Rachel Maddow reported Thursday night that a young gay Venezuelan man, deported without due processunder a Trump administration directive, has been identified publicly for the first time. His name is Andrys. He is 23 years old. He is a makeup artist. And he has vanished into a Salvadoran mega-prison.
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Lindsay Toczylowski, who identified the man only by his first name, shared photos of the 23-year-old on The Rachel Maddow Show. The Advocate is not using Andrys's last name due to concerns over his safety. Toczylowski said the Trump administration forcibly removed her client from the United States without a court hearing or deportation order.
She explained that her team decided to share his identity because the government had already disclosed it in an internal document. “Names and identities of people have been shared today via a list,” she said. “And so we know that it is inevitable that our client will be identified, and we feel it's important to let the world know who Andrys, our client, is because he is a human being. He is a young professional from Venezuela. He's a makeup artist. He is a gay man.”.
Andrys had arrived in the U.S. seeking asylum, his lawyer said. He was detained after immigration officials flagged his tattoos as possible signs of gang affiliation—a claim his attorney says is unfounded. “These are not the tattoos of somebody who is involved with gangs,” Toczylowski said. “These are normal tattoos that you would see on anybody at a coffee shop anywhere in the United States or Venezuela.”
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC
According to Venezuelan independent news outlet Crónica Uno, which interviewed the young man's mother, Andrys last spoke to his family shortly before his disappearance. They believed he would be deported to Venezuela. He never arrived.
Instead, he is now being held in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot—a sprawling, 40,000-capacity mega-prison used to detain suspected gang members. The Trump administration deported 238 Venezuelan men to Cecot despite a federal judge’s emergency order to stop the flights on March 15.
“Today, we have confirmation from the government—one of the few groups or attorneys that have confirmation—that our client is indeed in El Salvador,” Toczylowski said.
International human rights groups have condemned the prison for extreme overcrowding, systemic abuse, denial of medical care, and a communications blackout. “There’s no phone, mail or visits,” political scientist Mneesha Gellman toldThe Guardian. LGBTQ+ individuals are at heightened risk inside the facility, where detainees are often identified—and sometimes targeted—based on tattoos alone.
Andrys was scheduled to appear in U.S. immigration court to challenge the government’s allegations last week. He never appeared. “ICE never presented him,” Toczylowski said. “The immigration judge said, ‘How is it possible that he's been removed if there's no removal order?’ And the ICE attorney that was in the courtroom said, ‘I don't know.’”
Lindsay Toczylowski on MSNBC
Toczylowski said ICE has since told her team it will not facilitate communication with Andrys or make him available for his next immigration hearing. “They will not facilitate communication with our client, because he has, in their words, been removed,” she said. “And they will not make him available for that hearing in two weeks.”
Maddow described the case as part of “one of the most dramatic crises of this new presidency,” and said the administration’s legal argument amounts to claiming unchecked executive authority. “Just on Trump’s say-so, you’re gone out of the country, disappeared indefinitely,” she said.
The Advocate contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment on Friday. The agency did not immediately respond.
Toczylowski warned that her client’s case reflects a broader assault on due process and the right to seek asylum. “We’re pursuing all avenues,” she said. “Because our client's life is at risk. We're concerned for his safety. And the fact that he was forcibly taken from the United States with no due process—it's just—it’s something that really shocks the conscience in a way that we haven't seen since family separation happened in 2018.”
