The Prison of the Falling of the American Dream: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Mocks Trump’s Visit to El Salvador

The emergency is here. The crisis is now. It’s not six months away. It’s not another Supreme Court ruling from happening. It is happening now. Not yet, but to others. To real people whose names we know, whose stories we know. The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. The prison is known by its initials. A prison built for disappearance. It is a prison that does not intend to release its inhabitants back into the world, so it is a prison with no education or recreation. It is a prison where the only way out — in the words of Salvador’s justice minister — is in a coffin. [CLIP] Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the most notorious prison in the Americas to drum up some support for the Trump administration, deporting hundreds of men there without a trial. NOEM: First of all you don’t need to come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. [CLIP] NOEM: But know that this facility is one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people. [END CLIP] In front of the cameras in the Oval Office on Monday, President Trump said that he would like to do this to US citizens as well. Is there a way to make it look like it’sLIP? TRUMP: Wrong. I’d like to go a step further. I mean, I say I said it to Pam, I don’t what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals. [END CLIP] Why do we need a country where there are prisons? We have prisons here. But for the Trump administration, El Salvador’s prisons are the answer to the problem of American law. The Trump administration holds a view that anyone they send to El Salvador is beyond the reach of American law. They have been taken away from our system and from any protection that is afforded to it. A lip is used. TRUMP: They’re great facilities. There are strong facilities. And they don’t play games. [END CLIP] In our prisons, prisoners can be reached by our lawyers, by our courts, by our mercy. In El Salvador, they cannot. Let me tell you one of their names, one of their stories, as best we know it. There is a person named Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. His mother, Cecilia, ran a pupuseria in San Salvador. The business was being extorted by a local gang called Barrio 18. If the family didn’t pay, Barrio 18 threatened to murder Kilmar’s brother Cesar or rape their sisters. The family sent Cesar to America after Barrio 18 demanded that he join their gang. Barrio demanded the same of Kilmar. At the age of 16, Kilmar was sent to America. This was around the year 2011. This is what we mean when we say he entered illegally. A 16-year-old flees the only home he knows. Afraid for his life. Abrego Garcia’s life here just seems to have been a life. Not an easy one. Maryland is where he lived. He worked in construction. He met a woman — her name is Jennifer — a U.S. citizen. She had two kids from a previous relationship. One has epilepsy, the other autism. They have a child together. That child is deaf in one ear and also has autism. Abrego drove to Home Depot on the day of the baby’s birth to try and find work, as he dropped one child off at school and the other off with a babysitter. He was arrested for loitering outside Home Depot. Asked if he was a gang member, he said no. And he was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. From here the story gets weird. About four hours after he was picked up — and that appears to be the first contact he’s ever had with local police — a detective produces an allegation, citing a confidential informant that Abrego Garcia is actually a gang member. AbregoGarcia has no record of criminal activity. Not a single one of them here. Not one in the country of El Salvador. He was accused of being a member of a gang that operates in New York, a state that he has never been to. They were never cross-examined if they were the one who produced the allegation. Abrego was told by police that the detective behind the accusation and the officers in the gang unit would not speak to him. Abrego Garcia’s partner Jennifer said she was “shocked when the government said he should stay detained because Kilmar is an MS-13 gang member. Kilmar is not and has never been a gang member. I’m certain of that.” In June of 2019, while Abrego Garcia was still detained, he and Jennifer got married, exchanging rings through an officer separated by a pane of glass. Later that year, a judge ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be deported back to Salvador because he might be murdered by Barrio 18 — that his fear was credible. Abrego was set free. He has been checked in with the immigration authorities each year. He’s been employed as a sheet metal apprentice. He’s a member of the local union. He was a student at the University of Maryland. There is no evidence anywhere, offered by anyone that has suggested Abrego Garcia poses a threat to anyone in this country. Abrego had his child in the back seat of his car when he was pulled over. He was told his immigration status had changed. Abrego was sent to El Rica and imprisoned as a Terrorist after he refused to comply with the court ruling. It was a mistake. [CLIPS] The administration admits they wrongly deported an immigrant to El Salvadoran, and