U.S. and El Salvador Say They Won't Return Man Who Was Mistakenly Deported
274 points by dougb5 2 months ago | 254 comments- sjsdaiuasgdia 2 months agoThis is an even worse intentionally created jurisdictional black hole than Guantanamo Bay.
Abduct someone. Move them faster than their family, friends, and legal counsel can possibly follow. Get them on a plane to El Salvador. Put them in the CECOT hole. And then say "Aw geez, they're in Salvadorian jurisdiction now, nothing we can do."
Yes, Abrego Garcia is a Salvadorian citizen. He also had been explicitly granted protected status to remain in the US.
Nothing about this process prevents its application against US citizens. The detainee is pushed through a one-way valve faster than due process can be applied. If we do not protect the rule of law for immigrants who have been granted the right to stay here, we will also lose the rule of law for citizens.
- JumpCrisscross 2 months ago> Move them faster than their family, friends, and legal counsel can possibly follow. Get them on a plane to El Salvador
The question is whether these folks would be better off if the abductors were obstructed. They’re no longer operating under the colour of law. Disabling vehicles, possible officers, or otherwise creating chaos that makes moving victims around starts to make sense. Because if the other side isn’t playing by the rules, it really doesn’t make sense for you to.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2 months agoThat's the unfortunate powder keg we're sitting on. Right now everyone's still generally keeping up appearances that the rules matter. It's getting pretty thin in places. The dance the Trump admin is doing with the courts over Abrego Garcia serves multiple purposes. It gives a veneer of compliance - DoJ lawyers are showing up to hearings, they are filing briefings, they are participating in the process. It would be extremely fair to say they're not participating in good faith, the strategy clearly intends to delay and deflect any meaningful implementation of the court's order to bring Abrego Garcia back to the US. But they are participating.
This appearance keeps a lot of folks on the fence. They want the big moment where it's super obvious that it's time to act. It doesn't work like that. This is how fascists gnaw away at the constructs that enable free societies.
> Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement.
> “So, through constitutional means?” the presiding judge asked.
> “Jawohl!” Hitler replied.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2 months ago
- bambax 2 months agoIANAL but the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) doesn't mention "citizens", only "persons"; the US constitution should in theory protect any human being, wherever they are and whatever country they're from, from attacks by the US government.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2 months agoDefinitely. But a lot of people are happy to look at what's happening with Abrego Garcia and say "it can't happen to me, I'm a US citizen."
Those people need to be actively reminded that once we discard due process and rule of law, your status does not matter. If the administration chooses to target you, you'll be on the other side of the valve before anyone can meaningfully intervene on your behalf to assert your rights.
There's a phrase "you can beat the time, but you can't beat the ride," meaning you can't do much about it if the police want to put you in jail for the night/weekend. They're going to subdue you, they're going to handcuff you, and they're going to book you. The validity of the charges or chance of successful prosecution does not matter, you're going to jail. You might bond out or get released as soon as you see a magistrate judge, but in the meantime you're going to jail.
If the "ride" extends all the way to a facility that is beyond the jurisdiction of US courts, then the ride and the time are one and the same. The executive is not only the enforcer but also the judge and jury. It is absolutely broken from a constitutional perspective.
- soraminazuki 2 months agoEven if you ignore the legal side of things, it's crazy to me to see some argue that founding principles don't apply to non-citizens. "The government shall not abduct and send people to concentration camps, as long as they're American citizens" sounds completely bonkers and immoral.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2 months ago
- readthenotes1 2 months agoAnd don't forget about "extreme renditions" when people just disappeared
- _DeadFred_ 2 months agoThis has been abused in the past and no one cared. Held in illegal prison conditions in the US? Take it to court, they just move you and you no longer have jurisdiction and the original illegal prison situation is never changed.
- maujun 2 months agoI am curious about researching these past cases, but am a bit busy.
Do you have any links?
- _DeadFred_ 2 months agoI no longer have access to Lexus but try searching using 'moot transfer loss/lack of standing/jurisdiction correctional facility'. US Prisons have sections of facilities so bad for potential mental damage inmates can only remain in them for 3 months max but nothing is done to enforce that limit. If inmates file and start to have success they do finally get moved but they then lose standing regarding the conditions (while other inmates are then put in the freed up unfit cell). The feds move jurisdiction strategically, not so much they lose 'good faith' from the courts but more than is acceptable when they are using it specifically to undermine access to the courts/civil rights, prevent rulings on cells/wings ruled unfit for more than short term, etc.
And when transfered you get diesel therapy. Every new prison situation presents threat to life risks, so being introduced to potentially a dozen new situations (you get placed in a new prison situation each nights stopover) during transit is something US inmates try to minimize (unfortunately timed transfers (oops, BOP mistake, sorry, we didn't mean for you to miss meals, just a timing mistake) causing missing breakfast/dinner so you often get just a single bologna sandwiches/orange in a day, plus the whole pissing yourself, inability to wipe yourself because you are shackled, and you aren't getting unshackled to use the toilet on your 12 hour ride, etc, etc google Diesel Therapy).
https://documentedny.com/2025/04/08/diesel-therapy-ice-depor...https://www.vice.com/sv/article/diesel-v11n2/
- _DeadFred_ 2 months ago
- maujun 2 months ago
- JumpCrisscross 2 months ago
- i80and 2 months agoNot to be blunt, but isn't this the end of habeas corpus, if the federal government can black bag anybody they want to without a trial, and then maintain they have no ability to obey judicial orders to return them?
- bananapub 2 months agocorrect, and in another place they're claiming that the habeas petition that was filed to save another victim was invalid because it was filed in the wrong state, because the Feds had kidnapped the woman, then refused to say where they had taken her until she was safely in a friendlier jurisdiction. due process has already died.
- stego-tech 2 months agoYes, and that was the point all along.
- croes 2 months agoIsn’t Guantanamo something similar?
At least the government didn’t pretend they can’t they just don’t want to
- UncleMeat 2 months agoGuantanamo is indeed a horrible authoritarian injustice but it is not the same. Gitmo is operated by the US government and people detained there can still have access to legal representation to challenge their detainment.
What is happening here is the US government sending people to a gulag operated by a foreign nation and then insisting that that's the end of it. There can be no meaningful challenge of your unlawful detainment. With CECOT your only opportunity to vindicate your rights is at the literal moment that you are grabbed off the street.
- croes 2 months agoThat’s why I wrote similar especially under Bush.
One of the milestones in the fall of human rights in the west.
- croes 2 months ago
- wtallis 2 months agoGuantanamo was Bush's attempt to circumvent habeas corpus by imprisoning people outside the country. The Supreme Court didn't let him get away with that. The El Salvador strategy is the logical next step to avoid habeas corpus, by using a prison that is foreign-operated not just located in a foreign country.
