Immigration lawyer for tattooed gay makeup artist says he was sent to El Salvador prison by mistake

One of the Venezuelan gang members deported to an El Salvador prison last week is allegedly anything but a gang member.

His name is Andrys Cedeno-Gil, and he’s reportedly a gay makeup artist/barber whose “benign” tattoos of snakes and flowers were mistaken by immigration authorities as gang tattoos.

“His tattoos are benign, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence he is Tren de Aragua,” Lindsay Toczylowski of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center told the Daily Mail.

“His attorney planned to present evidence he is not, but never got the chance because our client has been disappeared,” she added.

Indeed, he got “disappeared” into El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, aka CECOT, when the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to justify flying hundreds of migrants there, including him.

harrowing. includes an account of a young man who sounds like he may be the person we profiled last night on MSNBC.

time.com/7269604/el-s…

www.advocate.com/news/gay-mak…

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— Rachel Maddow (@maddow.msnbc.com) March 21, 2025 at 3:08 PM

Speaking on “The Rachel Maddow Show” late last week, Toczylowski said Cedeno-Gil arrived in the U.S. last year seeking asylum to escape alleged persecution for his homosexuality.

But because of his tattoos, he was immediately detained and kept in lockup until last week, when he was deported to El Salvador.

“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 added.

He’s in one of the toughest prisons in the world.

“Images taken inside the facility often show prisoners packed tightly together with their heads shaved and wearing only shorts,” according to a profile by The Guardian. “The prison has no outdoor recreational space, and no family visits are allowed.”

“Many human rights organisations have criticised El Salvador’s prisons and especially Cecot. Groups have reported alleged human rights violations like torture, inmate deaths, and mass trials,” the reporting continues.

CNN got rare, exclusive access inside El Salvador’s Cecot prison, where some of the country’s most notorious gang members are held. David Culver tours the controversial high-security facility with prison officials, capturing firsthand accounts from inmates https://t.co/haOFa7um37 pic.twitter.com/CxJwvJB6ci

— CNN (@CNN) November 14, 2024

Cedeno-Gil’s lawyers told the Daily Mail that they last spoke to him hours before an immigration court hearing scheduled for the 13th.

“But when the hearing began, ICE did not produce him, and the government lawyer didn’t know why, or where he was,” according to the Daily Mail. “The judge put off the hearing until March 17 while Cedeno-Gil’s lawyers frantically searched for him at the detention facility in Texas, but were told he had been moved.”

“By March 15, he had disappeared from the ICE online detainee locator system, and his lawyers began to fear the worst. ICE again failed to produce Cedeno-Gil at the March 17 hearing, but this time confirmed he had been deported to El Salvador,” the reporting continues.

Neither his lawyers nor his family are pleased with what happened.

“Our client was falsely accused of gang affiliation, was given no chance to refute it, then was disappeared by ICE and sent to a prison in El Salvador,” Toczylowski said. “Before seeking asylum, he’d never even been incarcerated or arrested. And now he sits in a prison notorious for human rights abuses.”

Journalist Philip Holsinger was reportedly present during the migrants’ intake last week at CECOT.

“The intake began with slaps,” he wrote for Time magazine. “One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. But maybe it’s only because he didn’t look like what I had expected—he wasn’t a tattooed monster.”

“The men were pulled from the buses so fast the guards couldn’t keep pace. Chained at their ankles and wrists, they stumbled and fell, some guards falling to the ground with them. With each fall came a kick, a slap, a shove. The guards grabbed necks and pushed bodies into the sides of the buses as they forced the detainees forward. There was no blood, but the violence had rhythm, like a theater of fear,” Holsinger added.

It’s strongly suspected that the gay barber he encountered was none other than Cedeno-Gil.

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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.

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