Men who were part of the group of Venezuelan migrants that the United States government transferred earlier this year to a prison in El Salvador demanded justice on Friday, days after a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Trump administration must give them legal due process.The men told reporters in Venezuela’s capital that they hope legal organizations can push their claims in court. Their press conference was organized by Venezuela’s government, which had previously said it had retained legal services for the immigrants.On Monday, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to give legal due process to the 252 Venezuelan men, either by providing court hearings or returning them to the U.S. The ruling opens a path for the men to challenge the Trump administration’s allegation that they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang and subject to removal under an 18th century wartime law.The men have repeatedly said they were physically and psychologically tortured while at the notorious Salvadoran prison.”Today, we are here to demand justice before the world for the human rights violations committed against each of us, and to ask for help from international organizations to assist us in our defense so that our human rights are respected and not violated again,” Andry Blanco told reporters in Caracas, where roughly two dozen of the migrants gathered Friday.Some of the men shared the daily struggles they now face — including fear of leaving their home or encountering law enforcement — as a consequence of what they said were brutal abuses while in prison. The men did not specify what justice should look like in their case, but not all are interested in returning to the U.S.”I don’t trust them,” Nolberto Aguilar said of the U.S. government.The men were flown to El Salvador in March. They were sent to their home country in July as part of a prisoner swap between the Trump administration and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.Camilla Fabri, Venezuelan vice minister of foreign affairs for international communications, said Maduro’s government is working with a bar association in the U.S. and “all human rights organizations to prepare a major lawsuit against Trump and the United States government, so that they truly acknowledge all the crimes they have committed against” the men.
Men who were part of the group of Venezuelan migrants that the United States government transferred earlier this year to a prison in El Salvador demanded justice on Friday, days after a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Trump administration must give them legal due process.
The men told reporters in Venezuela’s capital that they hope legal organizations can push their claims in court. Their press conference was organized by Venezuela’s government, which had previously said it had retained legal services for the immigrants.
On Monday, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to give legal due process to the 252 Venezuelan men, either by providing court hearings or returning them to the U.S. The ruling opens a path for the men to challenge the Trump administration’s allegation that they are members of the Tren de Aragua gang and subject to removal under an 18th century wartime law.
The men have repeatedly said they were physically and psychologically tortured while at the notorious Salvadoran prison.
“Today, we are here to demand justice before the world for the human rights violations committed against each of us, and to ask for help from international organizations to assist us in our defense so that our human rights are respected and not violated again,” Andry Blanco told reporters in Caracas, where roughly two dozen of the migrants gathered Friday.
Some of the men shared the daily struggles they now face — including fear of leaving their home or encountering law enforcement — as a consequence of what they said were brutal abuses while in prison. The men did not specify what justice should look like in their case, but not all are interested in returning to the U.S.
“I don’t trust them,” Nolberto Aguilar said of the U.S. government.
The men were flown to El Salvador in March. They were sent to their home country in July as part of a prisoner swap between the Trump administration and the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Camilla Fabri, Venezuelan vice minister of foreign affairs for international communications, said Maduro’s government is working with a bar association in the U.S. and “all human rights organizations to prepare a major lawsuit against Trump and the United States government, so that they truly acknowledge all the crimes they have committed against” the men.
A federal judge ordered Friday that U.S. immigration officials could not detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia, hours after his release from immigration detention.Abrego Garcia was appearing Friday morning for a scheduled appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, some 14 hours after he was released from detention on a judge’s orders. His lawyers asked the judge to block authorities from detaining him again.Officials cannot re-detain him until the court conducts a hearing on the motion for the temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said. She wrote that Abrego Garcia is likely to succeed on the merits of any further request for relief from ICE detention.“For the public to have any faith in the orderly administration of justice, the Court’s narrowly crafted remedy cannot be so quickly and easily upended without further briefing and consideration,” she wrote.Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown earlier this year when he was wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. He was last taken into custody in August during a similar check-in.Abrego Garcia on Friday stopped at a news conference outside the building, escorted by a group of supporters chanting “We are all Kilmar!”“I stand before you a free man and I want you to remember me this way, with my head held up high,” Abrego Garcia said through a translator. “I come here today with so much hope and I thank God who has been with me since the start with my family.”He urged people to keep fighting.“I stand here today with my head held high and I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me,” Abrego Garcia said. “Regardless of this administration, I believe this is a country of laws and I believe that this injustice will come to an end.”After Abrego Garcia spoke, he went through security at the field office, escorted by supporters.The agency freed him just before 5 p.m. on Thursday in response to a ruling from Xinis, who wrote federal authorities detained him after his return to the United States without any legal basis.Mistakenly deported and then returnedAbrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager to join his brother, who had become a U.S. citizen. