Trump's Defiant Deportation Flights to El Salvador: My Breakdown with The Majority Report

I sat down today with Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland at The Majority Report to discuss the controversies and context of this rapidly unfolding situation. Watch the video below.

Over the weekend, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act to dubiously justify deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador without due process. The deportation flights appeared to be in direct defiance of a federal judge, raising new concerns about a possible "constitutional crisis" that could see a further emboldened executive branch and an even weaker judicial branch.

While attorneys for the Department of Justice squabbled with the judge over the timeline and refused to provide even basic details about the flights, Thomas Homan, Trump's "border czar," went on Fox News to say that he "doesn't care what a judge thinks" and to emphasize that there will be "more flights." While ICE claims that everyone on these flights belongs to a dangerous gang known as Tren de Aragua, reports from family members and attorneys are already calling the accuracy of these claims into question.

These represent the latest efforts by the Trump administration to deliver on "mass deportation" by undermining America's legal norms and institutions under the guise of "national security." Some people are now suggesting that these new flights should not be called deportation flights at all since this is not the legal process of deportation. Instead, some argue, we have entered a new era of some other kind of extra-legal process for which we do not yet have a name.

With so much to unpack, I sat down with Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland at The Majority Report to discuss the controversies and context of this rapidly unfolding situation. I discuss "why El Salvador, why now", criticize the Trump administration's attempts to fabricate national security crises to hide behind, and highlight the risk that the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act presents to hundreds of thousands of immigrants that deserve a fair day in court. Watch below on YouTube or listen to the podcast here. My part starts around the 30 minute mark.

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