Three months into his second presidential term, Donald Trump appears well off pace to hit his promised record numbers of deportations.
While the new administration’s tallies haven’t yet surpassed those of prior presidents, the Trump regime has indeed ramped up the lawlessness of its immigration enforcement, largely by skirting due process and sending people to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador. That country’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, has eagerly declared that the doors of his penitentiary will be open to more immigrants and inmates sent from the United States—at American taxpayers’ expense. Most of those sent to El Salvador’s prison do not have criminal records, and one of the inmates, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was wrongfully deported and is married to a U.S. citizen. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered his return, but both Bukele and Trump have refused.
As much of the country focuses on Trump’s international authoritarian affairs, police across the United States are quietly lining up to help provide the manpower that Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) needs to increase lagging deportation figures.
