Trump’s Lawless Deportation Machine Should Concern Every American

This past week, the Trump administration revved the engines and, betting that its base would be enthused, barreled gleefully into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

On Saturday, Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act—yes, the same one that was infamously used in World War II as justification for the placing into concentration camps of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans—against a Venezuelan gang, the Tren de Aragua.

The legal rationale for this unprecedented action, which allows Trump’s ghastly deportation machine to entirely circumvent the judicial process and the immigration courts when dealing with alleged members of Tren de Aragua, was that the gang is invading the United States. While the gang is indeed responsible for many vicious crimes, there is no evidence to prove that it any way, shape, or form constitutes the advanced guard of a Venezuelan invasion force.

The ACLU immediately sued to block the use of this act, which it argued was never intended to be used against non-governmental actors, and within hours US district judge James Boasberg, of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., had issued a temporary restraining order.

Boasberg was later informed that several planeloads of Venezuelan men were being deported from holding facilities in southern US states to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT super-maximum security prison, which already holds tens of thousands of gang members and alleged gang members of MS-13 and Barrio 18, and is arguably the harshest high-tech prison on earth. Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented widespread torture of suspected gang members and have also concluded that a large percentage of those in the facility aren’t affiliated with the murderous gangs but have simply been caught up in government sweeps as the country tries to retake control from gangs that at one point had led to El Salvador having the world’s highest murder rate.

Judge Boasberg hurriedly convened a court session, issued a written order prohibiting such flights from the US to El Salvador, and backed it up with an oral order that aircraft already on route to El Salvador turn around and return the deportees to US soil.

Despite Boasberg’s order to halt these deportation flights, filled with more than 200 Venezuelan men, the administration kept the planes flying, and hours after the order was issued, the aircraft landed in El Salvador. There, the men were severely manhandled by masked security personnel, who paraded them, bent double and chained, in front of the cameras; dragged them to the CECOT facility; forcibly shaved their heads; and dressed them in flimsy white prison garb and dumped them into overcrowded cell blocks—in which they will live without any access to outdoor recreation, with only the bare minimum of food (the same meatless meals every day, with no cutlery allowed), and with allegations of routine torture. At least 80 people are crammed into each cell, and the men sleep on stacked steel bed frames with no mattresses. The human rights group Cristosal has documented at least 261 deaths in El Salvador’s prisons in the two years since the anti-gang crackdown began.

To the delight of Trump’s people, far-right populist El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele posted on social media an “Oopsie… too late” comment about the judge’s orders, and then announced that the deportees would face at least one year of hard labor in the CECOT facility. A Trump spokesman responded to Bukele’s message, “boom.” Such is decorum and diplomacy in this age of monsters.

In the days since, hundreds of Venezuelan families in the US have struggled to work out where their sons, husbands, or fathers are. Meanwhile, Trump and Musk have both called for Boasberg’s impeachment, with Trump writing that the judge is a “radical left lunatic, a troublemaker and agitator”—an astonishing attack on the independent judiciary that has to date met with a only a rather milquetoast critique from John Roberts, Supreme Court chief justice and midwife of the shameful Trump-is-king decision last year. ICE and Department of Justice officials have repeatedly stonewalled Boasberg’s demands for clarification about the timing of the flights. And the hard-right social media eco-system has been inundated with violent threats against Boasberg and other judges seeking to uphold the rule of law in the face of Trump’s escalating attacks on due process.

Let’s be absolutely clear about what has transpired: To fulfill a campaign promise to his base, Trump has unleashed a deportation machine against hundreds of immigrants who may or may not be gang affiliated; the government has released scant details on who these men are, making it impossible to know if they have been convicted of any crimes. These men have then been sent to what might well be the worst prison on earth, thousands of miles from their families, and have been informed by El Salvador’s president that they will perform hard labor for the next year. That’s not just a lack of due process, it’s the literal enslavement of hundreds of people. And, whether it ultimately is ruled to be constitutional, it is monstrous both in its intent and its consequences.

“Oftentimes, the allegations of gang affiliations are because of tattoos, clothing, music,” Boston-based longtime immigration attorney Matt Cameron told me. “It doesn’t take very much to get listed with a gang affiliation.” Flash the wrong sign, listen to the wrong rap song, post the wrong thing on social media, ride in a car with gang members, get arrested with gang members, all this can get you onto a local police department or ICE database listing gang affiliates. It is, says Cameron, a catch-all, especially for young Latino men.

When, in February, the Trump administration flew dozens of immigrants it labeled the worst of the worst gang members to detention in Guantanamo Bay, organizations such as the Immigrant Defenders, and journalists such as Pablo Manriquez, investigated the claims. For most, they could find no evidence of gang membership. It is at least possible that it will similarly turn out that some, or many, of those sent to El Salvador are also simply victims of the dragnet. Their lives, and those of their families, will have been ruined at the altar of Trump’s sadistic obsessions.

