest press gaggle, U.S. Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi claimed with none proof that the boys shipped off to El Salvador are violent. When challenged on the truth that the overwhelming majority don’t have any prison report, she merely walked away. Throughout a forceful Home ground speech, Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) mentioned that we had been being lied to and it was “optics over proof” with this administration. And people lies and optics over proof might value us all of the freedoms we maintain pricey.
If due course of is denied for anybody, it may be denied for you too. If anybody may be snatched off the streets, detained, and deported with out due course of, it may well occur to you too.We demand due course of is upheld for each single individual.
— Consultant Becca Balint (@balint.home.gov) 2025-04-08T19:06:57.795Z
“Andry just isn’t a gang member, he’s not a terrorist, he’s no menace to anybody,” Rep. Balint mentioned throughout her ground speech. “He’s a son, a brother, a make-up artist, a hairdresser. He’s a person who fled his nation to return to the USA as a result of he feared for his life as a result of he’s homosexual. We’re being lied to. These sorts of merciless techniques will not be essential to hold us protected. That is about taking away due course of, intimidating us into silence, and submission. If this administration will do that to Andry, they may do it to anybody. We’re all in danger. Shield due course of.”
