Newsom asks Trump administration to bring deported Venezuelan immigrant to the U.S.

SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on Thursday requesting that the federal government bring Andry José Hernández Romero, a Venezuelan immigrant who was deported to a maximum security prison in El Salvador last month, to the U.S. for a judge to evaluate his case.

Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old makeup artist who is gay, sought asylum legally due to persecution for his sexuality and opposition to Venezuela’s ruling party.

“Despite having no criminal record, he was denied the opportunity to defend himself against unsubstantiated allegations of gang involvement or to present his asylum claim,” Newsom wrote to Noem.

The case has drawn national attention and criticism of the Trump administration over allegations that innocent immigrants who entered the U.S. legally have been detained and deported without due process in a campaign the president said is aimed at removing “terrorists” and gang members from the country under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

“We are not a nation that sends people to be tortured and victimized in a foreign prison for public relations victories,” Newsom wrote to Noem. “I urge you to reevaluate your policies and ensure due process for everyone under the control of the U.S. judicial and law enforcement system, including those wrongly sent to El Salvador, as federal law requires.”

Hernández Romero appeared at an initial asylum appointment in August at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. A Border Patrol agent alleged that his crown tattoos proved affiliations with the Tren de Aragua gang. He was detained in Otay Mesa for months before he was deported to El Salvador with more than 250 other immigrants in March.

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Attorneys and family members of Hernández Romero have argued that he’s innocent and not a gang member.

“I think, unfortunately, he ended up getting caught in the government’s agenda of trying to end asylum, and I think that he was probably an easy target for the fact that he had tattoos,” said Melissa Shepard, one of his attorneys with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles.

His tattoos are a homage to the arts, his family and his longstanding participation in an annual Three Kings Day celebration and play in his hometown in Venezuela. “Mom” and “Dad” are tattooed below the crowns, Shepard said.

He has no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela, Shepard said. His legal team said he has a strong case for asylum, but they’re navigating “uncharted territory.”

“We’ve never had a client who was disappeared mid proceedings and not afforded his due process to see his asylum case through,” Shepard said.

The Trump administration has defended the deportation of Hernández Romero. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Homeland Security, alleged in a post on the social media platform X that “DHS intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang affiliate tattoos.”

“This man’s own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua,” McLaughlin said.

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Joe Rogan, a prominent podcaster and Trump supporter, called the situation “horrific” on his show. Rogan said it hurts the president’s cause when “innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs.”

In his letter to Noem, Newsom said he wrote to express his concerns that deporting people without due process is “a dangerous precedent that threatens to irreparably stain the reputation of the Department of Homeland Security and this country.”

“Mr. Hernández Romero should be immediately returned to the United States for an immigration judge to evaluate the merits of his case,” Newsom said.

Newsom said California has a “vested interest” in the issue of immigration as a “state that has thrived and prospered for nearly 175 years because of vibrant immigrant communities and the rule of law.”

The governor traveled to El Salvador in 2019 for a trip he said was intended to help him better understand the forces driving immigration from the Central American country to the U.S. At the time, then-President Trump had pledged to cut federal aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as punishment for not slowing migration.

Newsom met with outgoing Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén during the trip and separately sat down with successor Nayib Bukele.

As president, Bukele has become an ally in Trump’s effort to deport immigrants during his second term. Bukele agreed to accept the immigrants accused of being gang members during the mass deportation event in March.

Trump publicly thanked Bukele, who is scheduled to visit the White House on Monday to discuss their cooperation on deportations.

The Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo prison in El Salvador, where Hernández Romero is being held, is “notorious for human rights abuses,” Shepard said.