- rich_sasha 2 months agoWith no endorsement of what went on in Gitmo, at least it was mostly people accused of truly terrible crimes.
Isn't the Salvador cohort literally mostly random people?
EDIT: by "random people" I meant the ones deported from the US, not people arrested in El Salvador.
- rich_sasha 2 months ago
- drewcoo 2 months agoGitmo is a US naval base, thus considered American soil by US authorities. That's the difference.
Well . . . a difference. Something like 95% of Gitmo detainees were eventually determined not to be terrorists and were freed. I expect No Salvador to be a bit worse.
- KerrAvon 2 months agoYes, but Guantanamo should have been closed (Obama promised to do this! he didn't do it!) and the people who masterminded it should have been thrown in jail. But, no, we had to "look forward" and not punish the war criminals in our immediate past.
- i80and 2 months agoObama did sign EO 13492 requiring Guantanamo to be closed, in fairness, with a deadline and everything.
He could have and should have done more, but the blame for that one mostly falls on Congress (at the time firmly controlled by Democrats) blocking said EO
- xnx 2 months ago> Obama promised to do this! he didn't do it!
True, but important to know that Republican congress stopped every attempt he made. He still got the number of prisoners down from 242 to 55.
- i80and 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- UncleMeat 2 months ago
- csolorio 2 months agoThey're using the excuse that he's not a citizen. Slippery slope.
- fanatic2pope 2 months agoThey have already said they want to send US citizens there too.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-confirms-trump-is...
- hobs 2 months agoThey simply have to not validate you are a US citizen, no rights for anyone means no rights for everyone.
- JumpCrisscross 2 months agoHabeus corpus is only suspended in war. Not a citizen doesn’t mean Russia can jail any American connecting in Moscow because they had a bad haircut.
- 2 months ago
- sorcerer-mar 2 months agoIt's not a slippery slope, it's blatantly unconstitutional already.
- 2 months ago
- fanatic2pope 2 months ago
- treetalker 2 months agoThat will be moot once Trump suspends habeas corpus.
- matwood 2 months agoAssuming they pick up and send someone out of the country quickly, it's already de facto suspended now.
- matwood 2 months ago
- bananapub 2 months ago
- HaZeust 2 months agoI want to explain something here that is of utmost importance to these developments.
To be a citizen, you have 8th amendment protections against "cruel and unusual" punishment. As it is, it can be fiercely debated for involuntary servitude in foreign nations as "unusual" as it is, but prisons like the El Salvador one are innately cruel and unusual, watch any media or even El Salvador's brags about its techniques and methodologies last year.
To be sent there - or to any other country to do a bid - is to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, to be subjected to such as an American citizen is unconstitutional.
We, as citizens, really need to take a step back and decide if we're going to do something about this tyranny - and if we'll truly be our brother's keepers. If a post-Heller America in 2008 couldn't even agree on trusting the government to fairly regulate a constitutional right like guns, why trust them to define “heinous” or “violent” and not yank your 8th Amendment protections, as well? Once they can call you an “exception,” they can ship you off anywhere, even to some third-world prison, and say “tough luck.” That’s the same overreach we’re supposed to be wary of in the first place.
- insane_dreamer 2 months agoDon't US constitutional rights also apply to non-citizens on US soil?
- HaZeust 2 months agoPartially, but that's not my point, because now U.S. Citizens are being threatened - at least verbally - on U.S. Soil. Just 2 hours ago, a press conference talked about Trump wanting to do the same thing to home-grown citizens [1]. Today's practice with Garcia is not just an appeal to the "slippery slope" argument (in case anyone wants to call fallacy, I'm shutting them down ahead of time), it's an appeal to the fact that Trump is actualizing the slippery slope and discussing - literally less than a week later - how he wants to use this situation as precedent to do the same to home-grown criminals - American citizens.
Also, Garcia was granted protected status to remain in the US, and had a separate court order saying he specifically couldn't be sent to El Salvador. They are no longer saying it like it is. Will they for us?
1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1jz477g/trump_to_bukel...
- fragmede 2 months agoshould they, or do they?
- HaZeust 2 months ago
- insane_dreamer 2 months ago
- ty6853 2 months agoHe's been in jail for a month. If he isn't dead or seriously injured, there is a high likelihood he has had to join MS-13 or Barrio 18 (listed terrorist organizations) just to survive while locked up with hardened gang members. Which according to the DoJ would make him ineligible for withholding of removal.
Does anyone know if this is true? That could create a real catch-22, toss someone into a prison full of gang members, make them join a foreign terrorist organization to survive, then invalidate their withholding because they are now a terrorist.
- matwood 2 months agoMy speculation all along has been that he's already dead. Among other reasons, it's one of the main reasons they are fighting not only his return but any other type of hearing that he could attend.
- OutOfHere 2 months agoIf alive, as a prisoner, he would now have an awareness of the operations of the CECOT prison that would be too harmful for the El Salvador government to let the world know. If so, this would imply that no one can ever be released from CECOT.
Wikipedia says as much:
> The Salvadoran government does not plan to release any prisoner from CECOT,[19] and Minister of Justice and Public Security Gustavo Villatoro has stated that prisoners incarcerated at CECOT will never return to their communities.
It strictly and literally is a one-way destination.
- ndsipa_pomu 2 months agoIt makes sense as there was the previous judicial order that he was NOT to be returned to El Salvador due to the risk of him being injured/killed by the gang members.
- llm_nerd 2 months agoThey are fighting his return out of absolutely hubris. They are pissing on the constitution, multiple levels of court, and even the Supreme Court. They're seeing what they can get away with.
I don't care how violently stupid someone is in their support of this garbage administration, if even the smooth-brained Trump supporter doesn't realize how grotesquely anti-American and dangerous this is, they aren't paying attention.
- OutOfHere 2 months ago
- legitster 2 months agoThis is already a reality for the US prison system. It's really good at turning low-level criminals into dangerous ones.
- yread 2 months agoI've wondered since the start of this thing: why didn't anyone object to labelling MS-13, an ordinary gang, "a terrorist organization"? Especially, since even Trump admitted they did it so that they can go harder after them? I.e. not because they are actual terrorists, but just so they could apply the harsher terrorism laws against them. "We're using 'terrorism' which gives us extra strength. We've done a great job with MS-13, but now we're stepping it up to an even higher level."
- ty6853 2 months agoIf you read the last DoJ filing in the Garcia case, they claim the law invalidates orders of withholding for members of FTOs. I do not know if that is true or not, but I'm willing to believe it is.