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, where he faces danger from a gang that targeted his family.While he was allowed to live and work in the U.S. under ICE supervision, he was not given residency status. Earlier this year, he was mistakenly deported and held in a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison despite having no criminal record.Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, Trump’s Republican administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked a federal judge there to dismiss them.A lawsuit to block removal from the USThe 2019 settlement found he had a “well founded fear” of danger in El Salvador if he was deported there. So instead ICE has been seeking to deport him to a series of African countries. Abrego Garcia has sued, claiming the Trump administration is illegally using the removal process to punish him for the public embarrassment caused by his deportation.In her order releasing Abrego Garcia, Xinis wrote that federal authorities “did not just stonewall” the court, “They affirmatively misled the tribunal.” Xinis also rejected the government’s argument that she lacked jurisdiction to intervene on a final removal order for Abrego Garcia, because she found no final order had been filed.ICE freed Abrego Garcia from Moshannon Valley Processing Center, about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, on Thursday just before the deadline Xinis gave the government to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s release.He returned home to Maryland a few hours later.Immigration check-inCheck-ins are how ICE keeps track of some people who are released by the government to pursue asylum or other immigration cases as they make their way through a backlogged court system. The appointments were once routine but many people have been detained at their check-ins since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said he’s prepared to defend his client against further deportation efforts.“The government still has plenty of tools in their toolbox, plenty of tricks up their sleeve,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said, adding he fully expects the government to again take steps to deport his client. “We’re going to be there to fight to make sure there is a fair trial.”The Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized Xinis’ order and vowed to appeal, calling the ruling “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed during the Obama administration.“This order lacks any valid legal basis, and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary.Sandoval-Moshenberg said the judge made it clear that the government can’t detain someone indefinitely without legal authority and that his client “has endured more than anyone should ever have to.”Abrego Garcia has also applied for asylum in the U.S. in immigration court.Charges in TennesseeAbrego Garcia was hit with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling charges when the U.S. government brought him back from El Salvador. Prosecutors alleged he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.A Department of Homeland Security agent testified at an earlier hearing that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.
BALTIMORE —
A federal judge ordered Friday that U.S. immigration officials could not detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia, hours after his release from immigration detention.
Abrego Garcia was appearing Friday morning for a scheduled appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, some 14 hours after he was released from detention on a judge’s orders. His lawyers asked the judge to block authorities from detaining him again.
Officials cannot re-detain him until the court conducts a hearing on the motion for the temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said. She wrote that Abrego Garcia is likely to succeed on the merits of any further request for relief from ICE detention.
“For the public to have any faith in the orderly administration of justice, the Court’s narrowly crafted remedy cannot be so quickly and easily upended without further briefing and consideration,” she wrote.
Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown earlier this year when he was wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. He was last taken into custody in August during a similar check-in.
Abrego Garcia on Friday stopped at a news conference outside the building, escorted by a group of supporters chanting “We are all Kilmar!”
“I stand before you a free man and I want you to remember me this way, with my head held up high,” Abrego Garcia said through a translator. “I come here today with so much hope and I thank God who has been with me since the start with my family.”
He urged people to keep fighting.
“I stand here today with my head held high and I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me,” Abrego Garcia said. “Regardless of this administration, I believe this is a country of laws and I believe that this injustice will come to an end.”
After Abrego Garcia spoke, he went through security at the field office, escorted by supporters.
The agency freed him just before 5 p.m. on Thursday in response to a ruling from Xinis, who wrote federal authorities detained him after his return to the United States without any legal basis.
Mistakenly deported and then returned
Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager to join his brother, who had become a U.S. citizen. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, where he faces danger from a gang that targeted his family.
While he was allowed to live and work in the U.S. under ICE supervision, he was not given residency status. Earlier this year, he was mistakenly deported and held in a notoriously brutal Salvadoran prison despite having no criminal record.
Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, Trump’s Republican administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked a federal judge there to dismiss them.
A lawsuit to block removal from the US
The 2019 settlement found he had a “well founded fear” of danger in El Salvador if he was deported there. So instead ICE has been seeking to deport him to a series of African countries. Abrego Garcia has sued, claiming the Trump administration is illegally using the removal process to punish him for the public embarrassment caused by his deportation.
In her order releasing Abrego Garcia, Xinis wrote that federal authorities “did not just stonewall” the court, “They affirmatively misled the tribunal.” Xinis also rejected the government’s argument that she lacked jurisdiction to intervene on a final removal order for Abrego Garcia, because she found no final order had been filed.
ICE freed Abrego Garcia from Moshannon Valley Processing Center, about 115 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, on Thursday just before the deadline Xinis gave the government to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s release.
He returned home to Maryland a few hours later.
