If you thought that being a US citizen might offer some protections from being deported, Trump’s latest calls is challenging that notion.
US fascist dictator, Donald Trump, is continuing his crackdown on people in general. Already, there have been calls to jail reporters and jail all political opponents. Even worse, the Trump administration is already disappearing people for publishing thought crimes. All of these alone are very concerning for people who support freedom of expression, but things continue to get worse and worse.
One of the major headlines going around the United States right now involves Kilmar Abrego Garcia – a legal US resident who was obviously wrongly deported to an El Salvador super prison for the crime of (checks notes) wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. The US randomly declared him an MS-13 gang member without evidence. In an official statement from the White House, the occupying racist Nazi’s took a copy of a New York Times article and scrawled disinformation using red crayons on it. The fact that none of that is made up is quite shocking in and of itself.
The illegal deportation has been controversial from the beginning for very obvious reasons and even some GOP members are calling this out for the fiasco that it is with some calling this whole affair a “screw up“. To make matters worse, Vice President, JD Vance, accidentally showed that the deportation was illegal.
Multiple courts overseeing this whole sorry affair have now ruled that Garcia must be returned to the US. So far, the US government has refused to comply with the court orders and the courts have already been seemingly heading towards issuing a contempt of court ruling against the government, potentially setting the stage for a constitutional crisis should Trump just thumb his nose at the courts again. Already, there is an opening for appeal as well which only further complicates matters.
Still, there are those who believe that if they are a legal American citizen, then it makes it much more difficult for the Trump administration to go after you. This despite the Trump administration proving that he can deport people for literally any reason. After all, if you are an American citizen, you can’t be deported to a foreign gulag, right? Well, if Trump gets his way, being an American citizen may not really be a defence to the presidents human trafficking efforts. In recent comments, Trump renewed his call to go after natural born American citizens as well. From The Independent:
Donald Trump has once again floated the idea of jailing U.S. citizens in El Salvador’s brutal prisons — this time from inside the White House in front of Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele.
Bukele has already agreed to continue to jail dozens of immigrants summarily removed from the United States inside a notorious prison complex human rights groups have labeled a “tropical gulag” with reports of abuse, torture, and lack of medical attention for inmates in densely packed cells. Inmates there face the prospect of indefinite detention.
Moments before entering the Oval Office on Monday, Trump told Bukele that “home growns” should be next.
“The home growns. You gotta build about five more places,” he said. “It’s not big enough.”
“I just asked the president — it’s this massive complex that he built, jail complex — I said, ‘Can you build some more of them please?’ As many as we can get out of our country,” Trump told reporters.
Shortly after those comments, a natural born US citizen was apparently detained. From CTV:
A U.S. citizen was arrested in Florida for allegedly being in the country illegally and held for pickup by immigration authorities even after his mother showed a judge her son’s birth certificate and the judge dismissed charges. The man was released after his case received widespread coverage.
Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, 20, was in a car that was stopped just past the Georgia border by the Florida Highway Patrol on Wednesday, said Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition. Gomez and others in the car were arrested under a new Florida law that’s on hold that makes it a crime for people who are in the country illegally to enter the state.
It is unclear if Lopez Gomez showed documents proving that he’s a citizen to the arresting officers. He was held at Leon County Jail.
The charge of illegal entry into Florida was dropped Thursday after his mother showed the judge his state identification card, birth certificate and Social Security card, said Kennedy, who attended the hearing. Court records show Judge Lashawn Riggans found no basis for the charge.
Lopez Gomez briefly remained in custody after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that he remain there for 48 hours, a common practice when the agency wants to take custody of someone. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
While all of that was going on, word surfaced that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed an emergency injunction to try and halt another wave of deportations.
It should go without saying what a chilling effect on free speech all of this can potentially have. In Trump’s mind, anyone can be deported for any reason to a foreign gulag for the purposes of torture and slavery. It doesn’t matter if you are a natural born American citizen or someone who has arrived on a work visa. Publish a thought crime? Off to the gulag. Possess an anti-Trump meme on your phone? Off to the gulag. Looking “not white”? Off to the gulag. As a result, people are going to be self-censoring out of fear of their personal safety. In fact, that sort of thing has already happened.
Despite all of this, Trump doesn’t seem to be slowing down his crackdown on citizens both American and not. So, things are looking like they are going to get worse before they get better.