So your question has been elucidated. They did it so they could invalidate parole or orders of withholding of removal by either labeling immigrants as in MS-13 or forcing them to join by tossing them in jail with gangs and then using it against them. It was a necessary precursor to the deportations.
- yencabulator 2 months agoSame reason US has been in a continuous "state of emergency" for I don't even care how many decades. More power, less oversight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...
- ty6853 2 months ago
- Hamuko 2 months agoThey had no proof that he was a terrorist in the first place, so I'm not really sure if they're concerned about him joining or not.
- ty6853 2 months agoBut forcing him to join by surrounding him with gang members who would otherwise harm him, might be effective in killing his withholding of removal order, even if they have to drag him back to get it done.
1) "This guy is gang member."
2) Toss in jail, surrounded by the gang members he tried to escape. (Even if El Salvador thing gets stopped, same plan works in US)
3) Gang forces him to join
4) Now part of terrorist organization
5) "Terrorists are ineligible for orders of withholding."
- kyleee 2 months ago[flagged]
- kyleee 2 months ago
- UncleMeat 2 months agoWell, he did wear some chicago bulls gear (I wish I were kidding, this is legitimately one of the pieces of evidence offered by the government).
- ty6853 2 months ago
- dfxm12 2 months agoWhat's true is that Trump's response here shows the mental gymnastics you're referring to are superfluous. The facts, laws, due process, etc. simply don't apply anymore.
- matwood 2 months ago
- stego-tech 2 months ago"You're being alarmist/hyperbolic/paranoid. That could never happen here." - Everyone, to people like me, since the post-9/11 PATRIOT Act days.
Now that the reality is staring them in the face, suddenly folks want to know "what can we do?" Well, I'll tell you exactly what you can do:
Nothing.
I want to make this abundantly clear: you cannot undo this damage. You cannot roll back this clock. You cannot go backwards to a time before our elected leaders annihilated the global trust in American Empire, Business, and Institutions in favor of authoritarian ideals. We have had over thirty years of clear warnings about the outcomes of our policies, and nobody gave a fuck.
The Old World is Dead (https://green.spacedino.net/the-old-world-is-dead/), and you cannot get it back. What we can do now, is move as quickly as possible to distance ourselves from the failed American state, its authoritarian regimes, and the sycophant companies and entities that enabled it. That means ditching American media, American goods, American services, and American capital. It's going to mean ostracizing an entire country and its people, and accepting the suffering that will bring until a new country (or countries) arise from its ashes, willing to cooperate on the global stage once more.
The only bright side is that countries who open their doors to persecuted minorities from America (LGBTQ+, non-white, neurodivergent, the disabled) are likely to reap immense brain gains as a result. America has failed, but the new world order has yet to be established - so if you want your country to have a seat at the table, now is the time to hoard (ex-)American talent and integrate them into your own society.
- alabastervlog 2 months agoThe other day on here, I likened this to taking a bunch of steps toward a cliff, then jumping off, and then asking "what can I do to stop this?!"
We're in the "free-fall" portion now. All we can do is wait and see how far we fall before striking the ground. The time to stop it was during any of the steps we took toward the cliff's edge.
- kelseyfrog 2 months agoI was specifically told that I was being dramatic and that it was all rhetoric and that it could never happen here. What gives?
- stego-tech 2 months agoBecause - speaking from a lot of experience, both personally and professionally - human beings hate bad news. They reject the wet blankets, the naysayers, the doomers, the party poopers...you get the idea. I mean, the fact we have so many metaphors for the act of being the person giving a group bad news, should tell you how poorly humans look on it. Humans want to believe the sun will rise tomorrow, the birds will sing, the lines will go up, and everything will be fine (or better) than it was yesterday.
This attitude is especially prominent in tech. There's a very real desire to immediately replace whatever was old with whatever is new, regardless of utility or viability. We're participants in (or supporters of) a system of startup-expansion-acquisition-repeat that only focuses on building something new that has a perceived valuation, not something that's actually beneficial. There's no attitude to look back or be objective, because tomorrow will just be better anyway. So when your business leaders, capital investors, regulators, engineers, and developers are all "high on their own supply" of new > old and complex > simple, that attitude seeps out into other aspects of society as a whole.
Nobody likes naysayers who are right. It's just our curse, I guess.
- gryfft 2 months agoWhat gives is that many of those saying those things to you were arguing in bad faith to waste your time and attention.
Now their team has won and they get to kill all the bad guys in peace.
- Dagonfly 2 months agoJust in case you haven't read it, I can recommend this excerpt from "They Thought They Were Free." [1] It describes this exact feeling of "maybe I'm just being dramatic" during the rise of the Nazis.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943973
As someone who grew up next to a former concentration camp, the main takeaway when talking to survivors was: If you give the benefit of the doubt, you won't believe fascism has taken over until it's too late. You should talk to your friends and close ones and draw a line somewhere. Maybe it's once a US citizen gets send to El Salvador. Just something to agree on. Once this happens normal is over and we need to act. And organize locally don't stay on your own during these times.
I hope the best for the US.
- dfxm12 2 months agoit was all rhetoric and that it could never happen here
I hear this a lot. It's fascinating when you consider how many people claimed to have voted for Trump because he is a liar.
- bananapub 2 months ago[flagged]
- stego-tech 2 months ago
- kelseyfrog 2 months ago
- frm88 2 months agoInteresting read in the link. Thank you. I wish the site wouldn't throw an error when one tries to subscribe.
- stego-tech 2 months agoThanks for letting me know! I took down e-mail signups since it looks like it'll require Mailgun after all, which I'd rather not get into the weeds over when I'm really just putting thoughts down at the moment.
If you have an RSS Aggregator, the main URL has an RSS feed (green.spacedino.net/rss). Less e-mail clog, easier updates, though Ghost's RSS feed isn't exactly terminal-friendly if that's your jam (mainly due to mixed media).
I might get around to fixing e-mail in the future. Appreciate the heads-up though, thank you!
- stego-tech 2 months ago
- tim333 2 months agoOr wait for things to change at the next election and maybe a bit at the midterms.
- johnnyanmac 2 months agoYou still think we're making it to 2027 at this point without a huge clash happening? It's still the first 100 days.
- anonfordays 2 months agoYes, stop being so histrionic. Democrats will win midterms, Congress will be in a dead lock, and hopefully the DNC will learn from its failures and put a real candidate in.
I remember this same "sky is falling" rhetoric when Bush got reelected. Time moves on and the world will heal.
- anonfordays 2 months ago
- johnnyanmac 2 months ago
- mvdtnz 2 months ago[flagged]
- nsingh2 2 months agoIt seems to me statements like these are what OP was referring when saying "You're being alarmist/hyperbolic/paranoid"
- stego-tech 2 months agoI'm beyond done with people trying to say my lived experiences and the lived experiences of others are somehow invalid, hyperbolic, or over-exaggerated. And I'm done being nice to people trying to gaslight the lived experiences of others.
