5 months ago
In mentation for nan caller year, Andry Hernández Romero, his champion friend and his family are building an año viejo: a human-sized doll made of scrap wood and rags, styled pinch aged apparel and stuffed pinch fireworks.
On New Year’s Eve, erstwhile nan timepiece strikes midnight, they’ll group it ablaze.
Hernández Romero – who was released from a notorious Salvadorian mega-prison 5 months agone – is particularly excited astir nan yearly contented this year. “This is our measurement of welcoming nan caller twelvemonth pinch joy,” he said. It besides intends purging nan aged 1 pinch a cleansing fire.
The 32-year-old constitution artist was 1 of 252 Venezuelan men who were accused by Donald Trump and his management of being members of nan transnational Tren de Aragua gang. Without owed process aliases immoderate forewarning, nan men – galore of them asylum seekers, astir without criminal records – were rounded up from astir nan US and sent to nan notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) successful El Salvador.
For 4 months, nan men were routinely beaten, abused and, successful immoderate cases, sexually assaulted, enduring curen that quality authorities groups person characterized arsenic “systemic torture”. Human Rights Watch and nan Central American quality authorities group Cristosal concluded that nan men were “subjected to superior beingness and psychological maltreatment connected a near-daily basis, passim their full clip successful detention”.
Then, successful July, they were abruptly released arsenic portion of a negotiated woody betwixt Venezuela and nan US. The Guardian kept successful touch pinch Hernández Romero and 3 different men who were incarcerated astatine Cecot arsenic they returned location to Venezuela, and picked up nan lives they had near behind.
“There were truthful galore mixed feelings connected nan measurement home,” Hernández Romero said. “There was nan joyousness of seeing my father’s face, of hugging my brother, hugging my champion friend, eating my mother’s food.” And location was nan sinking realization that everything had changed. “I would for illustration to reintegrate into nine and dress that my life is wholly normal,” he said. “But it wouldn’t beryllium true.”
Jerce Reyes Barrios, 36 – different of nan 252 men released that time – didn’t cognize really to put words to nan feeling. “It was specified a substance of – happiness? Sadness?” he said.
José Manuel Ramos Bastidas, 31, said it felt surreal. “I ne'er thought I would get out,” he said. “Like, I can’t judge it. I sewage retired of that place.”
For nan first respective weeks aft his return, 29-year-old Edicson David Quintero Chacón said, he savored each infinitesimal – going to nan excavation pinch his kids, re-downloading his TikTok and different societal media accounts and putting connected nan caller apparel his sister brought him. He took a two-hour motorcycle thrust to a adjacent metropolis wherever he met up pinch a friend and sewage lunch. “I passed by immoderate horses and I watched them by nan river,” he said. “And I told my friend conscionable really beautiful state felt. How state is nan astir beautiful point successful life.”
But arsenic clip passed, he said, nan images and memories of his clip wrong nan situation kept returning, for illustration flashbacks. “It’s for illustration a movie that keeps playing successful my head,” he said. “It’s an acquisition that remains engraved successful nan mind. Like a portion that is ne'er erased.”
There were many, galore beatings, Quintero said: “If we talked, they would hit us.” At 1 point, he recalled, he developed an agonizing headache aft a beating. The expert he saw told him it was his fault, that he had astir apt drunk excessively overmuch water. “I felt crazy,” he said. After that, he knew it was fruitless to moreover effort to get aesculapian care. He felt a toothache truthful aggravated he wanted to rip his molars retired himself, he said: “But what was nan constituent of asking for a pill that was not there?”
Routinely, nan guards isolated detainees successful a acheronian room known arsenic “La Isla”, he recalled. At 1 point, Hernandéz Romero has said, he was dragged location and sexually abused. Hernandéz Romero nary longer wishes to recount nan specifications of nan alleged abuse, but said he hopes he will 1 time spot justness for what happened: “If not earthly justice, past a divine justice, from Father God.”
Out of desperation, Ramos said, a group of nan detainees staged hunger strikes, refusing their rations for days and demanding that nan guards explicate to them what was happening, and erstwhile they could leave. He witnessed a man cutting himself, successful what Ramos understood to beryllium a “blood protest”.
“We fought for our lives, for our state aliases for them to termination america truthful we could extremity suffering truthful much, because each time it was rustle aft rustle for nary reason,” he said.
But nan guards told them they would ne'er leave. That nary 1 connected nan extracurricular was looking for them.
Ramos said he has struggled to walk immoderate clip unsocial since his return home. “I utilized to for illustration spending clip alone,” he said. “But now erstwhile I americium alone, I consciousness for illustration I’m some location and not location astatine nan aforesaid time.”
As nan weeks deterioration on, Ramos said, nan men are being reminded why they near Venezuela successful nan first place. Some had fled Venezuela seeking governmental asylum successful nan US. Others had near successful hunt of work.
Ramos near successful January 2024, hoping to gain much money to salary for nan aesculapian curen of his newborn son, who was calved pinch terrible respiratory issues. His meager wages arsenic a mechanic and car washer weren’t capable to salary nan mounting infirmary bills. “Now I walk my day-to-day conscionable stepping around, looking for thing to do – to repair a motorcycle, to hole an appliance … seeking to gain something,” he said.
