NATIONAL – A recent article published by The Hill, entitled “Trump’s threats to send citizens to El Salvador aren’t idle,” details how proposed actions by the Trump administration may violate the U.S. Constitution and due process protections. According to the article, the administration has considered sending immigrants allegedly in the country unlawfully to El Salvador’s infamous Center for Terrorism Confinement, or CECOT. The administration has also floated the idea of deporting individuals to Libya—a country the State Department warns Americans not to visit. These efforts have been blocked by a federal judge, at least for now.
The article describes a troubling precedent: the Trump administration has a history of deporting individuals and then claiming an inability to return them. In one such case, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador despite a Supreme Court ruling ordering his return and the administration acknowledging the deportation was in error.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller has gone so far as to threaten suspension of habeas corpus, which would allow the administration to detain individuals without court oversight, according to The Hill. Many observers have described Garcia’s forced removal not as a lawful immigration action, but as a case of human trafficking carried out by the state.
Although the administration claims these extreme actions are essential to curbing unlawful immigration, they have the potential to affect U.S. citizens as well. The article notes that the Trump administration has claimed it is not responsible for what happens to individuals—citizens included—once they are in the custody of foreign governments. This position raises serious concerns about how deportations could be expanded to include other countries and even American citizens.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, warning of unchecked executive power, wrote that “not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal,” as quoted by The Hill.
Trump has personally stated that he would “love” to send U.S. citizens to CECOT and told Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to “build about five more places” because “homegrowns are next,” according to the report.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the remarks, saying Trump merely “floated” the idea and that it would only apply to “heinous” repeat offenders. She emphasized the administration’s intent to pursue only “legal options.” However, The Hill reports that Leavitt’s assurances ring hollow, especially given that due process protections must be observed before any deportation—citizen or not.
The article also points out that about 90 percent of the noncitizens sent to El Salvador have no criminal convictions, suggesting a broader campaign of removals that bypass traditional legal safeguards.
The Hill draws historical parallels to the Nixon administration, which also tested the limits of due process in its campaign for “law and order.” During that era, then-assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist drafted a law for Washington, D.C., allowing the government to detain individuals based solely on perceived dangerousness. Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell defended this approach in a law review article, arguing for the constitutionality of pretrial detention based on community risk.
The Supreme Court eventually weighed in on this issue in United States v. Salerno, with Rehnquist—then Chief Justice—writing the majority opinion. During the case, the solicitor general controversially cited Korematsu v. United States, the discredited ruling that upheld the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, to argue that the president could detain and deport even American citizens in the name of national security.
Following Salerno, pretrial detention became a common practice for individuals deemed a danger to society. Today, according to The Hill, 75 percent of all federal defendants are held pretrial, with average detention periods nearing a year—despite the Constitution’s guarantee of presumed innocence.
The article ends with a warning from Benjamin Franklin: “Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
In an era of escalating executive power, The Hill concludes, the writ of habeas corpus must remain sacred. Efforts to send individuals—citizens or not—to foreign countries without legal recourse represent a profound violation of the principle that all people are innocent until proven guilty.