Go away.
- mvdtnz 2 months ago[flagged]
- mvdtnz 2 months ago
- nsingh2 2 months ago
- alabastervlog 2 months ago
- mapt 2 months agoAre the demographics of gun sales going to suddenly shift dramatically? We are evidently deep into 'tree of liberty' stuff.
We have been the most well-armed nation in the world for less actual material reason than most countries in the world have ever had. Not being disappeared into a concentration camp indefinitely seems like a justification for lots of people to go down fighting.
- dfxm12 2 months agoThe thing is, immigrants as a whole are less likely to commit crime than American citizens. If the administration was actually targeting violent criminals, I don't think there would be such outcry. However, there just aren't enough people like that to move the needle, so the bulk of people getting caught up in this are people who are just living their lives and trying to get by, i.e. soft targets that the governments knows can't put up much of a fight.
- matwood 2 months ago> immigrants as a whole are less likely to commit crime than American citizens
They are more likely to be victims of crime because they often can't/won't go to the police.
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/latinx-immigrant-crime-vict...
- kyleee 2 months ago[flagged]
- mapt 2 months agoWP:
(2019) "In March 2019, Prince George's County, Maryland, police arrested Abrego Garcia with three other men in a Home Depot parking lot where they were seeking work as day laborers.[2][8] One of the men claimed Abrego Garcia was a "gang member," but The Atlantic reported that according to court filings, the man offered no proof and police said they did not believe him.[8] Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime in connection to his arrest.[20]"
"Police handed custody of Abrego Garcia over to ICE for deportation proceedings. In those proceedings, the government claimed that he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang because "he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie" and a confidential informant claimed that he was active with an MS-13 group based in New York,[2] where he has never lived. [15] An immigration judge determined that the informant's claim[21] was sufficient evidence for denying Abrego Garcia’s bond request, and another judge upheld that ruling, saying the claim that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13 for purposes of the bond determination was not clearly wrong.[19] However, no court has ever “full adjudicat[ed]” this issue.[19] Abrego Garcia has consistently denied any connection to MS-13.[22]"
(2025) "On April 5, the Department of Justice appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.[39] The following day, Judge Xinis issued a 22-page opinion reaffirming her previous ruling. The opinion stated the deportation "shocks the conscience" and was "wholly lawless."[35] She also said that while there were previous assertions that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, the government has presented "no evidence" Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 and had essentially abandoned that argument in her court.[35] The judge noted that while the government had presented no evidence that Abrego Garcia was a member of a gang, by publicly labeling him a member of MS-13, the government had placed Abrego Garcia at risk in the detention facility because El Salvador "intentionally mixes rival gang members" in the facility.[35] Xinis stated in her opinion: "Defendants seized Abrego Garcia without any lawful authority; held him in three separate domestic detention centers without legal basis; failed to present him to any immigration judge or officer; and forcibly transported him to El Salvador in direct contravention of [immigration law]."[35] "
The random accusation that he was in MS-13 despite committing no crimes, that this warranted deportation despite entering no immigration courts, that it did not just warrant deportation but a proprietary black site torture camp, is identically as valid as the accusation I am making right now that you are a member of MS-13 because of the clothes you're wearing right now (which are Known To Be Worn By MS-13 Members), and must be disappeared by the authorities immediately. You have no opportunity to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're not a 'terrorist'; It is to be stipulated.
- mapt 2 months ago
- matwood 2 months ago
- alabastervlog 2 months agoNobody's rising up unless the economy collapses to a significant degree, at which point everyone will.
- mapt 2 months agoI'm not expecting the average German to rise up against Hitler. Unfortunately.
But the average German Jew? Maybe they have more incentive to be prepared? If guns are readily available?
This isn't in the category of "to save their life, they started carrying weapons". This is in the category of collective defense - "To provide a deterrent, they started carrying weapons, just to make their abduction/murder costly". It doesn't make sense (for most) to sacrifice their lives just for their residency - getting deported is not the end of the world. But if the result is "You get thrown into a torture/slave/deathcamp and forgotten for the rest of your short life", that changes the calculus a great deal.
- tastyface 2 months ago“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
-Alexander Solzhenytsin
- tastyface 2 months ago
- mapt 2 months ago
- dfxm12 2 months ago
- saagarjha 2 months agoHonest question, what recourse does someone in this situation even have? Would the ICC take this case? Are there any penalties that would (in theory) apply to either country?
- dfxm12 2 months agoYou might be interested in the Hauge Invasion Act to get the US perspective on what would happen if the ICC tries to persecute a US official: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- stouset 2 months agoProsecute, not persecute :)
- stouset 2 months ago
- femiagbabiaka 2 months ago> Honest question, what recourse does someone in this situation even have?
None.
> Would the ICC take this case?
Maybe, not that it would matter much given that even member states refuse to enforce rulings if they run contra to U.S. goals.
> Are there any penalties that would (in theory) apply to either country?
No.
- hypeatei 2 months agoThe US doesn't participate in international law / the ICC.
Not that it would matter anyway, both are sovereign countries that can just go "nuh uhh"
- jauntywundrkind 2 months agoEl Salvador does participate though.
- femiagbabiaka 2 months agoI mean, hypothetically, Bukele could be arrested if he was a defendant in such a suit... except for the fact that ICC member states regularly let wanted war criminals pass through their airspace, or withdraw from the ICC entirely in order to harbor wanted war criminals. In effect the ICC is the USCC, and therefore limited to doing/enforcing things in the interest of the U.S. at any given time.
- jauntywundrkind 2 months ago
- bananapub 2 months agothe US passed a law in 2002 promising to invade The Netherlands if the ICC ever tried to actually do anything about US crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
- yencabulator 2 months agoAnd, for the record, Netherlands is a member of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy, which would mean that would be an act of war against the EU as a whole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...
- yencabulator 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- KerrAvon 2 months agoThe US is not subject to the ICC; not sure about El Salvador.
- inverted_flag 2 months ago[flagged]
- dfxm12 2 months ago
- cmurf 2 months agoFour Republican Congresscritters (House of Representatives), and four Republican Senators, could announce their intent to caucus with the Democratic party from this point forward, consistent with their oath and legal obligation to support and defend the Constitution against an emerging dictatorship. And then force a vote to change the leadership of the House and the Senate.
It would require a simple majority vote. That's all.
The power of the purse can be taken back by Congress. It can reorganize the committees and resume investigations and oversight where there has been none.
- ImPostingOnHN 2 months ago> The power of the purse can be taken back by Congress.