Quintero – a carpenter and a fisher – had been moving since he was 12 to support his family, and had travel to nan US successful April 2024. He sold his motorcycle and saved for weeks truthful he could spend to salary his measurement to nan north, wagering that erstwhile he made it retired of Venezuela, he’d beryllium capable to gain more, capable to build a mini location for his family and capable to support his mother.
When he arrived astatine nan US confederate border, migration officials fitted him pinch an ankle show and gave him paperwork pinch instructions to routinely cheque successful pinch Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In June, Quintero was detained while checking in.
He spent much than a twelvemonth successful detention – first successful nan US, chiefly astatine nan Stewart detention halfway successful Georgia, and past astatine Cecot. “I was gone for truthful long, and it was difficult connected my mother, because it fell connected her to support nan children, buying each their schoolhouse supplies and things,” he said. “Now it’s my move to support her.”
But he quickly realized that, backmost astatine home, it was astir intolerable to gain capable money.
The economical worries person blended successful pinch post-traumatic aftershocks, said Reyes, a 36-year-old shot subordinate and coach from Machiques, a small, agrarian metropolis adjacent to nan separator pinch Colombia. “I can’t slumber for 8 hours straight. At astir I get 3 aliases 4 astatine night,” he said. “Sometimes I aftermath up talking to myself.”
“I want to extremity these effects,” he added. “Because I cannot neglect my family. My daughters dangle connected maine … It’s a batch of stress.”
They are surviving successful a paradox, said Hernández Romero. While they were locked away, he and nan 251 others became an world news story.
Their families and communities rallied to support them. New articles and TV segments featured their life stories – their young children, their doting parents, their budding careers arsenic sports stars. “We became almost famous,” he said. “At what cost?”
The Human Rights Campaign held a rally demanding Hernández Romero’s merchandise during Pride period successful Washington DC. The New Queens Pride parade successful New York made him nan honorary expansive marshal. Even now, Hernández Romero said, he is moved each clip he receives a connection from queer supporters successful different Latin American countries, aliases successful nan US. “They show maine really brave I am, really they place pinch me, really they are praying for me,” he said.
After his release, a female messaged him and asked to nonstop him a caller constitution kit and different supplies that had been confiscated from him erstwhile US authorities arrested and detained him. “She is an angel,” he said. “There is simply a small spot successful eden for her.”
Some day, he said, he hopes to salary it guardant by creating a instauration to empower LGBTQ+ people, and group surviving pinch HIV.
“But being known is besides complicated,” he said. He is alert that he and nan 251 different men were utilized – arsenic governmental props aliases pawns.
The Trump administration called them “ruthless violent pack members”. When Kristi Noem, nan US homeland information secretary, toured nan Salvadorian mega-prison successful precocious March, she posed successful beforehand of a compartment packed pinch incarcerated men and warned immoderate immigrants reasoning of coming to nan US: “If you travel to our state illegally, this is 1 of nan consequences you could face.”
The Salvadorian president, Nayib Bukele, posted a video that spliced together images of nan US deportees being frog-marched into nan situation and having their hairsbreadth buzzed – each group to a pounding, ominous soundtrack, promoting his “ associated subject cognition pinch our friends from nan United States”.
Now that he’s backmost home, Hernández Romero says, those characterizations person been difficult to shingle – contempt grounds from his lawyers that he had nary pack affiliation aliases criminal history and despite galore news articles explaining that nan only logic that US authorities had accused him of pack activity was based connected his 2 mini tattoos: a crown connected each wrist pinch nan words “Mom” and “Dad” etched underneath.
“No hairsbreadth salons successful Venezuela want to springiness maine a occupation because they deliberation I’m a personnel of Tren de Aragua,” he said. “Even astatine this point, location are still group who deliberation that because an American president said it, it must beryllium true.”
Others backmost location who reason Venezuela’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, wonderment whether Hernández Romero is alternatively moving pinch nan Maduro regime, which helped get him and nan others released from Cecot arsenic portion of a captive switch pinch nan US. He had to resign from his section theatre troupe, he said, because immoderate members kept harassing him.
In fact, Hernández Romero had initially fled Venezuela aft facing persecution for his sexuality and governmental views, according to his lawyers. Now that he’s back, he has avoided openly discussing thing political. “I simply person to spell retired time by time to spot really I work, to spot really I gain nan 3 bolivars I request to eat,” he said.
The only different group who tin genuinely understand his experience, he said, are nan 251 different men who were imprisoned pinch him astatine Cecot. “We entered 252 strangers and we near 252 brothers,” he said. He’s still successful touch pinch galore of them – they person talked astir what happened successful associated therapy sessions, but besides complete matter messages and calls.
Hernández Romero has gotten particularly adjacent pinch Carlos Uzcátegui, 32, who was held successful a compartment crossed from him. At first, he said, they said much astir their trauma. But lately, they mostly speech jokes and anecdotes.
This summer, Hernández Romero did nan constitution for Uzcátegui’s bride, Gabriela Mora. The mates is expecting a babe soon, Hernández Romero said – and he’s excited to beryllium a godfather.
