On Monday, August 18, Andry Hernández Romero (Capacity, Venezuela, 32 years old) fulfilled one month in freedom after having been arrested for four months at the Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) of El Salvador. The American immigration authorities handcuffed him from hands and feet and deported him in mid -March under the law of foreign enemies, accusing him of being a member of the criminal band Train of Aragua. His case gained visibility immediately thanks to the effort of his family and friends who did not stop spreading evidence (such as his 12 years dedicated to professional makeup and his artistic activities) that moved him away from any illicit activity. Also its deportation – and that of more than 200 of its compatriots without criminal record – highlighted how the Trump administration was able to strip hundreds of foreigners of their rights in order to boost their anti -immigrant crusade.
“Our lives changed flatly, in all aspects. Our bodies are released today, but our minds are still there. We still do not understand many things, we still do not remember many things,” says Hernández Romero in video call with the country.
His return to the town of Capacity, in the Venezuelan Andes, became an event among his neighbors, friends and family who received him with boiled Tachirense and Cake. “I was impacted to see her nails. I had them as a homeless. He is a man who takes care of his personal image … It hurt to see him so demacrated,” says his best friend, Queen Cárdenas, who founded the committee in defense of the Tachirens deported and sent to El Salvador, along with other relatives of the detainees.
The journey that took him to the United States, crossing the jungle of the Darien and all Central America to Mexico, ended up without paying fruits. “I never stepped on a street in that country,” says Hernández Romero. On August 24, 2024 he appeared to an interview scheduled with the CBP One application, at the border point of San Ysidro, in San Diego (California). A preliminary evaluation passed and the officials determined that he had a founded fear of being persecuted if he returned home. However, during a physical exam, an agent detected his tattoos and decided to transfer him to the otay detention center of the same city. “I am eight years old with my tattoos, two crowns on my wrists with the word dad (father) and Mom (mother), in honor of my parents and the feast of the Magi of my people, in which I have participated for 26 years. I never thought they would confuse me with a gang member, ”he explains. In the points system that the National Security Department uses to catalog criminals according to his appearance, he received a score of five and an orange overall.
He was almost seven months in preventive detention and deportation risk. His lawyers Lindsay Toczylowski and Paulina Reyes of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, knew their case and quickly assumed their defense to win their asylum request in the courts (the one that claimed persecution for their sexual orientation and political ideas and was denied by a Judge of California at the end of May); But in March of this year, just before an audience in the Court that would define its situation, Hernández Romero was transferred to Nuevo Laredo (Texas) and deported to El Salvador.
His reception in the maximum security prison of President Nayib Bukele was marked by humiliation: he rapped his hair against his will. “If it was horrible for everyone to do it, imagine what it meant for a stylist like me to see me stuffed and completely bald,” he laments. “I am not a member of a band. I am gay. I am a stylist,” were the words he delivered at the time, and with which he would make a statement that would bring him harsh consequences during his stay in the prison.
“We entered 252 strangers, we left 252 brothers”
Hernández Romero shared a cell with another 19 companions in the CECOT. In an environment dominated by heterosexual men, in which machismo and discrimination are part of the group dynamics, the young makeup artist marked a line that allowed him to survive in the middle of the bars. “I am one of the people who think that for everything there is a space. One to behave seriously, one to Mariquearone to give joke. Since I stepped on El Salvador, I told others: ‘You respect me and I respect you. My card says male, so I behave like a man. Although sometimes I looked some pen to laugh and release the burden of what we were living (…) The truth was that we entered 252 unknown and we left 252 brothers, ”he says.
The companionship and respect among the detainees became even stronger after Hernández Romero lived the strongest episode since his deportation. “I was sexually abused at the CECOT. It happened a month and a half after my arrival. It has been very difficult to revive all this event, but as the mental health specialists who are attending me, you have to revive to heal and forget,” he confesses. The Tachirense was not the only homosexual between the group, but the only one who expressed it openly. “It was rumored that there were four other gay people, but they reserved it in its entirety,” he adds.
The guards, who remain hooded all the time during their functions, made him target. “Consider with me, that I give you the papers so that you are a Salvadoran woman,” “I’m going to make you get pregnant,” “here the maricos are accepted,” “Take the contraceptives so that they do not pregnant you,” were just some of the procacious comments he received since his entry into the prison. His companions began to realize the situation and to protect him accordingly, but none could avoid what happened later. “The United States government talks about the crimes that foreigners commit against their citizens, but silent when they are the ones who commit or allow crimes against others,” protests the Venezuelan, which appears as the main complainant in a lawsuit filed by the American Union of Civil Liberties (ACLU) against the Trump administration for immigrant deportations using racial profiles, led by the Secretary of National Security, Kristi NOEM.
The official’s visit to the CECOT at the end of March, after the arrival of Venezuelans, allowed Hernández Romero to raise his voice against the vexations and ill -treatment that barely began. “I was in cell nine and I could not see her because she reached only until five. I was not able to continue the tour because we started shouting at her: freedom, freedom! And to do international aid,” recalls the episode.
Make up again
Hernández Romero returned to Venezuela and has no plans to emigrate a second time. Being with your family is your highest priority these days, although it hopes to meet her partner, an American citizen resident in Pennsylvania, with whom she was in permanent communication during her arrest in California. “We still talk daily. He is a psychologist and has supported me throughout this process, but we don’t know when or where we will see each other again,” he says.
His return home has also meant starting almost zero. He arrived without clothes, without a cell phone and without much of the work material with which he had. He gave it to him before leaving. His friend Queen Cárdenas, who had been one of the beneficiaries of the gift, retained part of the makeup and returned it so that he could resume his trade.
“I have plans to set up my beauty salon, although I don’t know when it will happen because opening a company in my country is still uphill; but what I want most is to clean my name. I am not a terrorist. I am a man who has made radio, television, advertising and theater. I have nothing to do with gangs or crimes of any kind,” he defends himself.
Communication with his classmates in the CECOT has not diminished with the Terruño either. The 11 liberated from the CECOT that live in the state of Táchira and its surroundings opened a WhatsApp group to rely on the hard process of rehabilitation that they have had to live. “Sometimes we laugh at the things that happened to us not to feel bad, but there are times when loneliness invades us and it is difficult to remember,” he remarks. They also plan to make a trip with their relatives in the coming months.
For now, this Friday, August 22, in the town of Lobatera, Táchira state, the first reunion occurred. Hernández Romero attended the wedding among his partner, Carlos Uzcátegui, and Gabriela Mora. The wedding was a promise between the bride and groom after living months marked by the distance and the fight for the freedom of those deported to El Salvador. “I worked a lot with Andry’s family and that of other countrymen for their liberation, and just as they created very strong ties, families too. For me it is an honor that is he who puts on me and combs my wedding day,” says Mora to El País, the night before marriage.
Beside him, Uzcátegui, evokes a story that occurred with his partner, that he is participating in his marriage. “The night before they released us I could not sleep. I got up in the early morning and Andry, who was in the cell in front, greets me and says: ‘Quiet, that tomorrow we are going. Both try to pass the toughest page of their lives.
For more updates, visit our homepage: NewsTimesWire