Given that the executive branch is ignoring judicial branch rulings, and is ignoring legislation, what makes you think they won't ignore more legislation?
When it comes to boots on the ground, donald and elmu's doge crew made sure they are the ones controlling the systems which control the flow of the money, thus they are the ones controlling the money.
- ImPostingOnHN 2 months ago
- croes 2 months agoSomehow this is even worse than blackbagging political opponents.
Land of the free, home of the brave. One of the biggest US lies.
- sebazzz 2 months agoI'd wage you have to be pretty brave to go to the US though.
- actionfromafar 2 months agoThe blackbagging political opponents comes a little later. The procudure must be beta-tested first to work out any kinks.
- dfxm12 2 months agoPeaceful protestors were already abducted in unmarked vans during Trump's first term: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-us...
- sebazzz 2 months ago
- sorcerer-mar 2 months agoInnocent person who was kidnapped and trafficked by the US government*
- 2 months ago
- fzeroracer 2 months agoThis is a legitimate constitutional crisis. If the executive can just ignore the direct orders of the court and the rights of both citizens and residents by simply renditioning them to a foreign country without a trial then all of our systems and laws in place no longer matter.
- readthenotes1 2 months agoI was gonna give a "well actually Pres. Jackson" reply, but then I remembered Einstein's Law--what you know may not be so--and did a little research.
So I have to "Well actually" my "Well actually"
https://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2021/08/the-myth-of-an...
- soupfordummies 2 months agoYeah, seriously, unless I'm missing something if the Supreme Court unanimously checked him on this and he said "LOL, no, get wrecked" then, what? Like, that's the ball game. Total authoritarian power checkmate, right?
I really hope I'm missing something here.
- readthenotes1 2 months ago
- dfxm12 2 months agoRelated: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/military-contractor...
As usual, beware of the military-industrial complex. Just like with Iraq, they will get what they want at the cost of the taxpayer. We will get nothing back but less stability.
- furyofantares 2 months agoFor those that don't know, El Salvador's dicator brags about this prison having a "Zero Idle Program", or in other words, brutal slave labor.
- KerrAvon 2 months agoNo due process for noncitizens means no due process for citizens either. We're all now at the mercy of ICE/CBP goons. If they have a bad day, simply being a straight white dude ain't gonna save anyone.
- 0xEF 2 months ago> If they have a bad day, simply being a straight white dude ain't gonna save anyone.
This is the thing to remember as the current regime uses this El Salvadorian prison as a beta-testing gulag. We'll soon see more hints that they will be built within our borders, and all actions leading up to that are conditioning the population for acceptance of this idea, especially for the folks that support the regime.
Thing is, even they will not be safe. The rules will never be made clear save for "if you're not with us, you're against us," so people who thought they were being loyal will start getting snatched up along with the rest of the dissenters, agitators and whomever else they don't like.
- UncleMeat 2 months agoYep. Fascism always needs an enemy. If it succeeds at completing its mass violence against the current enemy it will simply redefine its current allies as enemies. "They'll never come for me" inevitably fails.
- UncleMeat 2 months ago
- 0xEF 2 months ago
- madhacker 2 months ago
- jellicle 2 months agoSo, HN has deleted this off the front page after about 20 minutes, and sure, they generally want to avoid "political" stories but the simple fact is that when a "political" story reaches a certain legal of magnitude it becomes the only thing of real importance. This is an issue of seismic importance for the tech world, or at the very least the US tech community, whether HN accepts that or not.
- awnird 2 months ago[flagged]
- OutOfHere 2 months agoI suspect what happens is that a sufficient number of users flag it away. I could be wrong, but I don't think the moderators have to be involved.
- computerthings 2 months ago[dead]
- computerthings 2 months ago
- OutOfHere 2 months ago
- awnird 2 months ago
- bananapub 2 months agohe wasn't deported, he was legally in the US and then randomly got kidnapped by the US Federal Government, who then paid the El Salvadorian government to him put in a super maximum security prison for no reason, indefinitely. the US government is now refusing to comply with a court order to bring him back.
the US media has absolutely no ability (or interest) in grappling with the reality of the situation they have helped cause.
- ranger_danger 2 months ago> indefinitely
According to who? Why do you think this is somehow the case?
The contract between the two countries is only for 1 year, and that doesn't mean everyone will even stay there that long.
In what scenario does indefinite detention make any realistic sense even for the best-case scenario of its intended purpose i.e. rightfully-deported violent criminals?
Do you honestly think the US is actually sending anyone to indefinite detention who has not received a life sentence in court?
I'm not saying what's going on isn't wrong or that there aren't other huge problems with it, but your response to me just seems even more out of touch with reality than the current situation itself.
The biggest problem I personally have with this is the administration's complete lack of empathy. Not once has anybody in the executive branch apologized for wrongly deporting anyone, made any attempt at saying they should be brought back, or that they were going to try, or that they even wanted to try. Instead they're seemingly actively doing everything they can to prevent lifting any useful fingers whatsoever.
- alabastervlog 2 months agoEl Salvador's government has stated they have no intention to ever release inmates from CECOT—it's permanent.
They have no rehabilitation programs and do not intend to establish such. There is no intent that the prisoners ever leave.
The plan with these US-sourced prisoners may be different from the ones El Salvador put there themselves, but apparently that's entirely up to Bukele now.
[EDIT] And regardless, "who knows when?" is indefinite.
- ty6853 2 months agoGarcia's defense argues the opposite as you and claim it is a one year contract with disposition at the discretion of the US. In fact a large portion of their argument relies on this claim as it's their basis as to why the US has meaningful control over his fate.
- johnnyanmac 2 months ago>[EDIT] And regardless, "who knows when?" is indefinite.
I would have saved the typing and just put this. indefinite can be 2 days, or 200 years. He was never given a sentence and this very article shows the intent to release anyone.
- ty6853 2 months ago
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2 months agoIf he was being held under that contract, then it wouldn't be correct for the DoJ lawyers to say he's outside of US jurisdiction. But they keep claiming that he's under El Salvador's jurisdiction. They say they can't ask for him back, it's out of their hands.
That's fundamentally incompatible with the idea that El Salvador is holding him at their direction and under a limited time contract.
- ranger_danger 2 months ago> then it wouldn't be correct
Indeed. And then what would be the point of the contract? Nobody is going to hold prisoners from another country indefinitely for free, even El Salvador, that just Does Not Compute (TM). I would much prefer to assume the DOJ is simply lying and that they are wrong, as to me that seems extremely likely.
- ranger_danger 2 months ago
- ndsipa_pomu 2 months agoIf it isn't "indefinitely", then did they specify his return date?
- Volundr 2 months ago> According to who? Why do you think this is somehow the case?
