Out Congressman Robert Garcia Grills Noem on Deportation of Gay Hairdresser, Warns 'They Are Going to Come After US Citizens'

The federal government wants more money for deportations under the Department of Homeland Security, but Rep. Robert Garcia warns that the funds might be used to deport citizens.

The out gay congressman subjected DHS Secretary Kirsti Noem to a grilling over the way Andry José Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old gay hairdresser fleeing persecution in his home country of Venezuela and in the United States legally, was swept up and summarily deported without due process, The Advocate reported.

Romero was reportedly consigned to a prison in El Salvador that is notorious for human rights abuses, and there has been no word on his status ever since.

Reports last month said that a former police officer who was fired from the force in Milwaukee was instrumental in Hernández Romero being sent to the prison, even though he had not been charged with any crime.

According to reports, the officer, Charles Cross Jr., flagged Hernández Romero as a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua – a claim that was based in no evidence other than Hernandez Romero's tattoos, which were religious in nature and not linked to any gang activity.

USA Today reported that Cross' "credibility... was so bad, prosecutors flagged him on a list of police who had been accused of lying, breaking the law or acting in a way that erodes their credibility to testify in Milwaukee County."

The California Democrat asked Noem to at least look into whether Hernandez Romero is even still alive, but Noem refused that request.

"Hernández Romero had entered the U.S. legally using the CBP One app, passed a credible fear interview, and awaited a court hearing," The Advocate detailed. "Instead, ICE agents reportedly transferred him to El Salvador's CECOT prison – a massive fortress of isolation and abuse described by critics as a concentration camp used by the Salvadoran regime to imprison alleged gang members, many without trial."

Cornering Noem on the subject of Constitutional guarantees, Garcia pointed out the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

Noem acknowledged the Constitutional guarantee of due process for accused people regardless of citizenship, but insisted that due process does not necessarily mean receiving a trial.

Garcia wasn't having it. "Now, Madam Secretary, you are violating that amendment as we speak and you're breaking your oath," the out congressman – himself a legal immigrant to the united States, having come to the country from Peru at age five – declared.

"We cannot deport U.S. citizens without due process," Garcia continued. "There is nothing that could essentially stop Donald Trump from grabbing people off the street – that's happening today."

Garcia repeated his grim assessment later on during an appearance on "All in with Chris Hayes" on MSNBC.

During that appearance, "Garcia was asked about the Trump administration's request for 'an unprecedented expansion of funding of DHS, particularly on immigration enforcement' and 'what it would look like to give this agency three to five times the funding it currently has,'" political news outlet The Hill reported.

In reply, Garcia ran through a laundry list of the administration's actions, including the detention of "students for expressing their freedom of speech and their political views" and the deportation of "people that we give appointments for, for asylum."

"They are whisking away, literally in the dead of night, people from our communities across the country, without any of them even getting a chance to call a lawyer or their family," Garcia noted.

A DHS flooded with more taxpayer money would only do more of the same, he warned – and worse.

"Let's be clear, they are going to come after United States citizens," Garcia said. "They are already doing it to children, to immigrants, to asylum-seekers. And we cannot give them more money to do this."

CNN noted in a report last month that three children who are American citizens were ejected from the country together with their mothers. One of those children had been receiving treatment for cancer.

Garcia called the situation "an incredibly dangerous moment for this country," and declared, "we've got to take it very seriously."