Trump’s New Tactic: Erasing Venezuelan Asylum Seekers from U.S. Legal System

The administration is quietly dismissing asylum cases of deported Venezuelans, ensuring no legal path back to the U.S., advocates warn.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has begun quietly shutting down asylum cases of Venezuelan deportees: effectively erasing their presence from the U.S. legal system. The move, legal advocates say, is designed not just to deport, but to ensure there is no road back.

The practice came into focus with the case of Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist who had been seeking asylum in the United States. Without warning, Hernandez was deported under wartime powers to El Salvador, where he is now believed to be imprisoned in CECOT — the country’s notorious supermax facility better known for its secrecy and abuse than any semblance of due process.

But it’s what happened next that’s raised the stakes: Hernandez’s asylum case, still pending in U.S. immigration court, was summarily dismissed by a judge in San Diego. According to legal observers, his is one of at least 14 such dismissals in recent weeks.