Bukele says he doesn't forsee ever releasing anyone from CEDOT and has specifically ruled out doing so in this case. Trump says he's powerless to get him released.
> In what scenario does indefinite detention make any realistic sense even for the best-case scenario of its intended purpose i.e. rightfully-deported violent criminals?
Slave labor, which is what the people in CEDOT are being used for, again per their own president.
> Do you honestly think the US is actually sending anyone to indefinite detention who has not received a life sentence in court?
Yes! That's the whole problem!
- ranger_danger 2 months ago> Bukele says he doesn't forsee ever releasing anyone from CEDOT
He has released 8,000 people in the last 3 years.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/bukele-reconoce-8%2e000-inocent...
- ranger_danger 2 months ago
- sorcerer-mar 2 months ago> The contract between the two countries is only for 1 year, and that doesn't mean everyone will even stay there that long.
Where did you see this contract? I follow quite a few lawyers in this space who have been asking to see said contract and AFAIK it hasn't been produced. Can you link to it please?
> Do you honestly think the US is actually sending anyone to indefinite detention who has not received a life sentence in court?
Uhh... yes? This person hasn't just not received a life sentence, they weren't even charged.
- generj 2 months agoThe government thus far refuses to even admit there is a contract, let alone if it applies to the prisoner in this case.
I think the judge is beyond frustrated and I would expect contempt charges to start flying pretty quickly, particularly after the government seems to keep flaunting her orders.
- ty6853 2 months agoIt was in the defenses own filing. I don't have the link off hand but look up last week's filing of the case and they dug up that the contract was for 1 year, after which the US will decide the disposition of the prisoners. They used it as part of their argument that the US still maintains control over the prisoners, since the contract stated the US has control over their disposition.
It should be findable on either PACER or court listener, although all the ones I read were pdf from various news articles.
- majorchord 2 months ago> AFAIK it hasn't been produced
That is my understanding and that is indeed a separate issue that appears to be still underway. It was reported that Democrats in Congress already asked DHS for a copy of the contract on April 8 but I have not heard any updates on that yet.
But Occam's razor here... what's more likely? That the sky is falling and the US can and will now send people to their (presumed) death without any charges or day in court whatsoever (while you sit here accepting it, doing nothing), or that this is not actually the beginning of the end of the entire country in one fell swoop?
I choose to believe this is not the end.
- generj 2 months ago
- alabastervlog 2 months ago
- ranger_danger 2 months ago
- brandensilva 2 months agoApril 19th is the next national protest. I've been going to fight for the constitution, due process, and rule of law since this all began.
The time isn't 2 years from now to change this at mid terms. There won't be a free place to speak or protest by then yet alone a free election system at the pace this is happening.
I hope others will join.
- perihelions 2 months agoWhat happens when the US starts "deporting" US citizens to the custody of foreign strongmen? As is he is repeatedly saying he intends to do. Would anything change, or will it continue the same way—SCOTUS orders Trump to "facilitate" citizens' access to "due process"; foreign Trump affiliate says "no", and that's that. (?)
- "President Trump just said he was open to sending American citizens convicted of violent crimes to President Bukele’s prison in El Salvador. Trump had a similar response when Bukele first offered to jail convicted American criminals in February. “I’m all for it,” Trump said, adding that his attorney general was studying whether the idea was legally feasible. “If it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem, no,” he said, adding: “I’m talking about violent people. I’m talking about really bad people.”"
- stego-tech 2 months agoThat's correct. The Constitution as-written gives the Judiciary no ability to implement its own orders, forcing it to rely on the Legislative or Executive Branches to enforce compliance. With the Legislature abdicating its own checks and balances, it effectively gives the Executive complete control.
The only remaining options aren't pleasant, but the short-list:
* The Legislative Branch turns on the Executive and begins stripping its power through laws or impeachment (unlikely, given the sycophants in both parties who championed this outcome)
* States secede from the USA, citing the lack of legitimacy of the current Federal Government in its flouting of the Constitution (unlikely, given the spineless cowards in most State Governments more preoccupied with becoming the next President or Senator themselves)
* The people revolt, waging a civil war against themselves and finding a new path forward
I really don't think most folks understand how bad this is. People like me are accused of being hyperbolic or alarmist, but the current situation really is equivalent to a CEO firing his Board (Congress), locking out auditors (the Judiciary), and jailing dissident workers or contractors (this case), all while letting his buddies raid the accounts under the guise of reducing inefficiencies (DOGE and Technoligarchs). The closest parallels really are Nazi Germany, Maoist China, and Stalin's Russia, and none of those had a "happy ending".
In the short term, trust is obliterated. In the long term, we're a crumbling empire who has to sacrifice far more than we will ever benefit, just to get an equivalent seat at the table again. For the next several generations (inclusive of the current ones), times are going to be bleak.
- generj 2 months agoThe Judiciary can deputize anyone to be their Marshals, if the executive prevents the existing Marshals to faithfully follow legal court orders.
If that fails, the Judiciary could also in theory declare the executive in breach of their oaths and urge the military, state and other federal officials, and the public at large to follow their own oaths to the Constitution.
But at that point it’s just a civil war with more legitimacy. It’s still the right move for the court to make in the situation where they can no longer force the executive to follow the law.
- mapt 2 months agoIn many countries, the refusal to pass budget authorization automatically removes the current leader. In ours it merely robs them of resources.
It's very difficult understanding what Schumer was thinking a few weeks back, beyond personal cowardice.
- generj 2 months ago
- ty6853 2 months agoThe US has both deported and extra-judicially drone striked innocent US citizens. Your theory has already been tested.
- stego-tech 2 months ago
- jellicle 2 months agoTrump to Bukele, 2025-04-14:
Trump: they demand you, they love you, they love what you do...
Bukele: {something about supporters}
Trump: you know what I want to do? Home-grown criminals are next. {louder, to his senior staff in the room} I said HOME-GROWNS are next. The home-growns. You've got to build about five more places.
Bukele, laughing: Yeah, that's fair! Alright.
{big burst of laughter from Trump's staff}
Trump: It's not big enough!
- yubblegum 2 months agoThat is genuinely sinister.
- yubblegum 2 months ago
- bwb 2 months agoWho’s next? You? Me? Person down the street?
Maybe…
- internet_rand0 2 months agoEl Salvador means "the savior"...
simply put, not for him. this man did not get saved by this version of the savior... he got wrecked by El Salvador rather than saved
- ranger_danger 2 months agoProtestors actually do refer to it as "No Salvador".
- ranger_danger 2 months ago
- cmurf 2 months agoAbrego Garcia will now die in El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison.
https://bsky.app/profile/judgeluttig.bsky.social/post/3lmsxj...
What distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison (in the modern sense) is that it functions outside of a judicial system. The prisoners are not indicted or convicted of any crime by judicial process.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentrat...
- josefritzishere 2 months agoAnyone else assuming he's deceased and it's much worse than they are letting on?
- johnnyanmac 2 months agoYup. I genuinely don't see any reason to fight this hard against it othewise. Basically, something about the release or status of Garcia must be so horrid that even for Trump its a convictable scandal. so:
1. he'd dead and he pushed to make sure he had no due process
2. He's in such a near dead state that it would spark outcry that may even penetratie the propoganda.
3. any unedtied footage of the prisons would bring immediate allusions to concentration camps and make enough of the conservative size realize the US is falling into facism,
As is, we may be risking a civil war over this.
- johnnyanmac 2 months ago
- josefresco 2 months ago> You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.
Hilary was only wrong about two things: It's not half of his supporters it's 100% and they're not "deplorables", they're monsters.
- nancyminusone 2 months ago3 things - "thankfully, they are not America" - they were.
- nancyminusone 2 months ago
- thrill 2 months agoThere was no "mistake" in the entire process.
- furyofantares 2 months agoI'm usually happy to flag news, politics. I'm happy with HN being for anything intellectually interesting, and nothing else.
America is being attacked from the top, Donald Trump gaining and abusing more and more personal power every day in an apparent attempt to become an autocrat, meanwhile he and the dictator of El Salvador sit in the White House and just about the ONLY power you will see these two disclaim is that they "don't have the power" to bring this guy back.
The ONLY thing I can see that makes this not intellectually interesting is just how sad and maddening it is. That definitely detracts from the curiosity of it all. But it's hard to imagine historians will find it remotely uninteresting.
- johnnyanmac 2 months ago>I'm happy with HN being for anything intellectually interesting, and nothing else.
Hard to be intellectually curious when you're living in fear, and potentially in a future war torn country. I understand some reasoning for this mindset, but I'm glad you realize how dire this is an an attack on the very core systems that allow such curious discussion.
We have multiple university professors strongly considering fleeing to Canada as a small sample. It's pretty clear how such moves will affect the long term abilities for a site like this to operate.
- furyofantares 2 months agoTo be clear I'm advocating that if someone is flagging this due to it not being intellectually interesting, that they reflect on whether that's actually true or if it's just that fear or anxiety are getting in the way.
I certainly don't want all news on this topic to be here; there's plenty of places to get that. But we definitely could discuss it here in ways which aren't accessible many other places if we take on the rather difficult task of finding some curiosity about the what exactly is going on.
- furyofantares 2 months ago
- johnnyanmac 2 months ago
- hypeatei 2 months agoI recall the President of El Salvador tweeting that this was being turned into what is essentially a labor camp ("zero idleness program") to pay back the costs of constructing and running CECOT.
Moreover, if I'm keeping track of the cases correctly, this person was specifically protected from being returned to El Salvador because of persecution. Disgusting.
- happytoexplain 2 months agoSecondary to the primary horror of Trump's current attempts to apply this to citizens: It is also a direct attack on one of the other key points of societal failure, which is trust in police. Yes, yes, we were already way below where we need to be, but it was still the case that when an innocent non-black person encountered police, the majority of the time the feelings they might have ranged from trust to simple nervousness. An enormous caveat to law enforcement is that we trust officers with the power to order people to do things. If a cop orders me to come with them without a great explanation, I'm going to verbally protest, ask to see their badge, whatever - but I'm going to physically comply, because we agree to give cops this power, and, crucially, because there could be a legitimate reason, or an innocent mistake, and even absent that, I have a general feeling about the ceiling on the worst things that could realistically happen to me (since I'm a citizen, white, etc).
But now, a bright line has been crossed. Anybody in a group that Trump supporters hate has to consider that there is a non-zero chance an encounter with the wrong type of law enforcement could end with being tortured in a foreign prison. In a nation governed by fear, my mind is not nearly as clear on priorities and risk assessment when the cop asks me to come with him without a rock solid explanation. That's dangerous, for everybody, including the police.
- 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- ndsipa_pomu 2 months agoGiven that it was a "mistake" that they deported (kidnapped) him, will anyone be facing prison time for not remedying it?
Personally, I don't believe that he is still alive and they're just delaying matters so that they can bury that news and pin the blame on El Salvador.
- readthenotes1 2 months agoAllegedly...
"White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also chimed in, saying: "So it's very arrogant, even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens. As a starting point, as two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13," "
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/el-salvador-president...
- matwood 2 months agoThe PoS Miller says that so Fox News has a clip to play. Meanwhile in court under oath they say the exact opposite, admitting it was an 'administrative error' Garcia was deported at all.
- UncleMeat 2 months agoNot allegedly.
Agents of the government have given multiple sworn statements in court that removing him from the country was both an error and in violation of the law.
I suppose that the solicitor general can say that they perjured themselves. Much more reasonable is that Miller is a lying sack of shit spewing lies on TV.
- mapt 2 months agoThis was/is a kidnapping. Not a deportation. We have processes for deportation.
Miller is attempting to cover up evidence of a kidnapping, and impede justice (not to mention Justices).
This is a crime.
- mapt 2 months ago
- const_cast 2 months agoThese people, being just about everyone vaguely related to the Trump administration, lie through their teeth. And, it's perfectly legal to lie.
When they're in front of Congress, typically their tunes change. Sometimes even then they don't. Will they be charged with Perjury? Perhaps, when hell freezes over. Sometimes, it requires a ballsy journalist to reveal the truth, even when the truth should be obvious.
- matwood 2 months ago
- readthenotes1 2 months ago
- StefanBatory 2 months agoI think they won't bring him back because he's already dead.
- generj 2 months agoThe government said on Saturday he’s alive.
It’s not worth speculating beyond that. From a purely cynical view, it’s better for the rule of law if he is alive as he can be a test case. If he’s dead, that is likely a different court case that could get assigned to a different more credulous or craven judge, plus burn out some time.
- matwood 2 months ago> The government said on Saturday he’s alive.
Not exactly a group known to say anything factual.
- generj 2 months agoI don’t disagree but it at least raises the outrage from the court(s), media, and people if they were lying.
- generj 2 months ago
- johnnyanmac 2 months agoIf you read the exact report, you realize why you want to be cynical.
No one was actually met with, no was even called. The lawyer constantly use language to the effect of "to my understading" as means to try and distance himself as far from the case as possible to minimize any potential contempt/sanctions on his end.
No one in America legitmately knows what's going on as of now. Maybe Trump does now but we know how that goes.
- HaZeust 2 months agoI wouldn't trust the El Salvador government to tell me that my shoes are untied.
