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In a defiant speech, Lindsay Toczylowski, president and co-founder of social justice legal firm Immigrant Defenders Law Center, called the deportation of undocumented immigrants without due process a direct attack on democracy.
Her client, Andry José Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old Venezuelan makeup artist seeking asylum in the US, was in March deported to El Salvador, where he was taken to the country’s notorious CECOT prison along with over 200 other Venezuelan and Salvadoran deportees. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the Trump administration over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport undocumented immigrants without due process, said in court filings that the government relied solely on Romero’s tattoos to incorrectly label him a violent gang member.
Family and supporters say they fear for the safety of Romero, who is gay and was seeking asylum after being persecuted for his sexual orientation in Venezuela. He has not been seen or heard from since his arrival in El Salvador, including by his legal representation.
“The only fight that we lose is the one we give up on… It’s about the future of our democracy and the country we want to live in,” she said, speaking at The Business of Beauty Global Forum in Napa Valley, California. “His story is the embodiment of it could happen to him, it could happen to me, it could happen to you, it could happen to any one of us. It’s why the rule of law is so important. It’s why due process is so important.”
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Toczylowski also addressed escalating tensions in Los Angeles, where President Donald Trump has sent thousands of National Guard and Marines to quell protests against ICE deportation roundups in the city. Opponents of the move, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, say the decision to send troops was disproportionate to the small number of violent incidents associated with the protests, and will only inflame the situation. On Monday, protests spread to other cities around the country.
“There are more than 200 residents of Los Angeles that have been picked up off the streets,” said Toczylowski. “I have watched masked agents in plain clothes push people into service elevators in the middle of federal buildings in downtown LA in the last two weeks. This is an all-out assault on the values that we hold as Angelenos, as Californians, as Americans.”
She said one of the most important methods of pushing back against the Trump administration’s immigration actions, whether in LA or El Salvador, is to speak out against them as often, and as forcefully as possible.
“The moment that we stop talking about [Romero], about his story and others like him is the moment that the Trump administration is successful in completing the disappearance of Andry José Hernández Romero,” she said.
