Trump admin "disappeared" a gay stylist for propaganda. He hasn't been heard from since

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Trump admin “disappeared” a gay stylist for propaganda. He hasn’t been heard from since
Asylum-seeker Andry José Hernández Romero hasn't been heard from in 4 months despite never being accused of a crime

By Charles R. Davis
News Editor
Published July 16, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) He wept and prayed as the guard shaved his head, calling for his mother and proclaiming his innocence. Just a few months earlier, Andry José Hernández Romero had applied for asylum, citing the conditions he faced as a gay man and political dissident in Venezuela, a country that the U.S. government and its allies all deem to be an authoritarian, repressive threat to its own citizens. But now he was just a warm body to be paraded before the cameras — just content to be clicked or scrolled past on someone’s phone.

To his family, Andry was an actor, hair stylist and loving son, his dedication to mom and dad tattooed on his arms. To the Trump administration, he was an object that could be used in an ongoing, callous propaganda campaign, his brutalization serving as an advertisement for the president’s war on immigration. His very devotion to his family was used against him, his tattoos reinterpreted as evidence of loyalty to a gang, Tren de Aragua, that does not use tattoos to signify membership.

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Melissa Shepard, legal services director at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, told Salon that her organization began representing Andry on a pro bono basis in December 2024. At the time he was being held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, a privately-run prison along the U.S.-Mexico border. He had applied for asylum the right way — by scheduling an appointment and presenting himself at a port of entry — and yet was languishing behind bars. In March 2025, seemingly out of nowhere, it got so much worse.

“We say ‘disappeared’ — ‘disappeared to El Salvador,’ because that’s essentially what it is,” Shepard said in an interview. No one has spoken to Andry since March 14; not his family, not his legal team. In the four months since he was labeled a criminal and sentenced to de facto life in prison, without charge or trial or indeed anything approaching due process, the only evidence that he is in El Salvador are the images of him being abused the day that he arrived. The U.S. government has refused to release the names of the people it sent to CECOT, claiming they are now wards of El Salvador, even after it begrudgingly had Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. for a face-saving prosecution; in turn, El Salvador has insisted the 238 Venezuelans we know were sent to CECOT are indeed the responsibility of the Trump administration. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/07/16/trump-admin-disappeared-a-gay-stylist-for-propaganda-he-hasnt-been-heard-from-since/