called it a clerical error and an administrative error. It was a mistake. A mistake was made deporting a Maryland father. This so-called administration error has destroyed my family’s happiness. My kids are innocent. [END CLIPS] I want to read about you in the editorial of The National Review. Here is the first sentence: “The court fight over Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a most unusual one, in that no one denies that the government violated the law in deporting him.” No one denies. [CLIP] If the Supreme Court said someone should return, then I would bring them back. The Supreme Court is respected by me. The end clause. The Supreme Court ordered the administration to ensure that AbregoGarcias case is handled as they would have handled it if he wasn’t sent to El Salvador. I feel I don’t have the proper words to describe this next part. How grotesque it is. It is dangerous. The Trump administration has no reason to deny Abrego was deported in the wrong way. They don’t deny that they have the right to bring him back. [CLIP] MILLER: Because he is a citizen of El Salvador. That is the head of state. Your question is about per the court can only be directed to him. [CLIP] BUKELE: How can I return him to the United States? What if I smuggled him into the United States? What should I do? I am not going to do it. The question is so ridiculous it makes me cringe. How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States. The clip is the end. That Oval Office meeting between Trump and Bukele was a moment when the mask fully slipped off. If nothing else, Trump could slap the tariffs on El Salvador that he’s fond of. But we are not angry at Bukele here. The government of America pays Bukele to imprison Abrego and other people. Donald Trump is not the one who is doing this. He works for Donald Trump. I believed that part of it’s horror was pinpointed by Jon Stewart. Strychart: Well, they’re [expletive] enjoying this. Each of them declaring that there was nothing they could do for Abrego Garcia. No way to allow him his day in court. No way to allow the American legal system to do its job and assess whether he is a danger. No way to follow the clear order of the Supreme Court. And from their perspective, maybe they’re right. Because here’s a scary thing that I think sits at least partially beneath their calculus: Politically, they cannot let Abrego Garcia out, nor any of the other people they sent to CECOT without due process. Because what if he was released? What if he were to return to the United States? What if he could tell his own story? What if, as seems quite likely, he’s been brutalized and tortured by Trump’s Salvadoran henchmen? He can’t tell the American people that. To the Trump administration. Abrego Garcia is not a mistake. He’s a liability. He is a test. A test of their power to do this to anyone. A test of whether the loophole they believe they have found, a loophole where if they can just get you on a plane, then they can hustle you beyond our laws and leave you in the grips of the kind of gulags they wish that they had here. The REPORTER: Does that include, potentially, U.S. citizens, fully naturalized Americans? “END CLIP” They aren’t ashamed of this. They have an interest in doing it to more people. CLIP. TRUMP: Yeah, that includes them. Why? Do you think there’s a special category of person? They’re as bad as anybody that comes in. We have a lot of bad ones. I am happy for it. Because we can do things with the president for less money and have great security. The CLIP is appended. We are in the first 100 days of this administration and we are already faced with a level of horror. I can feel the desire to look away from it, even in me. It is too inconvenient to have all this demands. But Trump has said it all, loudly and clearly. He intends to send those he hates to foreign prisons beyond the reach of U.S. law. He does not care — he will not even seek to discover — if those he is sending into these foreign hells are guilty of what he claims. Because this is not about their guilt, it is about his power. This is how dictatorships work. Trump has always been clear about who he is and the kind of power he wants. He is now using that power. Everyone around him is defending his right to do what he wants. The person says: “CLIP” The foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It’s that simple. End of story. The clip was appended. The Supreme Court made it clear that no court can force the foreign policy of the United States. [END CLIP] [CLIP] BONDI: That’s up to Salvador. If they would like to bring him back. That’s not up to us. [CLIP] NOEM: Mr. President, you wanted people to know that there was consequences if you break our laws and harm our people and endanger families. This is a consequence for the worst of the worst, that we have someplace to put them. The document says “END CLIP”. If President Donald Trump decides that you should be put in a foreign prison, that is his right. And you? You do not have any rights. And if he is capable of that, if he wants that, then what else is he capable of? What else does he want? And if the people who serve him are willing to give him that, to defend his right to do that, what else will they give him? What are they going to defend? This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.

