Growing up in Venezuela, Andry Hernández Romero discovered an early love for theater, costume design and makeup by participating in the annual festival of his small city for the day of three kings.
“He designed and sewed his own costumes, and made up all women in the parade,” said Reina Cardenas, a close childhood friend of Hernández.
Later, while he was following a race as a makeup artist, Hernández had a tattooed crown in each of his wrists. His family says that tattoos were a symbol of his beloved festival of the three Kings.
But they are also, according to the US government records, which led him to a plane full of Venezuelan men, the Trump administration deported a megaprison in El Salvador.
These deportations, carried out without judicial hearings under the Aien Enemies Law, are now subject to a heated legal battle that has reached the Supreme Court, and that some say that it has taken the country to the edge of a constitutional crisis.
For Hernández’s family, deportations are a source of constant anguish. They have not had contact with Hernández since March 14, the last time they spoke on a phone from an immigration detention center in the United States.
“I think of him every day; I cry for him every day,” said his mother, Dolores Alexis Romero de Hernández. “What are you doing, how are you treating it? Are you there with bad people?”
Hernández is from Capacity, a city in western Venezuela with a centenary tradition of organizing a festival prepared with parades and theatrical performances on the day of the three Kings, a Christian vacation in January. Hernández met many of his childhood friends, including Cárdenas, through his participation in the festival, but was more excited to participate than most.
“Andry dedicated his life to arts and culture, and worked hard to improve his trade,” Cardenas said.
Later, Hernández moved to Caracas for a job as a makeup artist for a state television station. There, he told his family and his lawyers that he experienced a humiliating and discriminatory treatment for his sexual orientation (Hernández is Gay) and for his opposition to the authoritarian government of Venezuela.
In May, Hernández left for the United States.
He crossed the border in a legal entrance port with an appointment under the CBP One program of then President Joe Biden. Then, he asked asylum.
However, due to his tattoos, he remained in detention during the months he spent in the United States. The judicial records presented by their lawyers show that immigration officers took photos of all their tattoos: a snake, roses, flowers and a butterfly.
But they were the crowns on their wrist that, according to the records, made the officers associate it with an infamous Venezuelan gang.
“It has been discovered that the crown is an identifier for a member of the train gang of Aragua,” an officer wrote.
Experts who study Aragua train say that the gang, unlike other criminal groups, does not use tattoos such as membership markers.
“It is not like Central American Maras”, such as MS-13, which began in Los Angeles, but extended to Central America after the members were deported there, “or the Latin Kings, where in some cases it needs to have a certain tattoo to belong to the gang,” said Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan research journalist and author of a book on Train of Aragua. “You can make a tattoo and not belong to the gang, or you cannot do any tattoo and belong to the gang.”
Hernández’s tattoos were applied by José Manuel Mora, a tattoo artist who is a capaco friend. “For Andry, they had a special meaning due to the Festival in Capacity,” said Mora.
But crowns tattoos were also extremely popular at that time. “It was the trend,” said Mora. “Between 2017 and 2019, I must have made about 60 crowns tattoos only for people from our small town.”
In the months that Hernández spent immigration arrest in the United States, he was represented by a Pro Bono immigration lawyer. When Hernández did not appear at a hearing in his case as asylum, the government informed the lawyer who had been transferred to El Salvador.
“This is not preceded,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the organization that represents Hernández. “We have absolutely no access to our client, nor is it clear what court has jurisdiction on it at this time.”
Hernández’s lawyers pursue multiple routes to get him out of prison, but they say that the main obstacle to doing so is the Trump administration itself.
“The Trump administration could send a plane to Venezuela, admit its mistake and bring it back today,” said Toczylowski.
The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
In March, a spokesman for the National Security Department published in X that Hernández’s “social networks indicate that he is a member of Train de Aragua.” However, he did not cite specific publications, and a NBC news review of the well -known social media accounts in Hernández found no indication of gang activity.
The case has caused criticism of the Trump administration of some unexpected sectors, including Podcast and Trump’s ally Joe Rogan.
“That is horrible,” Rogan said in his podcast, calling Hernández’s deportation “a horrible mistake.”
Meanwhile, Hernández’s loved ones have to ask about their destiny.
Cárdenas cares, in particular, about what type of treatment could receive due to their sexual orientation.
“That worries us immensely,” he said. “It’s something that keeps me awake at night.”
