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Cartoon: How long before it's you in a Salvadoran prison? [1]
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Date: 2025-03-21
This week President Donald Trump invoked wartime powers under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and deported hundreds of Venezuelans in the United States to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. The president claimed that the deportees were Venezuelans and members of a gang called Tren de Aragua. His administration rushed these deportations without offering any evidence to substantiate its claims, in an almost-derisive violation of a judge's order to stay the flights.
Days later, it remains unclear whether the deportees belonged to the gang or even had criminal backgrounds. Families and attorneys for those deported are coming forward with evidence that demonstrates some were law-abiding people without any connections to the gang whatsoever. Worse, the Salvadoran mega-prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), has a staggeringly high mortality rate—even a reputation for losing prisoners completely—that keeps it under the scrutiny of governments and watchdog groups.
This could've been avoided with a hearing, but there was no hearing. No judge was allowed to consider evidence. In a manner consistent with the authoritarian nature of this administration, Trump officials sidestepped due process with wartime powers and committed what one attorney is calling "the grossest human rights violation I have seen." It's a nightmare.
Americans are right to feel alarmed. If Trump can claim wartime powers and deport hundreds of people to a deadly foreign prison—all while bypassing due process and the judiciary—what's to stop him from visiting this fate on U.S. citizens? A bilateral agreement signed with El Salvador makes this entirely possible; its language clearly provides for the imprisonment of both migrants and "violent American criminals"—a label that Trump could apply to Americans as easily as he has to these deportees.
My cartoon depicts what will undoubtedly become a famous photograph from this authoritarian era. Looking on, Lady Liberty asks the viewer how long it'll be before they're in a Salvadoran prison, too.
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