One year ago, renowned gay and AIDS activist Cleve Jones was close to tears talking about Andry Hernandez Romero, the out 32-year-old Venezuelan hair and make-up stylist who became the face of Donald Trump’s lie that ICE was only deporting vetted “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters,” and “the worst of the worst.” After Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act on March 14, 2025, the asylum-seeker was secretly deported with 137 other Venezuelans to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where he was brutalized. Andry was a lead plaintiff in a successful lawsuit with the federal judge ruling that the Trump Administration had a legal duty to give deportees due process. “Absent this relief,” Judge James E. Boasberg wrote, “the government could snatch anyone off the street, turn him over to a foreign country and then effectively foreclose any corrective course of action.” “I look at [Andry] and he's like my little gay brother…probably being subjected to horrendous brutality on a daily basis,” Cleve said. “This young man stands at the intersection of our fight for LGBT equality, for immigrant rights, and for due process under law.” Romero is now seeking asylum in Spain.

For editorial context: This Young Gay Man’s Disappearance Should Shake the LGBTQ+ Community https://karenocamb.substack.com/p/can-andry-hernandez-romero-get-asylum

Also: in this interview, Cleve talks about coming out, meeting Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, advice from Harvey Milk, the labor movement, founding the AIDS Quilt, and politics.