More Trump Steps Towards Autocracy

Part of what cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has done, either intentionally or not, is to flood the zone with steps towards autocracy. He and others in his administration take so many actions that it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. Therefore, today I am going to list a few of the more recent autocratic moves that may otherwise go unnoticed.

First, I want to start with an update on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation. Abrego Garcia, as most of you reading this blog are probably aware, is the Maryland father who was removed to El Salvador in error. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered that discovery begin to determine whether the federal government should be held in contempt for failing to obey a Supreme Court ruling that the government should facilitate Abrego Garcia's release and return to the U.S. The government was also required to provide daily status reports on its efforts. On Tuesday, in a strange occurrence, government lawyers submitted their status update under seal, meaning that it was withheld from both the public and Abrego Garcia’s lawyers. We don't know what was in that report, but yesterday the government submitted a motion to delay both discovery and the status reports for seven days. That motion was also filed under seal, but was apparently shared with Abrego Garcia's legal defense team. Abrego Garcia's attorneys responded also under seal. Then Xinis issued an order granting the seven-day delay and saying that both sides had agreed to it. To be clear, we don't know what occurred here other than that the government asked for a delay, Abrego Garcia's legal team agreed to the delay, and Xinis approved it. My hope and guess is that the government is trying to work a deal for Abrego Garcia's return and is afraid that publicity will upset the negotiations. My further speculation is that these negotiations are not taking place between the U.S. and Salvadoran governments, but rather between various components of the U.S. government. Trump's advisors are probably busy jangling keys in front of his face like parents trying to distract a child having a tantrum and don't want him further upset by comments coming out of Xinis' courtroom. No guarantees, of course — again, this is speculation on my part — but I have some hope that Abrego Garcia could be returning to the U.S. within a week.

On the topic of men being sent to El Salvador and held in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), two more stories came out this week that would be shocking were it not for the fact that nothing involving the Trump administration's treatment of migrants is shocking anymore. The first case involved Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan immigrant who has been working as a delivery driver in Detroit, Michigan. As the New York Times reports, after picking up a McDonald's order, Prada took a wrong turn and ended up on the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. Prada turned around, but then had to go through U.S. immigration and customs control. U.S. authorities took him into custody and ordered him deported. He was later able to tell a friend that he had been moved to Texas and that he expected to be sent back to Venezuela. But after that, he vanished. While three aircraft carrying detainees held in the Texas facility had gone to El Salvador, Prada was not listed as being among them. Nor had he appeared in any of the photos released of the detainees. He had simply disappeared. After the Times story was published, Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that Prada had been sent to El Salvador on March 15 and was being held in CECOT. That means that for more than a month, nobody — not Prada's family, not his lawyer, and not the New York Times — could determine his whereabouts.

A very similar case occurred around the same time involving another Venezuelan named Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel. Adrián was detained by federal agents on March 13 while he was on his way to his job at a Dallas, Texas barbershop. Adrián's family contacted the DHS and other law enforcement agencies attempting to learn his fate, but were given run-arounds and conflicting answers. They elicited help from legal organizations, and Adrián's mother even went to a detention center in Venezuela to see if he had been sent there. Nearly five weeks passed without a trace of Adrián's whereabouts. Finally, after NBC News reporters contacted DHS, they were told that he had been sent to El Salvador, though it was not confirmed whether he is being held in CECOT or another prison.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, men dressed in plain clothes (one wearing a balaclava covering his face), displaying no badges of any sort, and refusing to show warrants, who claimed to be "officers from Homeland Security," stormed the Albemarle County Courthouse and seized two men. One of those taken had just left a courtroom where a case against him had been dismissed. The second man was at the courthouse to pay a fine. There is no information about why the men were detained or what happened to them.

There is really no sugarcoating what is happening in America these days. Men are grabbed off the street, provided absolutely no due process, and sent off to foreign prisons for indefinite detention. These could very well be life sentences. We simply don't know because the government won't say what they intend for these people in the future (though El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has suggested that those in CECOT will never be freed). In both cases, the men entered the country legally after being granted CBP One appointments while waiting in Mexico. In both cases, they were working and living upstanding lives. The government is claiming that they are members of Tren de Aragua, but refuses to release any information to support those allegations.

Overnight, the Trump administration admitted that it had sent four other Venezuelans to El Salvador despite a court order preventing their removal. As ABC News reports, "U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued a court order on March 28 requiring that "anyone with a final order of removal must have an opportunity to raise concerns about their safety before they are deported". In this case, the four men were first moved to Guantanamo Bay and then flown to El Salvador. The government is claiming that it did not violate the order because rather than being transferred by DHS, the men were transported by the Defense Department which was not subject to Murphy's order. Murphy has scheduled a hearing next week to review possible violations of his temporary restraining order. Murphy has subsequently issued a preliminary injunction restricting the Trump administration much as the temporary restraining order had.

