TRUMP HAS SHAMED AMERICA. DO YOU CARE?

WaPo 5/4/25: “Trump’s 48-hour scramble to fly migrants to a Salvadoran prison” Suggested reading for the GOP Congress. It outlines the plan to implement Trump’s insistence on showing he was deporting ‘the worst of the worst.’ Rubio announced the US would be sending as many as 500 Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador within 24 hours, even as Venezuela agreed to accept them. Despite the administration’s claims, many of the immigrants sent to El Salvador had entered the US legally and were actively complying with US immigration rules. At least two of the men imprisoned had been approved by the State Dept. to resettle as refugees in the US. At least four had protections against removal through TPS granted to those fleeing Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. Others had been active members of Venezuela’s opposition and had open asylum claims. 
Many had no deportation orders. Trump invoked the wartime powers of the Alien Enemies Act against the Venezuela-based gang known as Tren de Aragua to remove over 100 of the migrants without giving them a chance to contest their removals. In court, the Trump administration has admitted that many do not have criminal records. The WH said the administration would not “detail counterterrorism operations and foreign policy negotiations with foreign countries for the press.” The Justice Dept. said “Activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president’s authority to conduct foreign policy, remove dangerous illegal aliens from our country, and keep Americans safe.” 
The Dept. of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. 
WaPo asked the Salvadoran government to provide the identities, whereabouts and additional information about the deportees transferred to CECOT but received no response. 
Venezuela has not received an official list of names of those detained in El Salvador. The Venezuelans have not had a trial. They have not been convicted. They’ve been deported to one of the most brutal prisons in the hemisphere. They’re outside the reach of any rule of law at this point. “Tren de Aragua” has become the battle cry of the Trump administration to deny due process. Experts who have studied Tren de Aragua say it has not established a strong presence in the US. Trump designated Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations, even though the number of active Tren de Aragua members in the US is probably in the hundreds. But ICE and local law enforcement were announcing arrests of alleged gang members almost every day. Tattoos have been used to justify detention, even though experts say Tren de Aragua does not use tattoos to identify who belongs to the gang. The names of Venezuelans believed to be imprisoned in El Salvador have disappeared from an online ICE detainee tracker. But the goal was achieved. It was a spectacle that would be seen by millions around the world. Trump got to show how tough he is. And how small he has made America.