Bulwark Takes - “New Level of Brutality”: Gay Makeup Artist Asylum Seeker Sent to Hellish Prison

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Tim Miller is joined by Zach Stafford of the Vibe Check podcast to discuss Andrys, the gay makeup artist wrongly detained by ICE and sent to prison in El Salvador.  See Tim Miller on Vibe Check

Hey guys, Tim Miller from The Bull Workout. We've been reporting on Andre, this 23-year-old gay Venezuelan who was sent to the San Salvador prison camp hellscape with no due process. If you missed it, he's a makeup artist. His lawyer said that he had tried to enter the country legally at a legal port of entry as an asylee fleeing communist venezuela uh he was then detained and um and now subsequently has been disappeared according to the lawyer apparently based on on the tattoos uh i i wanted to talk to zach stafford about this zach is the co-host of the vibe check pod i was on there a couple weeks ago so you can go check that out he used to be editor-in-chief of the advocate he's a reporter at the guardian and And he wrote particularly about queer people fleeing oppression. And so I thought you might have some stories that help. But before we get back to, you know, your history, what have you, have you been as tore up about this story as me? Oh, oh my God, I've been so torn up and seeing you talk about it

has made me want to talk about it more because you get so used to these stories flying under the radar for so many years. You know, the past Trump administration, things were this bad when it came to folks like this young man, especially for trans people. And I was in Mexico during the caravans arriving and being with folks who were like, listen, Trump's not even letting me do this legal thing, which is seek asylum. So I'm going to die here in Tijuana. And it's just what it is because that's how it happens. But to see this new version of an El Salvador prison and just exporting to other countries

is like a new level of brutality that the United States has never enacted before. So I'm just glad that you're wanting to talk about it too. Because, you know, we get, we have moments right now when you're overwhelmed with everything and you think, well, anyone care? and it seems like people are caring yeah i feel good about that yeah it does seem like you are caring trying to force people to care because it's it is crazy it is different and i want to talk to you about like the just the deportation of queer people seeking asylum is dangerous enough which i want to get into but in this particular case i we're not deporting him

there's some people replying to me on social media it's like sorry they came into the country illegally they're gonna got to get deported that's the rules who cares about due process and i'm like no actually that's not what's happening here we're not deporting him he didn't get sent back to home in venezuela uh he didn't come illegally he didn't like you know sneak across the rio grande or climb the Trump fence or whatever. He came to a port of entry, presented as an asylee, and we've sent him to a fucking prison camp. Yeah. Where you just can't imagine that this man is going to be – you don't even want your head to go there.

But the type of treatment we saw in the Time story, if they let a time reporter watch them slap the detainees, you can imagine what's happening when there's no cameras rolling. 1000%. And we do know from a lot of reporting that things get so dark, they become torturous. People die, people disappear forever and they may not be dead, but they may wish they were dead because things are so horrible and what to do to what's happening to them. And you're exactly right, Tim. People due to Trump have

confused what is legal and not legal really quickly. Asylum seeking, how this young man tried to acquire it or how he went about it is super, super legal. What you do is you're in a country of origin, call it Venezuela. You realize you may die here because of who you are. People know who you are. The government's coming after you. Local police are coming after you. The cartel's coming after you.

So you have good enough reason to show cause when you enter the country through a port of entry. And when you arrive, you say, hey, immigration agent, this is what's going on. I can't go back. Can you help me? And thus begins the asylum seeking process. That is not illegal. That is how it's set up. That's how it's going on. I can't go back. Can you help me? And thus begins the asylum seeking process. That is not illegal. That is how it's set up. That's how it's always worked.

