Trump’s OUTRAGEOUS New Plan – WOW!
Trump wants to ship American criminals to El Salvador’s notorious prisons while the courts, constitution, and common sense all scream “absolutely not” – but when has that ever stopped him?
At a Glance
- Trump proposed sending “homegrown” American citizens convicted of crimes to El Salvador’s notorious prison system
- El Salvador’s President Bukele has agreed to the plan and offered to build more prisons
- Legal experts unanimously declare the proposal “pretty obviously illegal and unconstitutional”
- The Supreme Court has already rejected similar deportation measures without due process
- A Maryland U.S. citizen wrongfully deported to El Salvador remains imprisoned despite court orders for his return
Constitutional Crisis in the Making
Just when you thought the left couldn’t get any more hysterical about Trump’s immigration plans, he gives them something genuinely worth freaking out about. During a meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Trump casually suggested shipping American citizens convicted of crimes to El Salvador’s prison system. “We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters. I’d like to include them,” Trump stated, apparently unbothered by that pesky document called the Constitution.
Let’s be crystal clear: while I’m all for getting tough on crime and making criminals face real consequences, this proposal runs headlong into a brick wall of constitutional reality. The government cannot simply ship American citizens to foreign prisons without their consent – period. As Ilya Somin succinctly put it: “It is pretty obviously illegal and unconstitutional.” You’d think someone surrounded by constitutional lawyers would know this, but here we are, discussing a proposal that would have made King George III blush with envy.
El Salvador’s Prison System: Tropical Gulag
To understand the full absurdity of this proposal, you need to know what El Salvador’s prison system actually looks like. Under Bukele, the country has built massive detention centers known for human rights abuses, overcrowding, and indefinite detention without trial. While this approach has certainly crushed gang activity in El Salvador – a genuine achievement worth acknowledging – it’s done so by essentially suspending due process and other civil liberties that Americans hold dear. The centerpiece is the notorious CECOT prison complex, which makes most American maximum-security facilities look like summer camps.
“In fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate. You know, but to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.” said President Nayib Bukele.
That statement from Bukele would make any freedom-loving American’s blood run cold. “Liberate” 350 million Americans by imprisoning some? This isn’t the language of a democratic leader – it’s the language of authoritarian control wrapped in flowery rhetoric about security. The irony is thick enough to spread on toast: conservatives have spent decades warning about government overreach, and yet here we have a proposal that would give the federal government power to ship Americans to foreign prisons. If that’s not government overreach, I don’t know what is.
A History Lesson We Shouldn’t Need
The British practice of shipping colonists to far-flung prisons was literally one of the grievances that sparked the American Revolution. Our founding fathers were so disturbed by this practice that they enshrined protections against it in our Constitution. Now, centuries later, we’re actually entertaining the idea of reviving this colonial punishment system? This isn’t conservative policy – it’s a rejection of foundational American principles. A true conservative approach to crime involves certainty of punishment, swift justice, and respect for constitutional limits – not outsourcing our justice system to foreign dictatorships.
“U.S. citizens may not be deported to imprisonment abroad. There is no authority for that in any U.S. law.” said David Bier.
The case that perfectly illustrates why this proposal should be dead on arrival involves Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man with U.S. citizenship who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Despite Supreme Court orders for his return, he remains in CECOT prison with both the Salvadoran government and the Trump administration refusing to comply. If this is how they handle a wrongful deportation case involving an American citizen, imagine the potential for abuse under a systematic deportation program. The Constitution doesn’t include a “but these people are really bad” exception clause.