Immigration check-in
Check-ins are how ICE keeps track of some people who are released by the government to pursue asylum or other immigration cases as they make their way through a backlogged court system. The appointments were once routine but many people have been detained at their check-ins since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said he’s prepared to defend his client against further deportation efforts.
“The government still has plenty of tools in their toolbox, plenty of tricks up their sleeve,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said, adding he fully expects the government to again take steps to deport his client. “We’re going to be there to fight to make sure there is a fair trial.”
The Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized Xinis’ order and vowed to appeal, calling the ruling “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed during the Obama administration.
“This order lacks any valid legal basis, and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary.
Sandoval-Moshenberg said the judge made it clear that the government can’t detain someone indefinitely without legal authority and that his client “has endured more than anyone should ever have to.”
Abrego Garcia has also applied for asylum in the U.S. in immigration court.
Charges in Tennessee
Abrego Garcia was hit with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling charges when the U.S. government brought him back from El Salvador. Prosecutors alleged he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.
The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
A Department of Homeland Security agent testified at an earlier hearing that he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until after the U.S. Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.
When a door slammed shut in the childhood home of Andry Hernández Romero, he wasn’t just startled. He winced, recoiling from the noise.
Nearly a month had passed since Hernández Romero, a 32-year-old makeup artist, and 251 other Venezuelans were released from a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison.
In a Zoom interview in August from Venezuela, Hernández Romero listed the ways in which the trauma of the ordeal still manifests itself.
“When doors are slammed — did you notice [my reaction] when the door made noise just now?” he said. “I can’t stand keys. Being touched when I’m asleep. If I see an officer with cuffs in their hand, I get scared and nervous.”
Trump administration officials accused the Venezuelan men of being members of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua and a national security threat, though many, including Hernández Romero, had no criminal histories in the U.S. or Venezuela.
While he was confined, with no access to his attorneys or the news, Hernández Romero had no idea he had become a poster child for the movement to free the prisoners.
“Before I was Andry the makeup artist, Andry the stylist, Andry the designer,” he said. “I was somewhat recognized, but not as directly. Right now, if you type my name into Google, TikTok, YouTube — any platform — my entire life shows up.”
Days after he was sent to El Salvador on March 15, CBS News published a leaked deportation manifest with his name on it. His lawyer Lindsay Toczylowski, who co-founded the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center, denounced his removal on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and a “60 Minutes” expose.
In the “60 Minutes” episode, Time photojournalist Philip Holsinger recounted hearing a man at the prison cry for his mother, saying, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a stylist,” while prison guards slapped him and shaved his head.
Outrage grew. On social media, users declared him disappeared, asking, “Is Andry Hernández Romero alive?”
Congressional Democrats traveled to El Salvador to push for information about the detainees and came back empty-handed.
“Let’s get real for a moment,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-New York) said in an April 9 video on X. The video cut to a glamour shot of Hernández Romero peering from behind three smoldering makeup brushes.
“When was the last time you saw a gay makeup artist in a transnational gang?” Torres said.
Hernández Romero walks through a market in his hometown of Capacho Nuevo.
Hernández Romero shows the crown tattoos that U.S. authorities claimed linked him to the Tren de Aragua gang.
Hernández Romero fled Venezuela after facing persecution for his sexuality and political views, according to his lawyers.
He entered the U.S. legally at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Aug. 29, 2024, after obtaining an appointment through CBP One, the asylum application process used in the Biden administration. The elation of getting through lasted just a few minutes, he said.
Hernández Romero spent six months at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. He had passed a “credible fear” interview — the first step in the asylum process — but immigration officials had lasered in on two of his nine tattoos: a crown on each wrist with “Mom” and “Dad” in English.
Immigrant detainees are given blue, orange or red uniforms, depending on their classification level. A guard once explained that detainees wearing orange, like him, could be criminals. Hernández Romero said he replied, “Is being a gay a crime? Or is doing makeup a crime?”
When his deportation flight landed in El Salvador, he saw tanks and officials dressed in all black, carrying big guns.
A Salvadoran man got off first — Kilmar Abrego García, whose case became a flash point of controversy after federal officials acknowledged he had been wrongly deported.
Eight Venezuelan women got off next, but Salvadoran officials rejected them and they were led back onto the plane. Hernández Romero said the remaining Venezuelans felt relieved, thinking they too would be rejected.
Instead, they ended up in prison.
Hernández Romero does the makeup for Gabriela Mora, the fiancee of his fellow prisoner Carlos Uzcátegui, hours before their civil wedding in the town of Lobatera.
“I saw myself hit, I saw myself carried by two officials with my head toward the ground, receiving blows and kicks,” Hernández Romero said. “After that reality kind of strikes me: I was in a cell in El Salvador, in a maximum-security prison with nine other people and asking myself, ‘What am I doing here?’”
