CAPACHO, Venezuela, July 24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Makeup artist and hairstylist Andry Hernandez arrived back in his hometown in the Venezuelan Andes Wednesday after spending four months in a Salvadoran maximum security prison, where he claimed he endured sexual abuse.

Hernandez, 33, is one of 252 Venezuelan migrants swept up in US President Donald Trump's immigration dragnet and sent without trial to El Salvador, where they were held at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) after being accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang.

Hernandez and the other migrants were returned to Venezuela last Friday, the result of a prisoner exchange which saw Caracas hand over 10 US citizens and permanent residents to Washington.

Hernandez arrived in Capacho, in the western state of Tachira on the Colombian border, in a National Guard SUV.

From the rear window, he waved to a crowd of family, friends and neighbors who welcomed him with celebratory shouts.

"Andry, Andry, Andry," they chanted as he jumped out of the vehicle and embraced his visibly emotional parents.

Hernandez had left for the United States in 2024, hoping to improve his economic situation and escape the discrimination faced by members of Venezuela's LGBTQ community, especially in smaller towns.

He never reached US soil, detained first in an immigration prison and then sent to CECOT.

"I left my home with a suitcase full of dreams, with dreams of helping my people, of helping my family," he told reporters upon arrival back home.

"But unfortunately, that suitcase of dreams turned into a suitcase of nightmares -- a nightmare that I thought would never end."

He said the crown tattoos on his wrists were used as "evidence" that he belonged to Tren de Aragua -- the pretext for his transfer to the mega-prison built by President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to hold gang members.

"Thank you for all the love you have for me and for showing me that I was never alone, that I was never alone in that maximum-security prison," he said.

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab released a video Monday in which Hernandez said he had been sexually abused by CECOT prison guards.

His case was closely followed by international human rights organizations.

In the working-class neighborhood of Los Pescadores in Maracaibo, in the western state of Zulia, about a hundred people gathered Wednesday for a religious service to give thanks for the return of four neighbors also imprisoned in El Salvador.

Edwuar Hernandez, Ringo Rincon, Andy Perozo, and Mervin Yamarte returned to Maracaibo on Tuesday, welcomed by a crowd that filled the dusty streets of the community.

"Today we are here to give thanks," said 62-year-old evangelical pastor Erick Tarre.

"We are filled with joy, our boys are here," added Jair Valera, who used his TikTok account, with more than 60,000 followers, to denounce the transfer of his neighbors to CECOT.

With his arms outstretched and his eyes lifted to the sky, Yamarte thanked God for his freedom.

"Thank you, Father God," he whispered through tears, standing beside his former prison companions from El Salvador.