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The original was posted on /r/keep_track by /u/rusticgorilla on 2025-03-20 11:15:45+00:00.

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Today is the 59th day of the second Trump administration. The government is deporting people for liking pro-Palestine posts on social media and renditioning immigrants to forced labor camps in Central America. If this were taking place in a different country, American media would be decrying the “backsliding of democracy” into fascism.

So, let’s be very clear about where we are headed. If the government can deport green card holders for pro-Palestinian speech, they can punish anyone for any political speech they don’t like. If they can disappear hundreds of Venezuelans to a foreign prison without explanation or review, they can do the same to you. Freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, and equal protection apply to all of us or none of us. For decades, Americans have given these rights away in the name of fighting terrorism and securing the border. Here come the consequences.

Extraordinary rendition

Over the weekend, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 against Tren de Aragua, a transnational Venezuelan criminal organization. The proclamation claims that Tren de Aragua “has infiltrated the Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus.” Therefore, Tren de Aragua’s presence in the U.S. indicates “a hybrid criminal state…is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States,” subjecting their members to “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” without due process under the Alien Enemies Act.

• On Saturday, the ACLU sued the government on behalf of five Venezuelan nationals, seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.
• U.S. District Judge James Boasberg convened a hearing at 5 pm Eastern, Saturday. Two planes carrying Venezuelan nationals left Harlingen, Texas, between 5:25 and 5:45 pm.
• At approximately 6:45 pm, Boasberg verbally issued a temporary restraining order blocking the application of the Alien Enemies Act and instructed the government to turn any flight around. “[Y]ou shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States…this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” Boasberg told DOJ lawyers. At approximately 7:30 pm, the judge’s written order appeared on the court’s docket.
• None of the planes were turned around. In fact, nearly an hour after Boasberg’s verbal order and 10 minutes after his written order, a third plane left Harlingen, Texas. The first and second planes landed in El Salvador 5.5 hours after Boasberg’s verbal order, 4 hours and 45 minutes after his written order. The third plane landed 6.5 hours after Boasberg’s verbal order, 5 hours and 45 minutes after his written order.
• Sunday morning, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweeted, “Oopsie… Too late” in response to a news article about Boasberg’s order. Marco Rubio retweeted it, and Elon Musk replied with a laughing emoji.

The Trump administration ultimately disappeared over 230 Venezuelans to a brutal Salvadoran prison notorious for human rights violations, in defiance of the court’s order, claiming that they were members of Tren de Aragua. Because there was no due process, we do not know if they were actually gang members, we do not know if they were in the U.S. illegally, and we do not know if they were even noncitizens. The Trump administration just says, “Trust us, we did some investigating.”

We also do not know who was essentially trafficked to El Salvador—and neither do their families. Some have begun speaking out, saying they recognized their loved ones in propaganda released by President Bukele:

• Solanyer Sarabia believes she saw her 19-year-old brother, Anyelo, among images shared online. He was detained in January at a routine immigration appointment after agents claimed his tattoo of a rose signified gang membership. Solanyer said he got the tattoo in Dallas and that it has no significance. "He thought it looked cool,” she told Reuters, stressing that he is not a gang member. In his last phone call to Solanyer, her brother told her he believed he was going to be deported to Venezuela.
• Johanny Sanchez believes her husband, Franco Caraballo, may have been disappeared to El Salvador. She says he was in U.S. custody but awaiting an asylum hearing when he called her on Friday to say he was being deported to Venezuela. However, he never arrived, and his family in Venezuela has not heard from him. “I just suspect he’s [in El Salvador] because of the tattoos that he has and right now any Venezuelan man with tattoos is assumed to be a gang member,” she said, citing his tattoo of roses.
• Francisco García’s family recognized him in a photograph taken inside the Salvadoran prison. He believed he was being deported to Venezuela after being detained by ICE for his tattoos, which include a rose. “Everyone who knows him knows he’s not a criminal and has never been part of any criminal gang,” his brother said.
• An immigration lawyer says her client, an LGBTQ artist from Venezuela seeking asylum in the U.S., was disappeared while awaiting a hearing to present evidence that his tattoos were not gang-related, as claimed by the government. “We last spoke to our client on Thursday before he was supposed to have a hearing in immigration court, but ICE didn’t bring him. The govt atty had no info about why he was not there,” she wrote.
• Aguilera Agüero legally entered the U.S. in 2023 using the CBP One app. He was arrested by immigration authorities last month and called his mother in Venezuela to say he was being deported. No plane arrived, and his family has not heard from him. They believe he was targeted due to his tattoos but say he does not have any gang ties and no criminal record.

Judge Boasberg held an emergency hearing on Monday to question the government on the timing of the deportation flights in relation to his order to return all detainees to the U.S. DOJ lawyers advanced three main arguments: (1) they can’t answer questions about the specifics of the operation due to national security concerns, (2) the judge’s written order said nothing about turning back the planes, so they disregarded his verbal order to do so, and (3) the planes were over international waters when the judge issued his orders, therefore, his orders did not apply. A second hearing is scheduled for Friday, where the government says it will argue that “the President’s authority and discretion” under the Alien Enemies Act is “unreviewable” by the courts.

Meanwhile, DOJ lawyers have not alluded to what authority the President used to pay a third country to imprison hundreds of people, many of whom the government admits did not commit a crime. That power is certainly not contained within the Alien Enemies Act.

The machinery of deportation

Nearly two weeks after the arrest of student activist Mahmoud Khalil, reports are piling up of immigration authorities detaining, interrogating, and/or deporting people no matt…

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