That's what America's founded on. So to have Trump say, yo, you're going through this legally. I got something for you. You're going to go to a prison in Central America from a country you're not even from now is so batshit that I didn't even expect this when i was reporting on this daily back in his last administration so this is a heightening of violence that like i hope isn't a symptom of things to come but it is definitely a symptom of things today and they're pretty bad for folks yeah yeah it is and this american has had flaws but it is just it is fundamentally un-american like

the central purpose of america is people fleeing another country and coming here. Maybe the Native Americans wouldn't say that, but for everybody else, that's how people started coming here. It is the fundamental way that people arrived in this country, and we're just totally undermining that. What started us having this conversation with you was that you had mentioned from your reporting back in the Trump the first time, just about how bad the situation is, particularly for queer people. Because, you know, even in this case, like, let's say, for example, that we managed to get this guy out of this hellscape prison.

If he's sent back to Venezuela or sent back to the home country, that might end up not being any better. So talk about your experience about queer people kind of fleeing danger and what you saw from the folks you interviewed. Yeah. So something that's really remarkable about this case we're talking about today is that we are naming him. A lot of times these folks aren't named because if we name them, that is a version of outing them. And thus, if they do go home, they will die. And we've seen it happen a few times. Go ahead.

Yeah, I was just going to say, it's fair to put, like the lawyer, and it just shows how desperate the situation is that we're naming him actually, because the lawyer didn't want to name him at first. But she finally did because she's like, this is so unprecedented. Exactly.

And I'm hoping that this is the only way that we can get attention on it. So anyway. Exactly. And that's how it's been for years, is that we only learn the names of folks when it's extraordinary. And those extraordinary moments are really heartbreaking. So he is the most recent case.

If he is ever to leave this prison, he will be sent back to Venezuela. And historically, folks in his situation die within the first year of returning back to their country of origin due to various things that they were literally trying to escape, now being able to find them quicker. But back in 2019, we saw a real spike in reporting around Trump and ICE. I mean, that's when the caravans were really arriving in Tijuana, and there was a lot of pressure and focus on it. And while I was there, I would report and visit safe houses. And what people don't understand around these folks is that when you do arrive at a port of entry, you disclose a lot of information to make a case. Disclosing

information means you're telling things about your government that maybe aren't great and shouldn't be public, how they've treated you, how the police are treating you, how the cartels are treating you. So you're snitching on people. And thus, if you're sent back, or if you're stuck in a place like Mexico and can't cross the border, you can face tremendous violence. I remember one day I was in Tijuana, and I was able to go inside some of these safe houses that are hidden there. And I met some young trans women who were fleeing the cartel. They had been engaged in forced sex work in El Salvador, I believe. And they said to me, you know, Trump's not going to let us in. I don't think we're ever going to make it across the border. And I'm going to die here

because the cartel is here in Tijuana looking for us because of what we know about their inner workings. So, you know, these are folks trying to flee criminal enterprises that work outside the government systems. And so the violence is just compounding and compounding. And their only maybe potential, you know, solace of hope is getting across that border and getting the asylum that is a part of the United States as a vision. So it's insane to me to be like, these people aren't fleeing their condos in Boca Raton. They're fleeing real deadly situations where they need to get out and we're not letting them yeah you know it's it's kind of um i don't know a dark irony i guess of the situation that that that the people that are going to be the least sympathetic to this administration are the ones that rather need this the most the society system the most right like that these the people you were talking about

trans folks in particular gay folks maybe to a little bit lesser extent. But like the, you know, there is a legit version of this criticism, right? Which was like during that period when you were referencing, there were people, you know, that were coming and reporting as asylees that like, you know, their life back home wasn't great. But there wasn't like an acute danger, right? Like if they were sent back, they, they were not necessarily going to be killed. I mean, I did some work with the Guatemalan refugee community in, in Oakland.