Of course, once the Trump administration normalizes the use of the Alien Enemies Act against the country’s purported enemies—and once the flouting of court orders comes to be seen as business as usual—it will almost certainly expand its use not just against suspected Venezuelan gang members but against ever-greater numbers of people from ever-greater numbers of countries. It’s a way to short-circuit any form of due process in the immigration system. And, says Cameron, ultimately the usage of extra-constitutional powers against perceived enemies won’t stop with immigrants. “Immigration is the tip of the spear for civil rights,” he argues. What’s to simply stop a mass process of exiling opponents, so they can’t come back, he asks. “This is a really terrifying development that should concern every American. You’re sending someone to a place not under US jurisdiction that has known, sustained, human rights violations.”

Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth’s defense department has been steaming ahead with plans to create a military buffer zone along parts of the southern border, and to then allow military personnel to hold migrants caught “trespassing” on military land, thus taking the administration right up to the line of violating the Posse Comitatus Act.

And on a near-daily basis, there is an escalation in the assault on academics involved in protesting Israel’s brutal eighteen-month war in Gaza, or simply expressing social media views deemed to put them on the wrong side of the Trump-Netanyahu axis. Taken as a whole, these assaults represent the most serious threat to freedom of speech and to academic freedom since at least the McCarthy years.

First there was Palestinian activist Mamoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the Columbia University protests last year, arrested in his home despite his Green Card status and sent to a detention facility in Louisiana to await deportation, allegedly for being a Hamas supporter. Then there was the Brown university kidney specialist, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, deported to Lebanon, allegedly for being a Hezbollah sympathizer. There was the case of Harvard PhD student Ranjani Srinivasan, forced to leave the US and head to Canada after her student visa was revoked for her participation in protests on Gaza. And on Wednesday, there was the detention of another Indian national, Georgetown University graduate student Badar Khan Suri, also subject to deportation for his political sentiments on the Middle East. At least some of these cases seem to involve actions contrary to those ordered by the courts.

These arrests are likely just the start of a mass purge of academia. Trump’s regime, and Rubio’s State Department, have explicitly promised a ramping up of arrests of academics—of those on student visas and of green card holders. And the far-right pro-Israeli group Betar has boasted that it has given the administration a list of thousands of people it wants deported, including a number of naturalized citizens.

Daily, I am reminded of the oft-repeated words of pastor Martin Niemöller (“First they came for the Communists…”). Daily, the circle of victims of this vicious regime grows as its willingness to abide by court orders, congressionally passed laws such as the Posse Comitatus, and constitutional norms declines. They are coming for the immigrants, they are coming for the academics, they are coming for the judges. They are coming for transgender Americans, they are coming for diversity, equity, and inclusion advocates, they are coming for public sector workers. Among each group they target, they leave devastation and heartbreak and pain in their wake. These are the ashes created by MAGA’s cauldron-fires.

Donald Trump’s cruel and chaotic second term is just getting started. In his first month back in office, Trump and his lackey Elon Musk (or is it the other way around?) have proven that nothing is safe from sacrifice at the altar of unchecked power and riches.

Only robust independent journalism can cut through the noise and offer clear-eyed reporting and analysis based on principle and conscience. That’s what The Nation has done for 160 years and that’s what we’re doing now.

Our independent journalism doesn’t allow injustice to go unnoticed or unchallenged—nor will we abandon hope for a better world. Our writers, editors, and fact-checkers are working relentlessly to keep you informed and empowered when so much of the media fails to do so out of credulity, fear, or fealty.

The Nation has seen unprecedented times before. We draw strength and guidance from our history of principled progressive journalism in times of crisis, and we are committed to continuing this legacy today.

We’re aiming to raise $25,000 during our Spring Fundraising Campaign to ensure that we have the resources to expose the oligarchs and profiteers attempting to loot our republic. Stand for bold independent journalism and donate to support The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Sasha Abramsky

Sasha Abramsky is The Nation‘s Western correspondent. He is the author of several books, including The American Way of Poverty, The House of Twenty Thousand Books, Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar, and most recently Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America.

More from The Nation

The Senate minority leader wants to make sure everyone else is fighting for democracy—so he’s not at risk.

Jeet Heer

Yesterday’s executive order would dismantle the Department of Education, shutting down programs American families rely on.

Chris Lehmann

The president plans to sign an executive order directing officials to take all “necessary steps” to shut down the department, but a complete closure would require an act of Congre…

StudentNation

/

Owen Dahlkamp

March 21, 2025 Trump’s Lawless Deportation Machine Should Concern Every American The machinery of mass deportation is meant to be impossible to stop. But any machine can be brought…

Michael Gould-Wartofsky

Roberts wasn’t “rebuking” Trump when he issued his statement against impeaching judges. He was bending the knee.

Elie Mystal