New York's Ritchie Torres donates to Andry Hernández Romero fund demanding freedom for gay asylum-seeker

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Gay Afro-Latino U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres isn't ambiguous about his support for an innocent gay man sent to a modern-day gulag in El Salvador.
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In a stark video released Wednesday, the New York Democrat condemned the Trump administration for deporting Andry José Hernández Romero — a 31-year-old gay asylum-seeker from Venezuela — to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison. 'These aren't gang signs,' Torres said, referring to the tattooed crowns on Hernández Romero's arms that immigration authorities used to justify the deportation. 'These are symbols of love, faith, and family.'
Related: Hundreds rallying at Supreme Court demand Trump return disappeared gay asylum-seeker Andry Hernández Romero
Torres explained that Hernández Romero comes from Capacho Nuevo, a Venezuelan village where Día de los Reyes, or Three Kings Day, is a treasured tradition. As a child, Hernández Romero designed costumes and performed in pageants, discovering a calling in creative work. 'Those crowns are a tribute to that festival and his parents,' Torres said. 'They're marked with the words 'Mom' and 'Dad.'' He said ICE's interpretation of the tattoos was both 'false and bigoted,' a projection of criminality onto cultural expression.
Related: Gay Venezuelan asylum-seeker 'disappeared' to Salvadoran mega-prison under Trump order, Maddow reveals
Hernández Romero's story is not merely a tale of bureaucratic overreach. It is, according to Torres and a growing coalition in Congress, the embodiment of a deeper erosion: of due process, of humane immigration policy, and of the basic protections once presumed to be guaranteed under the Constitution.
'What happened to Andry could happen to anyone,' Torres said in an interview with The Advocate. 'an attack on the due process rights of anyone is an attack on the rights of all of us.'
Torres added, 'Without due process, what is to stop the Trump administration from labeling anyone a gang member and abducting them in the dead of night?'
Related: Coalition of 52 Democrats push for proof of life for deported gay asylum-seeker Andry Hernández Romero
He continued: 'Of all the abuses of the Trump presidency, none has been more egregious than his assaults on due process — on habeas corpus, which predates the American Republic itself.'
The administration has offered no evidence that Hernández Romero was ever involved in criminal activity. He entered the United States legally through the CBP One app, passed a credible fear interview, and was awaiting his asylum hearing when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained and removed him in March. His attorney was never notified. No judge issued a deportation order.
He was last seen in chains, his head forcibly and roughly shaved, sobbing and shouting, 'I'm gay! I'm a stylist!'
Since then, there has been no proof of life.
Related: Kristi Noem won't say if gay asylum-seeker deported to El Salvador's 'hellhole' prison is still alive
On Monday, Torres joined Rep. Robert Garcia, a fellow gay congressman from California, and 50 other Democratic lawmakers in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding a welfare check, legal access, and Hernández Romero's immediate release. 'The United States government, alone, is responsible for Mr. Hernández Romero's imprisonment,' the letter stated.
'It's been over 80 days since we've had any confirmation that he's alive,' Garcia told The Advocate. 'His story has particularly galvanized the LGBTQ+ community.'
The administration deported Hernández Romero under a 2025 executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a centuries-old law last used to imprison Japanese Americans during World War II. Human rights groups say the CECOT prison he was sent to is functionally a black site — cut off from outside contact and designed to break prisoners.
On Friday, about 300 people rallied on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, demanding Hernández Romero's return and condemning the policy that led to his disappearance. 'He would have loved to be here at WorldPride with all of us,' Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which represents Hernández Romero', told the crowd. 'Instead, he is suffering in a prison that officials have bragged people only leave in a coffin.'
Related: Gay asylum-seeker's lawyer worries for the makeup artist's safety in Salvadoran 'hellhole' prison
At the rally, gay Crooked Media cofounder Jon Lovett told supporters, 'They can bring Andry back any time they fucking want.' Human Rights Campaign senior vice president Jonathan Lovitz declared, 'Our Constitution does not say due process only for citizens. It says that all people — all people — deserve justice.' Writer and podcaster at The Bulwark Tim Miller, who is gay, added, 'We did this to Andry — not some crooked cop or some foreign government. We did it.'
Gay California U.S. Rep. Mark Takano invoked his own family's internment during World War II to denounce the deportation. 'Let's be crystal clear,' he said. 'We must repeal the Alien Enemies Act. None of us gets to sit this out.'
Later that evening, at a live show taping and fundraiser hosted by Crooked Media and The Bulwark at the Lincoln Theatre, Garcia described the stakes in personal terms. 'Regardless of your opinion on immigration, this is about due process. This is about the Constitution of the United States,' he said. He recounted a face-to-face exchange with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan, who told him that Hernández Romero's case was 'the first I've heard of this,' despite weeks of public advocacy. 'That day, he promised to do an inquiry,' Garcia said. 'We never got a wellness check.'
Longwell, a former Republican strategist, pressed the moral argument of another wrongly deported person, Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration returned to the U.S. to face what some call dubious criminal charges. 'I don't care if [Kilmar] Abrego Garcia is a bad guy. He still deserves due process,' she said. 'How do Republican college kids justify disappearing people to foreign countries without a trial?'
Related: Jon Lovett and Tim Miller team up to 'raise hell' over gay asylum-seeker vanished to El Salvador by Trump
Garcia responded sharply. 'They can't,' he said. 'The Constitution means nothing to them anymore. Most of them were born into this incredible honor and privilege of being in the United States — and they forget where their parents or grandparents came from.'
The California congressman said immigrants like Hernández Romero — and like himself — often have a deeper connection to American values. 'I fought for the thing most folks were born with,' Garcia said. 'I believe in the Constitution. And it affords all persons the right to due process, not just citizens.'
Torres, who could not attend the event in person, donated $1,000 in campaign funds to support legal efforts to free Hernández Romero, a spokesperson confirmed.
'It's now Pride Month when we celebrate the right to live freely and love openly,' Torres said in the video. 'The very reason Andry came to America. Instead of celebrating Pride like the rest of us, Andry is suffering as we speak in a torture chamber. We cannot remain silent.'
Torres was also among the 75 House Democrats who joined Republicans on Monday in passing a resolution that expressed 'gratitude' to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The vote came amid widespread protests in Los Angeles after ICE raids swept up more than 50 people, including some legally present in the United States. As tensions escalated, President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard, and on Tuesday, the U.S. Marine Corps over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and local officials, who warned of 'an unprecedented power grab.' The resolution also condemned antisemitism in the wake of a recent attack by an Egyptian man who threw fire bombs at members of the Jewish community in Colorado.
Editor's note: This article was updated to include additional reporting.