And there was kind of like this huge influx of, of Guatemalans at a time when like, and you know, it's just one of the things, it's a case by case basis. Some of them like were fleeing like legit terror and horrible situations and others were kind of looking for economic opportunity and falling through right and so like in this situation like you know even if you were to narrow the the definition of what is a legit asylee claim the like somebody like andree like

a gay person or trans person fleeing the cartels in these places would be an obvious example of somebody to accept. And they're going to end up, I think, unfortunately, probably in the worst situation of everybody. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. What is that? Yeah, no, you're exactly right. And there's an incredible book for folks listening if they want to understand the complexities of this and even maybe false asylum seeking. There's this author, Adafi Akoporo. He's actually running for office, I think, in New York for a lower level office, but he's a Nigerian gay activist. I met him many years ago and he wrote one of the first memoirs I've read of a modern understanding of what it means to be an asylum seeker as a gay man. And what typically happens is, you know,

port of entry, you get stopped by ICE or immigration. And then a lot of these people get thrown into an ICE detention center. And during Trump 1.0, the conversation was, look how bad these detention centers are getting. Like we're holding them and they're being allowed due process. They're being allowed to have their cases heard, but we're not giving them their hormones. We're not giving them their HIV meds. That was the human rights violation was lack of medical care. Now they've upped the ante and they said, you can't even stay here. You got to go to El Salvador, which is really awful. But within the book, you know, Adafi writes a lot about personally that there are people, you know, misrepresenting themselves because they are so desperate to come here. However, they don't have the same circumstances he does, which is why that process at the border is so

important so that judges, you know, lawyers can make a case and people can have a fair day in court. So it's like, sure, people are going to lie to try to cross the border, of course, but we need a court system in place that can actually check that to make sure so that those that need to get across can get across and those that shouldn't are stopped there. And that's not happening point blank anymore. We're having men like him just taken for no reason at all. He's not part of a cartel or or any type of gang he's just a gay makeup artist trying to find a better life i i was joking about earlier zach but are you sure it's not like a west side story situation and he could be in a

singing gang a musical of immigration yeah i don't i bet not if so bravo you know i do a lot of work on broadway these days so like maybe we can produce that musical but i don't know if this is gonna be it does feel like they need to provide some evidence in that case you know in this like tom homan being like our people determined it you know and then and then the spokes gal for the dhs is like his social media posts prove he's trended to aragua i'm like i'd like to see the post yeah okay can we at least start there i mean this person at least deserves a court date but if we're gonna fucking disappear them into a into a prison in san salvador like maybe at least share the share the evidence yeah if you have such a strong case show us like you've got the receipts pull them out i'd love to see them and you know as a reporter for years i spent

working i used to work the guardian and i work with Spencer Ackerman, one of my favorite reporters who writes a lot about, you know, police violence and the state violence. And he won the Pulitzer around the Edward Snowden stories. And we were working on a story around Homan Square, a black site in Chicago where Chicago police disappeared over 7,000, mostly black people there and tortured some of them. There were some false confessions that happened in this place. And when I would report the story, people would say, well, some of these guys are bad. Like, they're pretty bad. They have done things. And I was like, that is true. However, it is not the place of a beat cop to pick someone up off the street and disappear them for days into a facility where God knows what happens to them. And then they get booked and then they go to a judge.

That's not part of how our legal system is built currently. And I promise you, everyone listening, you don't want it to be built that way because it's just a matter of time before you too are disappeared for being accused of not paying for your groceries at the Whole Foods checkout or whatever it is. Like we don't need the levers of government

to become so brutal as they are right now. Yeah, one wrong one is the reason to not do it like this. You know? So anyway, all right, brother. Well, everybody should check out your pod. Vibe check. Thank you for popping on. Can I do a check?

How's your vibe right now? Just rage? Rage. It's all of those things, but feeling focused. I feel like these moments are clarifying. We talk a lot about signals and noises. This is a signal for me. And I'm like, okay, we can do things. There's ways lawyers can

respond to this. I can respond to this. I'm feeling not as thrown into the winds of Trump's chaos as I typically am. I love that. The vibe's okay. The vibe's okay today, Tim. I appreciate that. We'll keep talking about this. Unfortunately, I think there are going to be more fucking cases where your expertise

and your past reporting are relevant. We'll have you back and do it again soon. I'd love it. I'm always looking for a reason to talk to you, Tim. Good to see you. Peace out, everybody. Subscribe to the feed. Check out Vibe Check. We'll see you all soon.