- matwood 2 months ago
- harambae 2 months agoJust circling back that you’re definitely wrong on this
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/chris-van-holle...
- StefanBatory 2 months agoYup, thankfully. I posted below too that I was wrong, just without link
- StefanBatory 2 months ago
- StefanBatory 2 months agoFollow-up: Alright, thankfully I was wrong.
- generj 2 months ago
- bananapub 2 months agofor the people having trouble keeping track, this is the end of due process for everyone, including US Citizens who might imagine they're immune - even if a slightly better US government didn't want to kidnap US Citizens, if there's no process, there's no chance to demonstrate your US Citizenness before you're in a slave labour camp in South America, where the US Government will lie and say they can't get you back from even if they wanted to.
- tastyface 2 months agoI’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it for emphasis. The administration wants the power to enact summary justice on the street: immigrants, protestors, political rivals, same as every other authoritarian regime in the last century. Currently, there is no mandate to just execute people without due process. So the lovely humanist wonks in Trump’s orbit came up with this brilliant solution. Just send undesirables to Guantanamo-Salvador and pretend nobody has the jurisdiction to bring them back. Same result.
In other words, when you read news like this, you should be reacting the same way as when you hear about third-world death squads lining up dissidents against the village wall and dumping their bodies in a well. The impact of the violence has been sanitized and laundered, but the net result is mostly the same.
- jauntywundrkind 2 months agoEl Salvador has 1 in 60 people in jail, up there with the worst of Stalinist Russian.
If the US doesn't have control over who it sends there, the crimes of Trump & his ICE are far worse, far more in violation of the constitution. If this weren't horrific monstrosity to circumvent habeas corpus maybe perhaps this wicked act could scrape through the courts.
Its just so fucked how much misanthropy is running the world. Hating other people is powering the growth of such deeply sick rises to power.
I strongly recommend a tour of the Grievances of the Declaration of Independence. Ironically a document shown to Bukele before his situation down. The things being done are absolutely wild tyrant shit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_State...
- davidguetta 2 months ago> El Salvador has 1 in 60 people in jail, up there with the worst of Stalinist Russian.
and the president has a 91 approval rate, consistent with what you'd expect when you go from the murder capital of the world to the safest country in central america
- rsynnott 2 months agoThough, y'know, also consistent with Stalinist Russia.
Generally, those sorts of approval ratings for an executive leader (you do see them sometimes for non-executive heads of state, though in that case they can be seen as less alarming) are a serious red flag; they're generally a dictatorship signal. No-one is _that_ popular.
- davidguetta 2 months agoJust watch any documentary on el salvador. Its has nothing to do with Stalinist russia and you have to WANT to believe it to say such nonsense
- davidguetta 2 months ago
- rsynnott 2 months ago
- davidguetta 2 months ago
- BonoboIO 2 months agoIt’s sad, that every slightly negative story about the Trump world we are living in is flagged.
- soraminazuki 2 months agoSame, but I wouldn't call an open demolishment of American democracy a slightly negative story though. It's a complete 180 from the post-WWII rules based order we're talking about and people attempting to rationalize the flagging as if this was just another mundane news not worth discussing should be ashamed of themselves.
- BonoboIO 2 months agoAnd I m downvoted … like ignoring those stories will help anyone.
- BonoboIO 2 months ago
- soraminazuki 2 months ago
- UncleMeat 2 months agoThis really is the end of everything. Troops deployed domestically. Citizens blackbagged and sent to gulags for the rest of their lives with no process. There is no more law one this position is reached.
- OutOfHere 2 months agoIn fairness, the person was not a US citizen. To my knowledge, he was an El Salvador citizen. I am not defending the action.
The beginning of the end will be if this starts happening to US citizens, although that hasn't happened.
- UncleMeat 2 months agoThat is not fairness.
If "oopsy-doopsy, it was a mistake" has no remedy then there is no remedy when it is a citizen who gets sent to a gulag.
- OutOfHere 2 months ago[flagged]
- OutOfHere 2 months ago
- shepherdjerred 2 months ago> The beginning of the end will be if this starts happening to US citizens, although that hasn't happened.
Do you think that's the final straw? What if the US did it to a citizen? Would you emigrate or resist?
Genuinely curious; I feel like things are bad but salvageable.
- OutOfHere 2 months agoIf this starts happening to too many random citizens, I will see the writing on the wall. I will begin immediately to dissolve all my assets, send them to crypto and or foreign bank accounts, and move out of the country. Their war is not my war. It will take me a whole year, but I will do it. I don't know where I will go.
- OutOfHere 2 months ago
- UncleMeat 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- OutOfHere 2 months ago
- jacquesm 2 months ago[flagged]
- zzleeper 2 months agoIt would be really interesting to see the list of people who flag these news. At this point, I mostly browse HN by clicking on COMMENTS so I can see the actual stories that got flagged (that always have to do about democracy being eroded by Trump)
- geoka9 2 months agoThis one is also good:
- geoka9 2 months ago
- locallost 2 months ago[flagged]
- johnnyanmac 2 months agoOnly the mods know who they are and a that point, deleting your account is a better move than leaving any potential internet footprints if they are truly scared.
- johnnyanmac 2 months ago
- zzleeper 2 months ago
- woggy 2 months agoWhy is this flagged? This is possibly one of the most IMPORTANT stories in tech - no one will will want come to the US anymore.
- cmurf 2 months agoIt's an automated system and it's being gamed, I assume, by people who want this to succeed.
- chimpanzee 2 months agoThere's nothing stopping moderators, owners or the founder from fighting the gaming or at least making a public statement addressing the destruction of the society which has benefited them so greatly. But alas...true values are revealed in times of trouble.
This community is becoming a moral embarrassment and nearly not worth participating in any longer.
- Freedom2 2 months agoAs dang said,
> what it proves is that users will flag unsubstantive flamewar posts on Hacker News, regardless of the topic or the commenter's position on the topic. This is a good thing!
I think it has to pass the moderators bar for acceptance: is this just antoher "MOT", or will it generate "curious" discussion. Combine that with the fact that the HN site gets a lot of these submissions and it's sort of a phenomenon that I like to call "no one goes there, it's too crowded!".
- Freedom2 2 months ago
- dfxm12 2 months agoThat's not a complete answer, as mods can unflag stories. If they wanted it to be unflagged, it would be unflagged.
- chimpanzee 2 months ago
- dougb5 2 months agoFurther, the people who have purchased this situation for us, and the wealthy tech VCs who are staying silent now, are all people this community once admired.
- cmurf 2 months ago
- 2 months ago
- freitasm 2 months ago[flagged]
- womitt 2 months ago[flagged]
- Chinjut 2 months agoFlagged. Paints the administration (and thus Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley bigwigs by association) in a bad light.