As a stylist, he said, having his hair shaved off was particularly devastating. Even worse were the accompanying blows and homophobic insults.
He remembers the photographer snapping shots of him and feeling the sting of his privacy being violated. Now, he understands their significance: “It’s thanks to those photos that we are now back in our homes.”
At the prison, guards taunted them, Hernández Romero said, telling them, “You all are going to die here.”
Hernández Romero befriended Carlos Uzcátegui, 32, who was held in the cell across the hall. Prisoners weren’t allowed to talk with people outside their cells, but the pair quietly got to know each other whenever the guards were distracted.
Uzcátegui said he was also detained for having a crown tattoo and for another depicting three stars, one for each of his younger sisters.
A prisoner is moved by a guard at the Terrorist Confinement Center, a high-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26. (Alex Brandon, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
As prisoners looks on, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center on March 26. (Alex Brandon, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Hernández Romero said he noticed that some of the guards would stare at him when he showered. He told reporters that guards took him to a small, windowless room known as “La Isla,” or “The Island,” after noticing him bathing with a bucket outside of designated hours. There, he said, he was beaten by three guards wearing masks and forced to perform oral sex on one of them, according to NPR and other outlets.
Hernández Romero no longer wishes to talk about the details of the alleged abuse. His lawyers are looking into available legal options.
“Perhaps those people will escape earthly justice, the justice of man, but when it comes to the justice of our Father God, no one escapes,” he said. “Life is a restaurant — no one leaves without paying.”
Uzcátegui said guards once pulled out his toenails and denied him medication despite a high fever. He had already showered, but as his fever worsened he took a second shower, which wasn’t allowed.
He said guards pushed him down, kicked him repeatedly in the stomach, then left him in “La Isla” for three days.
In July, rumors began circulating in the prison that the Venezuelans might be released, but the detainees didn’t believe the talk until the pastor who gave their daily sermon appeared uncharacteristically emotional. He told them: “The miracle is done. Tomorrow is a new day for you all.”
Uzcátegui remained unconvinced. That night, he couldn’t sleep because of the noise of people moving around the prison. He said usually that meant that guards would enter their cell block early in the morning to beat them.
Hernández Romero noticed his friend was restless. “We’re leaving today,” he said.
“I don’t believe it,” Uzcátegui replied. “It’s always the same.”
Hernández Romero knew they had spent 125 days imprisoned because when any detainee went for a medical consult, they would unobtrusively note the calendar in the room and report back to the group. The detainees would then mark the day on their metal bed frames using soap.
On July 18, buses arrived at the prison at 3 a.m. to take the Venezuelans to the airport. Officials called out Hernández Romero and Arturo Suárez-Trejo, a singer whose case had also drawn public attention, for individual photos. Hernández Romero said they were puzzled but obliged.
Migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown arrive at Simon Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on July 18.
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
When their flight touched down, an official told them: “Welcome to Venezuela.” Walking down the plane steps, Hernández Romero felt the Caribbean breeze on his face and thanked God.
A few days later, he was back in his hometown, Capacho Nuevo, hugging his parents and brother in the center of a swarm of journalists and supporters chanting his name.
“I left home with a suitcase full of dreams, with dreams of helping my people, of helping my family, but unfortunately, that suitcase of dreams turned into a suitcase of nightmares,” he told reporters there.
Hernández Romero said he wants to see his name cleared. For him, justice would mean “that the people who kidnapped us and unfairly blamed us should pay.”
President Trump had invoked an 18th-century wartime law to quickly remove many of the Venezuelans to El Salvador in March. In a 2-1 decision on Sept. 2, a panel of judges from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the administration acted unlawfully, saying there has been “no invasion or predatory incursion.”
Trump administration officials have told a federal judge that they would facilitate the return of Venezuelans to the U.S. if they wish to continue the asylum proceedings that were dismissed after they were sent to El Salvador. If there’s another chance to fulfill his dreams, Hernández Romero said he’s “not closed off to anything.”
Uzcátegui sees it differently. After everything he went through, he said, he probably would not go back.
Now he suffers from nightmares that it’s happening again. “Despite everything, you end up feeling like it’s not true that we’re out of there,” he said. “You wake up thinking you’re still there.”
Carlos Uzcátegui exchanges vows with Gabriela Mora during their wedding in August as Hernández Romero, right, in cap, looks on.
As he restarts his career, Hernández Romero is redeveloping a client list as a makeup artist. Last month, he worked a particularly special wedding: Uzcátegui’s. He did makeup for his friend’s now-wife, Gabriela Mora.
“He lived the same things I did in there,” Uzcátegui said. “It was like knowing that we are finally free — that despite all the things we talked about that we never thought would happen, that friendship remains. We’re like family.”
