The Blasphemy of this Administration's "Alien Enemies Act" Deportations
"Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image" — Archbishop Oscar Romero
Our culture has become so brutalized and numb after just a few months of the second Trump administration that I think we have still hardly begun to register the full scale of the atrocity that our government just inflicted on several plane-loads full of people whom they deported to El Salvador. Let’s step back today from the ongoing legal drama about this case to review what actually happened here:
The administration invoked a 1798 law—part of the notorious “Alien and Sedition Acts” used to suppress dissent in the early years of our struggling republic—to deport people without due process.
The people deported under this policy had not received final orders of removal from a U.S. immigration judge. They were not given any chance to contest their designation as “enemy aliens” or “gang members.” They were never given the opportunity to face their accusers in court or defend themselves against allegations of criminal ties—the basic elements of habeas corpus and common law due process that are supposed to be central to our legal tradition.
They were deported to a country of which they are not even nationals, for the express purpose of being confined—at the U.S. government’s expense!—in a notorious El Salvador prison known for its ill-treatment and abuse of detainees.
When the Salvadoran government immediately started to abuse these men—as expected—the Trump administration publicly gloated about this brutality. Senior administration officials reshared videos from the Salvadoran president on social media, depicting these men being forcibly shaved and forced to walk, doubled-over, by armed guards wearing black masks. These were chilling images worthy of Abu Ghraib—except they weren’t leaked by some whistleblower or journalist. Our elected officials and our entire political culture have become so completely brutalized and morally diseased, in such a short period of time, that they gleefully shared these images themselves, documenting their own crimes.
The administration did all of this in apparent violation of a direct verbal instruction from a U.S. federal judge to turn the planes around in midair if necessary, in order to halt the deportations while the court sorts out the unprecedented legal questions this policy raises.
The administration also says they plan to resume more of these flights, as soon as a federal court lets them do so—and they have viciously and personally attacked the federal judge who blocked them, merely for putting these flights on a temporary pause.
Let us count the ways in which these deportations violate our laws and constitutional traditions:
The Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which promises that “No person shall be […] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;”
The Suspension Clause, which says that the Writ of Habeas Corpus cannot be suspended except in limited circumstances—circumstances that federal statute has subsequently declared can only be invoked by Congress—not the executive.
The Convention Against Torture, which the legislative branch has codified into federal statute, and which prohibits deporting people to countries where they face a likelihood of torture. In this case, not only are many of these deportees to El Salvador likely already facing torture in the CECOT prison—they weren’t even given the chance to argue before a judge that they face this risk of torture, before being summarily deported.
Let us keep in mind one other crucial fact about the total lack of due process in these deportations. Because people were not offered any chance whatsoever to challenge the legality of their deportation—on any grounds—they were not even able to contest whether or not they are in fact Venezuelan nationals or non–U.S. citizens.
So, in theory—under the administration’s interpretation of the law—the government could designate any U.S. citizen as an “enemy alien” too, and that person would have no opportunity to challenge this designation in court. We could all be deported to a prison in El Salvador, regardless of our citizenship status or nationality.
Meanwhile, Trump has already publicly toyed with the idea of sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador’s prisons. Don’t say he couldn’t try it. Don’t say he wouldn’t have the legal authority to do so. Of course he wouldn’t. But that didn’t stop him here.
Again, the administration carried out these deportations to El Salvador after a federal judge told them not to, and despite what we can see are very strong constitutional arguments against the policy.
The fact that the administration is carrying out these atrocities in El Salvador, specifically, called to mind for me our government’s larger tragic history in that country. In the 1980s, the U.S. bankrolled the Salvadoran military in a brutal civil war against left-wing insurgents—a conflict in which the U.S.-backed military government committed the vast majority of killings and atrocities.
The human rights organization I used to work for had a number of partners in Central America, and for them this ugly history of U.S. intervention in the region was still fresh. One of their oft-cited heroes is the martyred Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero—who was shot dead after celebrating mass, in retaliation for his criticism of the U.S.-funded military’s human rights violations at the time.
Seeing Venezuelan asylum-seekers from the United States being forcibly shaved and abused in El Salvador—while our own government openly celebrates this brutality on social media and crows about the fact that they had sent them to this fate—one of Archbishop Romero’s statements came to mind:
“Whoever tortures a human being,” he once wrote, “whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.”
Of course, many members of this administration claim to be Christians. Some even claim to be members in good standing of the same church to which Archbishop Romero referred. J.D. Vance, for instance, declares himself to be a Christian before anything else, in his X bio.
In the leaked Signal chat that has made headlines all week, Vance similarly offered a “prayer for victory”—shortly before his colleagues told him that a U.S. strike had just demolished a building, presumably killing everyone inside, in addition to the ostensible military target—to which Vance replied “Excellent.”
Vance has also presented himself online as an explainer-in-chief of Catholic doctrine. The true interpretation of Christian love, Vance has claimed, is the “ordo amoris,” which proceeds in a series of concentric circles.
Vance appears to interpret this doctrine to mean that, when Jesus said “love thy neighbor,” he wasn’t referring so much to those people who fall into the outermost of one’s concentric circles—people like refugees and asylum-seekers from distant countries. So, apparently—on this theory—they can be summarily deported and tortured, without it needing to trouble our “Christian” Vice President’s conscience.
This—shall we say—creative interpretation of “love thy neighbor,” which limits it only to members of one’s own race and nationality (an interpretation the Gospels already refuted, I would think; this is rather the whole point of the Parable of the Good Samaritan)—caught the attention of Pope Francis himself—who felt the need to weigh in publicly on Vance’s version of the ordo amoris.
“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted,” the Pope wrote—in a letter that specifically condemned the Trump administration’s abuse and mistreatment of immigrants—is “love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
It should be obvious that Pope Francis and Archbishop Romero are closer to the true spirit of Christian love and charity than J.D. Vance will ever be. It is simply impossible to reconcile what this White House is doing to people in El Salvador with any genuine interpretation of the Gospel message.
Seeing the images of the people being brutalized in this CECOT prison—shaved and forced to bend double at the hands of masked guards—because our government deliberately put them there—I was reminded of a something the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid once wrote about the subjects of prisons and abuse.
It’s a poem that also has something to say about this question of whether confining and torturing and brutalizing people can be squared with the “ordo amoris” of Christian “love”:
I think again of men as innocent as I am—writes MacDiarmid—
Pent in a cold unjust walk between steel bars,
Their trousers slit for the electrodes
And their hair cut for the cap
Because of the unconcern of men and women,
Respectable and respected and professedly Christian,[…]
And I am suddenly completely bereft […]
Of [the great friendship of created things]
The unity of life which can only be forged by love.