"You gotta get scared that people who are not criminals are getting lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons," Joe Rogan said on his hugely popular podcast this week. "This is kind of crazy, that that could be possible. That's horrific."
Rogan was alluding to Venezuelan makeup artist Andry Hernandez, who was shipped off to El Salvador's notorious Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) last month. Based largely on innocent tattoos, Hernandez's supporters say, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mistakenly identified him as a member of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang targeted by President Donald Trump's March 15 proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
As Reason's Fiona Harrigan notes, Hernandez is by no means the only Venezuelan who seems to have been deemed a member of Tren de Aragua, and therefore subject to immediate deportation under that proclamation, based on iffy evidence such as supposedly suspicious tattoos and clothing. Rogan, who endorsed Trump in last year's presidential election and supports his efforts to deport violent criminals, nevertheless thinks it's "crazy" and "horrific" that someone like Hernandez could be consigned to CECOT without due process.
