Innocent people in the United States who are getting swept up in President Donald Trump‘s crackdown on migrants and getting sent to a notoriously dangerous mega-prison in El Salvador?
“Horrific.”
That’s according to mega-podcaster Joe Rogan, who heaped praise on Trump for his tough stance on migrants. But had sharp words for the president over reports that people who didn’t commit any crimes are being sent to the infamous prison.
“The thing is, like, you got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons,” Rogan recently said during a podcast.
“It’s horrific. It’s horrific,” Rogan said.
“This is the thing, you know, measure it twice, cut once,” he said. “This is kind of crazy that that could be possible. That’s horrific. And that’s, again, that’s bad for the cause.”
Rogan added: “The cause is: Let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not, innocent gay hairdressers, get lumped up with the gangs.”
The Trump administration said Monday that it has deported 17 more “violent criminals” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs to El Salvador, as it doubles down on a policy of removing people from the U.S. to countries other than their own despite criticism over lack of transparency and human rights issues.
The State Department said the immigrants were removed Sunday night. The statement said murderers and rapists were among them but didn’t give details of the nationalities or alleged crimes of those removed. The office of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, however, said Salvadorans and Venezuelans were among the prisoners.
But the administration has come under intense criticism for deporting people without due process, including a gay makeup artist who fled Venezuela out of fear of its authoritarian regime.
In Capacho, (Andry José Hernández Romero) was a member of a local theatre troupe, and he acted in an annual church procession during the Epiphany, which, in the Spanish-speaking world, is known as El Día de los Reyes Magos, or Three Kings Day. He loved to draw, and had a penchant for bringing aesthetic flourishes to every corner of his life. When he worked as a hotel receptionist for a time, he created balloon decorations in the lobby; at home, he designed costumes and clothes. He made friends easily but, Alexis said, didn’t drink or stay out late. Andry is “very, very humble and very, very open,” she told me, by phone. “He’s comfortable being alone. He cooks for me and helps clean. He’s a homebody.”
In 2023, Andry took a job at a state-run television station in Caracas, the country’s capital. It was an ideal job—he was responsible for prepping the show’s anchors and guests for the screen, and his family, who have a shop that sells glass for mirrors and tables, needed the money. But he was gay and skeptical of the country’s authoritarian regime, which made him a target for abuse. The year he spent in Caracas, Alexis told me, was one of “persecution and discrimination. People in high places always discriminate against those who are lower down. They humiliated him.” At night, after work, he was often followed home and harassed by armed vigilantes aligned with the government; on one occasion, his boss at the station slapped him in front of his co-workers.
More than 200 Venezuelan immigrants facing deportation were sent to El Salvador earlier this month and are also being held in the maximum security prison.
Trump has claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is invading the United States and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows the president broader leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations. He sent dozens of people to El Salvador before a judge barred further deportations under the act’s authority. The administration is now asking the Supreme Court to allow it to resume those deportations.
Immigration and civil rights advocates have challenged the Trump administration’s deportations of people to countries other than their own, saying they first need to be given the opportunity to say whether they fear persecution or torture there. Advocates have also sued to prevent use of the Alien Enemies Act.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