Investigative journalist Radley Balko has published a story about a lawyer in a Dallas, TX suburb who was asked to provide informal advice to an immigrant family that was facing trouble with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The lawyer went to the family's home and spent less than an hour explaining their rights if they were arrested by ICE. Two days later, the lawyer was working at home when his Internet connection went down. Two men came to his door and accused him of "obstructing an ongoing immigration investigation." When the lawyer asked them to identify themselves, they refused, and he shut the door on them. After they left, his Internet connection returned, but his Ring camera had been unable to record the interaction. This incident is part of a pattern of the Trump administration attempting to intimidate lawyers, especially those involved in immigration. As Balko notes, "There have now been at least two incidents in which Customs and Border Patrol agents have detained immigration attorneys at the border and attempted to search their cell phones." Trump's "Border Czar" Tom Homan has threatened to prosecute Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because she has been handing out "know your rights" pamphlets.

Trump administration officials have become increasingly hostile to Americans who support migrant rights. Sebastian Gorka, Trump's Senior Director for Counterterrorism, said during an interview on Newsmax that those who do not support Trump's immigration policies are "on the side of the terrorists." He went on to say that such people may be "aiding and abetting" terrorists and that "aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute." Possibly as a result of that interview, Axios published a report titled, "3 ways Trump's immigration crackdown could hit U.S. citizens". The report begins by saying, "Trump administration officials are suggesting their immigration crackdown could expand to include deporting convicted U.S. citizens and charging anyone — not just immigrants — who criticizes Trump's policies." To be clear, anything involving U.S. citizens is not an "immigration crackdown", but rather a violation of Americans' rights. The report quotes Trump as saying, "Homegrowns are next" in a conversation with El Salvador's Bukele. The article quotes, Kerri Talbot, an immigration advocate, as saying, "They're trying to use terrorism laws to attack people for their speech and for their political activism, and that's an authoritarian effort." Axios also notes that American citizens have repeatedly been detained by ICE and links to two recent cases in Florida and Arizona.

By this point, I have described the Trump administration's policy of seizing people off the street and hustling them off to a foreign gulag without due process and, in some cases, without even letting anyone know about what they've done. The administration has then gone on to attempt to intimidate Americans who stand up for migrant rights and is now considering arresting such Americans as "terrorism supporters" and potentially sending Americans to the same foreign hellholes as the migrants. That is the sort of bleak assessment one might read in a dystopian novel or an account of the Soviet Union. Certainly that is not the America that is celebrated for civil rights and freedom. The only thing worse would be the administration going after children, but surely even this administration would not stoop that low. Well, um, yes, it would.

Earlier this week, Gothamist published an article titled "4-year-old migrant girl, other kids go to court in NYC with no lawyer: 'The cruelty is apparent'" which described immigration court appearances by unaccompanied children who are being held in New York City. The children included a 7-year-old and an 8-year-old, but also a 4-year-old. Trump administration cuts to the program that has paid for legal representation have meant that these kids must appear before the judge without a lawyer. Immigration proceedings, generally conducted in English with defendants who are not proficient in the language, are difficult for adults to navigate. Imagine how it must be for a young child. They have no idea what is going on or how to assert their rights. The result is that most of them end up deported.

Finally, for today, I want to update a post I made earlier this week about Trump and cryptocurrency. The post described how Trump was using his political influence to profit from cryptocurrency investments. One of Trump's cryptocurrency initiatives was the $TRUMP memecoin. Trump has now announced that the top 220 holders of the memecoin will be invited to a private dinner with the President. As a result of the announcement, the value of the memecoin jumped by more than 50%. This increase comes just before Trump is allowed to sell some of his own coins. Clearly, Trump is using his Presidency and the opportunity to meet with him as a way to pump the value of his coins just before he sells them. This is corruption right out in the open, but it is possible because there is nobody willing to challenge Trump about it. Republican members of Congress, far from considering impeachment proceedings as they should, are probably busy buying $TRUMP themselves so that they can attend the dinner.

Update: A District judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump Administration to facilitate the release and return of another Venezuelan man from El Salvador's CECOT prison. The detainee, identified only as "Cristian," was a protected from removal from the United States due to a previous court settlement. The judge ruled that his transfer to El Salvador violated that settlement. This news was first reported by ABC News.