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Openly defying a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court on April 14, President Donald Trump met with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as the two agreed that neither president was going to facilitate the safe return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Garcia was wrongfully abducted from Maryland, where he has resided since 2011, and sent to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, an infamous prison in El Salvador.
Despite having received no due process at any point, Garcia has been accused of being a member of the MS-13 gang. These claims peddled by Trump and Bukele are not based on any truth whatsoever, and neither administration has provided any evidence to back them up. When asked during his Oval Office meeting, Bukele responded, stating that, “The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?”
The Trump administration has abducted an innocent man and disappeared him to a foreign prison without standing a trial and without a shred of evidence that he has committed any crimes.
We have seen this happen before; Auschwitz was not in Germany. Hitler rather deported people to foreign nations so as to keep the atrocities being committed against them out of the public eye.
Today, this exact strategy is being employed by the Trump administration.
Known for its human rights abuses, CECOT is one of many for-profit prisons built at the command of Bukele as he tightens his authoritarian grip on the country. Bukele, the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator,” has become increasingly close to Trump for obvious reasons.
In a rare 9-0 decision from the conservative majority Supreme Court, the Trump administration was ordered to facilitate the retrieval of Garcia from CECOT, as he lacks any criminal record. That said, it is important to acknowledge that regardless of anyone’s criminal record, the president of the U.S. is not within his rights to use his power to disappear human beings. This is a blatantly obvious infringement on human rights, one of many that the Trump administration has become responsible for.
This, however, is not the only example of Supreme Court orders that the Trump administration disregarded on April 14.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the Trump administration could not bar Associated Press journalists from entering the Oval Office. This was unlawfully ignored by the administration as multiple representatives of the AP were denied access to the meeting between Trump and Bukele.
If it was not horrifically obvious yet, we are in the middle of a constitutional crisis.
When an executive blatantly disregards the checks and balances that are the very foundation of our fragile democracy, we enter very dangerous territory. By granting presidential immunity to the executive, the SCOTUS has allowed Trump to gain increasingly more unchecked executive power.
This administration, by definition, is fascist.
In a stunning act of resistance to this administration, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland announced on the night of April 15 that the following day he would be traveling to El Salvador to meet with Garcia to discuss the terms of his return back to the U.S.
This is what true resistance should look like. Senator Van Hollen is leading by example, an example that should be a rude awakening for the seemingly nonexistent congressional Democrats.
This all raises the question, why haven’t we heard from Garcia from El Salvador at all, let alone seen footage of him?
The crimes taking place at CECOT have been well documented by the Trump administration, specifically by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Truth Social. Noem has taken to social media cosplaying as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer alongside masked individuals presumed to be working for the private Salvadoran prison. All while brandishing an assault-style weapon, Noem flashes a Rolex watch and hair extensions, using the cages full of chained men with uniform buzz cuts as a backdrop.
One thing must be made clear here: CECOT is not a prison. This is a death camp.
With no sign of life from Garcia and both the Bukele and Trump administrations refusing to facilitate his safe return home, one must begin to speculate about whether or not this man is still alive. The masked men at CECOT are well aware that the dehumanization of the men abducted and disappeared is not only disgusting but illegal, or else they would be proudly showing their faces. At least they have more shame than Noem.
During his meeting with Bukele, Trump could be heard asking Bukele for “five more” prisons of the same style as CECOT, stating that “the home-growns are next.”
Trump is pushing the limits of his power as it is becoming increasingly apparent that no one, not even the highest court in the United States, can tell him what to do. This is true unchecked authoritarian power that will only continue to grow if it is not put to an immediate halt.
Jackson Small is a columnist. Contact him at [email protected].