“The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. “You have to build about five more places so we can put our people in El Rica to live,” Trump said in apparent reference to prison space needed to house Americans.

“Homegrowns are next’: Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad,” a libertarian think tank

Some legal scholars said the proposal would represent an unparalleled encroachment on civil liberties in the United States.

“It’s obviously unconstitutional, obviously illegal. The U.S. has no authority to deport citizens and not to keep them in a foreign country, according to a libertarian think tank.

“The problem of course is [Trump] already has illegally deported hundreds of people by just not giving the courts an opportunity to stop him,” Bier added. He is going to try to escape judicial review of deportations of US citizens and that’s the real fear for me.

Three conservative legal scholars were contacted by NPR. All declined to comment. We also contacted three conservative legal think tanks. Two other people didn’t respond.

“We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee,” Bukele added, posting photographs of densely packed inmates crouched with hands on their heads.

Source: ‘Homegrowns are next’: Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad

Reply to “Homegrowns are next”: Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad if it’s a good idea

His post was amplified by Musk, who said the proposal was a great idea. In February, Trump mentioned that he would do it in a heartbeat.

Asked again about the idea during Monday’s news conference, Trump confirmed he has ordered U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to explore whether it might be a legal and cost-effective way to house American prisoners.

He said they have other people we’re negotiating with as well. “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. Pam is studying the laws. It is good if we can do that.

Bondi appeared on the Jesse Watters Primetime show and seemed to agree with President Trump’s message that those who commit the most heinous crimes in the country are going to be deported.

But numerous legal scholars contacted by NPR described the policy idea as crossing a bright line in the U.S. government’s treatment of American citizens.

“One hopes that the administration won’t go down this path,” said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, a progressive think-tank at New York University. There are ethical questions surrounding this move, which could signal how we treat humans who are United States citizens. Courts will most likely prevent this from happening.

The senator from Georgia wrote a letter urging the Trump administration to abandon the idea.

Source: ‘Homegrowns are next’: Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad

Implications of Ossoff’s deportation proposals for the U.S. government and its international prisoner’s rights

Ossoff cited horrendous living conditions documented in Salvadoran prisons, where inmates often lack access to proper sanitation, temperature control and even potable water.

“You may not deport a U.S. citizen, period,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the group’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told NPR in February. The courts would not allow that.

But during a White House press briefing April 8, spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt signaled the proposal is still being seriously considered: “The President has discussed this idea quite a few times publicly, he’s also discussed it privately,” she said.

The President has said if it’s legal. If there is a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure, we are not sure, it’s an idea he has simply floated and has discussed,” Leavitt added.

The judges and lawyers are concerned that the proposal could be moved forward despite the legal and constitutional barriers.

In an statement released last week, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Trump administration’s legal arguments around deportation cases suggest the U.S. government already believes it “could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.”

All of us, no matter who we are from, immigrants or not, are at risk of being kidnapped by agents of the United States government who do not know who we are.

The United States has in the past imprisoned American citizens in ways that challenged or violated their constitutional rights, such as the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the imprisonment of American citizen Jose Padilla after being accused of terrorism activities.

But some legal experts interviewed for this story said deporting Americans to serve prison time in foreign countries would cross an alarming new line, effectively stripping U.S. citizens of constitutional and legal protections.

They noted that this proposal is also being explored by U.S. officials at a time when Trump has talked about “locking up” his political enemies, directing the Justice Department and the FBI to open criminal probes into opponents’ activities.

Bier, at the Cato Institute, said he has been “shocked” by the lack of pushback against Trump’s proposal from Republican leaders and members of the conservative legal movement.

The Worldwide Painted Lady Migration Project (CLM): How the U.S. Economy has Binned During Trump’s New Trade Tariffs

For more guidance on how to read poetry like a poet, listen to this episode of NPR’s Life Kit. Subscribe to the Life Kit newsletter for expert advice on love, money, relationships and more.

innumerable painted lady butterflies have migrated thousands of miles across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. For the first time, an international team of scientists known as the Worldwide Painted Lady Migration Project has traced their migration route. Over the past decade, the team has identified 10 generations of butterflies during their annual migration cycle. From 2021 to 2024, photographer Lucas Foglia accompanied the scientists on their journey across continents, capturing images of the researchers and the butterflies they were studying. This journey is also documented in Foglia’s book, Constant Bloom.

The index lost nearly 700 points yesterday. However, Americans’ feeling gloomier about the economy hasn’t stopped people from spending money. Retail sales jumped sharply last month as people raced to buy stuff ahead of Trump’s steep new tariffs kicking in.

Source: Trump hopes to jail U.S. citizens abroad. And, retail sales jump ahead of tariffs

The Up First Newsletter – The New Insights from a Case Study of the Tren de Aragua gang in Venezuela

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled yesterday that the Trump administration “demonstrated willful disregard” for a court order and is likely in criminal contempt. The government failed to comply with his orders last month, as he stated, to turn around two planes carrying migrants from Venezuela. On March 15, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to quickly deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without hearings. The same day dozens of men were loaded onto two flights and the American Civil Liberties Union sued. That evening, during an emergency hearing, is when Boasberg made his orders for the planes to be returned.

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