Trump’s Lawless, Spectacle-Driven Crackdown on Venezuelans
The U.S. Just Deported 200+ Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Notorious Mega-Prison—Defying a Court Order
No hearings. No due process. No evidence of crimes.
Deported under a wartime law from 1798.
Thrown into CECOT, El Salvador’s most brutal prison—where prisoners are meant to disappear.
This happened despite a federal judge explicitly blocking the deportations. The Trump administration ignored the ruling and carried them out anyway.
The U.S. Just Deported 200+ Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Notorious Mega-Prison—Defying a Court Order.
A Blatant Violation of the Law, Dressed as Executive Authority
This wasn’t just another deportation. It was a deliberate act of defiance against the U.S. legal system.
Judge James Boasberg had ruled against Trump’s attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act—a wartime law from 1798—to deport over 200 Venezuelan migrants. The administration ignored the order.
In a remarkable statement, the White House claimed the courts had no authority to intervene. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, dismissed the ruling outright:
“A single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft … full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.”
Trump himself, speaking aboard Air Force One, made the spectacle even more evident:
“I can tell you this: These were bad people.”
But here’s what they won’t say:
No evidence was presented that these men were criminals.
No trials were held. No legal process was followed.
Media outlets could not confirm whether these men were gang members. Even if they were, they still had the right to due process.
The $6 Million Deal: Trading Human Lives for Political Spectacle
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele— “a cryptocurrency-obsessed” Trump ally who calls himself the “world’s coolest dictator” and a “philosopher king”—cut a deal with the Trump administration to imprison 300 migrants in El Salvador’s detention system for $6 million.
His government has now confirmed that 238 men have already been handed over to local authorities, vanishing into a prison built for indefinite disappearance.
Bukele, mirroring Trump mocked the U.S. court’s ruling in a social media post, writing:
“Oopsie… Too late.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reshared his post and publicly thanked Bukele for his “assistance and friendship.”
CECOT: A Death Sentence Disguised as Law
These men were sent to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca—El Salvador’s most notorious prison.
Holds up to 40,000 inmates under extreme overcrowding.
No visitation, no outdoor time, no rehabilitation programs.
Mass torture, abuse, and deaths have been reported.
Bukele’s government has said prisoners will never return to society.
This is not deportation. This is a rendition. The U.S. is outsourcing detention to a foreign prison with no oversight, no legal process, and no escape.
From Extraordinary Rendition to Mass Deportation
This is not the first time the U.S. has disappeared people beyond the reach of the law. The deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador follows the same logic as extraordinary rendition—the practice of abducting individuals, often without evidence, and transferring them to foreign prisons with no legal protections and beyond the reach of U.S. courts.
First instituted by the Clinton administration, expanded by Bush as part of the War on Terror, and upheld by Obama, extraordinary rendition allowed the U.S. to outsource detention, interrogation, and torture to foreign governments with little to no oversight. Just as detainees were secretly sent to CIA black sites and third-party countries like Poland, Egypt and Syria, these deportations bypassed legal protections and due process, handing migrants over to a government with a history of rights abuses.
Now, the same tactics are being applied to migrants. Venezuelans were handed over to a government with a known record of brutality, stripped of their rights, and disappeared into a foreign prison built for indefinite detention. The goal is the same: to erase legal personhood, disappear people into carceral systems, and eliminate any accountability for what happens next.
What This Really Is: A Spectacle of Humiliation and Erasure
This isn’t about border security. It’s about the ritualized destruction of rights—a calculated performance of state power meant to show that some people no longer deserve to exist within the framework of the law.
The people in the photos, kneeling on the floor, were violently torn from their families and lives in the U.S.
Their heads were shaved. Their bodies shackled. Their dignity stripped away.
They were thrown into CECOT, a prison built for indefinite disappearance.
This is not immigration enforcement. This is governance through humiliation.
The forced visual of bowed bodies, mass detention, and dehumanization is nothing new—it’s the same script used at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and every U.S.-backed black site designed to disappear people beyond the reach of law.
This is the manufacturing of the enemy—a visual shorthand that tells the public: These men are criminals. These men deserve this.
It is a lie. But it is an effective one.
How Did We Get Here?
For over two decades, the War on Terror normalized:
Preemptive detention—imprisoning people on suspicion, not evidence.
The erosion of due process—replacing trials with indefinite imprisonment.
The transformation of terrorism into a justification for mass state violence.
Trump has resurrected those same tactics—this time against migrants.
He called these men “terrorists” without evidence.
He invoked wartime emergency powers to bypass courts.
His administration choreographed a grotesque public spectacle—shackled men, shaved heads, prison uniforms—all designed to reinforce the idea that certain people don’t deserve legal rights.
This is not immigration policy. This is the expansion of the carceral state, using the same playbook from Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.
The Invention of the ‘Forever Prisoner’ for Migrants
During the War on Terror, the U.S. created a category of people who could be detained forever.
At Guantánamo, detainees were labelled:
Too dangerous to release but without enough evidence to charge.
Unlawful enemy combatants, stripped of legal protections.
They are exiled from the legal system, with no path to freedom.
That same logic is now being transferred to the immigration system.
These Venezuelans were not tried, sentenced, or processed under criminal law.
They were abducted and forcibly transferred to a foreign prison with no legal recourse.
The U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to hold them for a year—but nothing prevents that from becoming permanent.
This Is Only the Beginning
The Trump administration did this as a test. They knew the deportations would be challenged—and they did it anyway.
Now, they know they can get away with it.
Who else will be rounded up next?
What other court rulings will be ignored?
Which groups will lose their legal protections first?
The forever prisoner framework has returned. It started in Guantánamo. Now, it has reached migrants. And if we don’t stop it, it will expand.
This is not just about border policy. This is about the systematic dismantling of legal rights.