Andry Hernández Romero (Photo courtesy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center)
An immigration judge on May 27 dismissed the asylum case of a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who the U.S. “forcibly removed” to El Salvador.
The Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Andry Hernández Romero.
The Los Angeles-based organization in a press release notes Immigration Judge Paula Dixon in San Diego granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to dismiss Hernández’s case. A hearing had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday.
Hernández asked for asylum because of persecution he said he suffered in Venezuela because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs. NBC News reported Hernández pursued his case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
The Trump-Vance administration in March “forcibly removed” Hernández and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” Hernández is one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to force the U.S. to return those sent to El Salvador under the 18th century law.
The Immigrant Defenders Law Center says officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member because of his tattoos. Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly removed” from the U.S. remain at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month told gay U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that Hernández “is in El Salvador” and questions about his well-being “would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador.” Garcia, along with U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), were unable to meet with Hernández last month when they traveled to the Central American country.
“DHS is doing everything it can to erase the fact that Andry came to the United States seeking asylum and he was denied due process as required by our Constitution,” said Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski on Thursday in the press release her organization released. “We should all be incredibly alarmed at what has happened in Andry’s case. The idea that the government can disappear you because of your tattoos, and never even give you a day in court, should send a chill down the spine of every American. If this can happen to Andry, it can happen to any one of us.”
Toczylowski said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center will appeal Dixon’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.
The Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign, and other groups on June 6 plan to hold a rally for Hernández outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Protesters in Venezuela have also called for his release.
“Having tattoos does not make you a delinquent,” reads one of the banners that protesters held.
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