“When you start picking on the most vulnerable people ... and you get away with it, then you take the next bite.”

That’s what Senator Chris Van Hollen said after traveling to El Salvador to check on the condition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the Trump regime illegally rendered to a notoriously brutal prison in that country.

The senator is right. Donald Trump will not stop with immigrants.

If the Trump regime gets away with these extrajudicial deportations, there would be nothing to stop them from disappearing anyone they don’t like.

See our earlier note — copied below if you missed it — and take action right now.

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Imagine a country where the government can just snatch people off the street and lock them away for no good reason, never to be seen again.

That country is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship. And Donald Trump is hell bent on making it reality right here in America.

• The Trump regime has been rounding up immigrants — even people with prior court orders granting them certain legal protections to remain in the U.S. — and rendering them to a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador.

• These flagrantly illegal actions violate one of our nation’s founding ideals, the core commitment to due process.

• “Due process” means the government cannot deprive you of life, liberty, or property without giving you a chance to defend yourself. It means you are innocent until proven guilty. It means you get your day in court.

• The administration has admitted that it mistakenly sent a Maryland resident named Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the Salvadoran torture prison — an egregious injustice that has gotten widespread coverage here at home and around the world.

• Yet neither Trump himself nor anyone in the regime is lifting a finger to bring this innocent man back home. Worse, they are openly defying court orders — including from the United States Supreme Court itself — to fix their mistake.

• On Monday, Trump held an Oval Office meeting with the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who has called himself the “world’s coolest dictator” (we are not making that up).

• During the meeting, Trump came right out and said that he is open to sending American citizens to Salvadoran detention facilities, saying “homegrowns are next.” Trump was even caught on camera telling Bukele to build “about five more” prisons.

• Throughout the meeting between the two authoritarian wannabes, assorted Trump sycophants could be heard laughing, as if their unabashed fascism is just for funsies.

We must be crystal clear about what is going on here. Trump is openly telling us that if he gets away with these vicious and unconstitutional deportations of immigrants like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, he will keep going.

Who will Trump target next? Unhoused people? Starving senior citizens (once he and Elon Musk’s DOGE goons are done stripping Social Security and Medicare down for parts)? Muslims? Native Americans who don’t agree to give up whatever land they have left? People who attend peaceful rallies outside Tesla dealerships? People who work at nonprofit organizations that are standing up to the regime? People who didn’t vote for him?

Some folks may be thinking something like, “Well, if you break the law, you deserve whatever happens to you.” A few things to say about that:

1. Kilmar Abrego Garcia has not been accused of any crime and no evidence has been presented that he committed any crime. The same can be said of at least some of the other people rendered to El Salvador.

2. Any particular person’s guilt or innocence is kind of beside the point. Due process doesn’t mean nobody can be found guilty. It means there has to be a fair and consistent process to find out who is and isn’t guilty. If it only applied to people who weren’t accused (whether rightly or wrongly), it wouldn’t mean anything.

3. Donald Trump himself may have benefited more from due process than any person in the history of the world. He has been found guilty of numerous crimes. Many of us believe he has committed a variety of other crimes. But he didn’t get summarily dumped in a foreign gulag for the rest of his life. Trump was presumed innocent. He got his day (many, many, many days) in court.

4. It’s almost as if Trump and his MAGAlytes believe that due process is only for people who look like him. (That was sarcasm — they definitely believe that.)

This is history happening right before our eyes. We must all join together to stop the regime’s lawless and authoritarian actions before Donald Trump brings our country to irreversible shame and ruin.

Here’s one thing you can do right now.

Public Citizen is calling on every member of Congress to speak out against this profound injustice and for Congress as a whole to do everything in its power — including holding emergency hearings, conducting investigations, issuing subpoenas, and withholding funding to the administration — at this defining moment for our nation.

To Congress:

The Trump administration’s extrajudicial deportations are a threat to our nation’s founding ideal of due process and to our very existence as a democracy rather than a dictatorship. Every member of Congress with a conscience and a commitment to the rule of law must speak out now. And Congress as a whole must do everything in its power — including holding emergency hearings, conducting investigations, issuing subpoenas, and withholding funding to the administration — at this defining moment for our nation.

Click to add your name now.

Thanks for taking action.

For justice and democracy,

- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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