Protest seeks gay man’s release from El Salvador

Nearly 200 people turned out for a rally April 26 in Jane Warner Plaza in the Castro in support of gay makeup artist Andry Jose Hernández Romero and demanded the Trump administration release him from a Salvadoran prison where officials had sent him weeks ago. Participants included Xochitl, an undocumented drag queen, who performed a number and distributed white roses in support of Hernández Romero. Protesters also decried the lack of due process in Hernández Romero’s case, as well as the cases of hundreds of other migrants Trump officials extrajudicially removed from the United States. Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, an LGBTQ bar association, also issued a statement in support of Hernández Romero. “BALIF wholeheartedly supports the legal efforts being made to bring back Andry, Kilmar, and the other deportees,” the organization stated, referring to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another detainee. “As enshrined in our Constitution, BALIF believes due process rights are the bedrock of our American justice system.”