Trump's Deportations Ignore Due Process

Throughout recent days, Trump has engaged in a showdown with federal judges, defying their orders to not deport Venezuelan immigrants. These immigrants are not in the United States legally and are accused of having gang ties to a Salvadorian prison named CECOT, or the Center for Terrorism Confinement.

However, according to CNN, multiple families of the deportees, as well as the government of Venezuela, have taken umbrage with the deportations, claiming that neither the Trump nor Bukele administrations have provided credible evidence of the guilt of the imprisoned.

Undocumented immigrants are guaranteed the same due process as U.S. citizens under current laws.

In between Trump’s first and second terms, in 2022, Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, declared a war on gangs due to El Salvador’s sky-high crime rate, which was chiefly fueled by gang-related crime. People who were thought to have ties to gangs, such as those who had tattoos that were thought to be gang tattoos, were rounded up en masse and sent to CECOT.

In addition to the issue of the possible innocence of those being detained in CECOT, there is also the issue of human rights abuses within the prison itself.

According to a 2023 report by the United States State Department, after the creation of the prison, “reports of gang violence decreased significantly, allowing citizens to exercise their right to life, liberty, and security of person, and to engage in daily activities and commerce without the constant threat of violence and extortion.”

However, in much the same way that I take umbrage with the fact Donald Trump is denying the deportees due process, the State Department took issue with Bukele’s “arbitrary arrests and mass pretrial hearings,” which they believed “undermined due process and exacerbated historically difficult conditions in overcrowded prisons.”

According to a report released last week by the Associated Press, conditions in CECOT are inhumane, with prisoners never being allowed to receive visits or to go outside.

Bukele’s justice minister has also stated those held in CECOT will never be released or allowed to return to their communities. The 2023 State Department report alleges torture in Salvadorian prisons and references reports of systemic abuse of prisoners in the Salvadorian prison system, including beatings by guards and the use of electric shocks, including guards activating electric stun guns against wet floors to deliver electric shocks to all the prisoners in a cell.

It also references allegations of a lack of food, with some prisoners only being allowed to eat two tortillas and a spoonful of beans each day, and a lack of medical care and sanitation, with communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and scabies, allegedly widespread.

In addition to the human rights concerns present in the deportations from the United States to CECOT, this also raises legal and constitutional concerns.

According to that same report by the Associated Press, Donald Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has only been used three times in the history of the United States and gives the President extraordinary power to deport or detain foreigners and do away with their legal protections.

Because the act requires the United States to be in a war, which we are not, Trump has claimed that Tren de Aragua, a Salvadorian gang, is invading the United States, which it is not.

Trump’s lack of identification of the immigrants deported, as well as the lack of evidence of their gang membership or their criminal status in the United States, sets a dangerous precedent of the denial of the rights enumerated in the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.