DHS Secretary Noem won’t commit to checking if detained gay makeup artist is alive 

The Secretary of Homeland Security is refusing to confirm if a gay makeup artist who was extrajudicially removed from the United States is still alive. Secretary Kristi Noem declined to answer questions about the status of Andry Jose Hernández Romero during a testy congressional hearing May 14.

Gay California Congressmember Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) grilled Noem over the case of Hernández Romero at the hearing. In March, Hernández Romero was removed by the Trump administration from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador with more than 200 other migrants.

Meanwhile, Hernández Romero’s attorneys are visiting San Francisco as his federal case continues.

Garcia – who recently went to El Salvador in an attempt to get answers about Hernández Romero, but was denied access – asked Noem for “proof of life of Andry.” Separately, Garcia did ask the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador to make an inquiry, which he agreed to do.    

“He has had no access to lawyers or family since he has been taken over a month now,” Garcia said. “His mother just wants to know if he is alive.”

After Garcia reiterated the question, Noem responded, “I don’t know the specifics of this individual case. This individual is in El Salvador and the appeal would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador on this.”

Responded Garcia, “You and the president [of the U.S.] have the ability to check if Andry is alive and is not being harmed. Would you commit to at least asking El Salvador if he is alive?”

Responded Noem, “This is a question that’s best asked to the president and government of El Salvador.”

Responded Garcia, “I think it is shameful that you won’t even request to see if this young man is alive. His family has no idea.”

As the B.A.R. has been reporting, Hernández Romero, 31, was featured on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on April 6. He was one of 238 Venezuelan migrants flown to the Counter-Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in El Salvador after the White House made an agreement with Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele to house them there. 

Human Rights Watch reports that the prison is the site of human rights abuses. Hernández Romero had been detained in a San Diego immigration jail since last year, when he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to attend a pre-arranged asylum hearing in the Southern California city, the Daily Mail reported.

In the related case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was also extrajudicially removed from the U.S. by the Trump administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the government had to facilitate his return from El Salvador. It has not done so. 

Earlier in the hearing, Garcia said to Noem, “You are breaking your oath.”

“You are violating that amendment as we speak,” Garcia said, referring to the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees due process to any person in the country. “Your department is deporting people without due process. … Without due process there is nothing that [President] Donald Trump could, essentially, be stopped [in] grabbing people off the street.”

The Trump administration alleged that the migrants sent to CECOT are members of the Tren de Aragua gang. (CBS News could not find U.S. criminal records in 75% of the cases, when it broadcast the “60 Minutes” story.)

In Hernández Romero’s case, the government argued in court that crown tattoos he had were evidence of gang affiliation. Hernández Romero has a crown tattoo on each wrist, with the words “Mom” and “Dad.” His hometown Capacho,

Venezuela is known for its celebration of Epiphany, the Catholic holy day when three wise men visited Jesus Christ.

Time magazine photographer Philip Holsinger told CBS News that he was at the prison site when the migrants arrived, and that he heard a young man say, "I'm not a gang member. I'm gay. I'm a stylist." He was crying for his mother while he was slapped and had his head shaved, Holsinger said.

Hernández Romero left Venezuela in May 2024, citing his political views and homosexuality as reasons to seek asylum. Venezuela is run by a dictator, Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. contends illegally claimed the presidency of the country after losing an election.

Cleve Jones, a longtime gay activist who co-founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt, helped lead a campaign with Nicole Murray Ramirez for Hernández Romero to be named an honorary grand marshal at Pride festivities across the U.S. At least one Pride event in Southern California agreed to do so. 

Jones stated about Noem’s testimony, “This is what evil looks like. And his case is just a drop in an ocean of pain. But pain is the point, it seems.”

Habeas lawsuit ongoing
Hernández Romero is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Trump for the extrajudicial removals. J.G.G., et al. v. Trump is currently before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Hernández Romero is one of 12 plaintiffs who’ve filed a habeas corpus claim. 

As the B.A.R. reported last week, federal Judge James E. Boasberg is considering whether Hernández Romero and others are in the actual or constructive (that is, true in the eyes of the court) custody of the U.S., which would mean Article I’s right to habeas corpus – a long-standing legal principle to compel a court appearance and, thus, prevent unlawful detention – applies. He ruled that, “The court believes that some discovery could aid its analysis.”

Boasberg ruled that news reports, and statements from El Salvador’s ministry of foreign affairs, Bukele, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are enough to lend credence to the allegation that the detainees are being held at CECOT at the behest of the U.S. government, but “some questions nevertheless remain about the precise nature of the confinement,” and the petitioners’ attorneys, therefore, should be able to seek discovery to determine whether their clients are “being detained in the foreign state to deny [them] an opportunity to assert their rights in a United States tribunal.”

Since then, plaintiffs have made known what they would like to seek discovery for, such as evidence the detainees are being held in El Salvador at the behest of the U.S. government.

In a court filing May 14, the justice department – using a line of reasoning similar to Noem’s – stated its objections to discovery.

Petitioners’ “request for discovery is unwarranted. The evidence produced by Respondents established that the United States does not have custody over the CECOT class,” the filing states. 

It continues that, “Petitioners ask this court to delve into the niceties of diplomatic negotiations,” and that that’s “unwarranted and inappropriate.”

Hernández Romero’s attorneys didn’t immediately return a request for comment by press time. 

SF Pride event
The attorneys will be in San Francisco for a SF Pride event at the Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, Tuesday, May 20, at 6 p.m. Tickets are free, according to the event page.  

Suzanne Ford, a trans woman who is executive director of San Francisco Pride, told the B.A.R. on May 15 that SF Pride had reached out to the lawyers. As previously reported, SF Pride declined to honor Hernández Romero as a grand marshal.

“What I really want to be known is just because we don’t agree with someone’s tactics doesn’t mean I don’t care for Andry or queer immigrants in our community. We obviously do,” Ford said, referring to the effort to name Hernández Romero an honorary grand marshal.

Ford said SF Pride’s board is “almost half queer, immigrant-experienced people,” and she made her decisions in consultation with them. She said this event will also feature organizations that “have been working on this subject that obviously includes Andry but isn’t just about Andry. It’s about all queer immigrants in this community and in this country.”

These include the Black Migrant Project, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, El/La Para TransLatinas, and the Asian Law Caucus. The event will be hosted by Michelle Meow.

SF Pride is also expected to discuss the case of Hernández Romero and other detained migrants as part of its Human Rights Summit during Pride week in June.