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Trump Admin sweeps their Due Process Abuses under a Friday News-Dump rug [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-19

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Let the exaggerated claims of “4-dimensional chess” begin …

When in reality it’s much more likely another Trump Admin CYA caper, to blunt the legal damage headed their way. As all the Due Process challenges wind their way through the courts ...

The Trump administration completed a large-scale prisoner swap with Venezuela on Friday, sending about 250 Venezuelans who had been deported and imprisoned in El Salvador back to their home country in exchange for 10 [detained] US nationals, officials said.

[...] Rubio remained intimately involved to get this swap to happen, speaking personally with Bukele directly and through trusted intermediaries, multiple administration officials said. When Bukele posted about the idea of a prisoner swap, it was not a new concept to Rubio – who had discussed the possibility with Bukele, one of the officials said. Bukele helped facilitate the very delicate sequencing to make sure the trade took place on Friday, another official added. Trump praised Rubio on Friday night after the swap had occurred. “He’s a natural. There’s never going to be anybody better than – the job you’re doing right now,” Trump said, noting that they had been competitors on the campaign trail in 2016.

[...] www.cnn.com — July 18, 2025

Funny, how the Trump Admin is taking “credit” for the CECOT prisoner swap NOW — when a few months ago, they were claiming ‘legal jurisdiction’ of the Deportees was “out of their hands.”

[...]

[President of El Salvador] Bukele said in a separate social media post that he has approved the release of “all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country, accused of being part of the criminal organization Tren de Aragua.” He said the deal was carried out “in return for a considerable number of Venezuelan political prisoners” as well as the release of the American prisoners in Venezuela. In a statement, Rubio thanked Bukele for his role in securing the release of the American prisoners, and stressed his commitment to protecting Americans across the globe.

[...] The Trump administration has continued deportations to “third countries” if the deportees’ home country will not accept them. Three people familiar with the negotiations, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive international decision-making, told POLITICO that the United States had pitched a version of this deal to the Venezuelan government in May. The proposal would have seen El Salvador release the hundreds of Venezuelan nationals being held at CECOT in exchange for the release of Americans in Venezuelan custody and some Venezuelan political prisoners, similar to the Friday release.

[...] www.politico.com — July 18, 2025

The deportations continue however, despite the hasty “clean-up” of the CECOT disaster in aisle one.

Turn down the heat. Pump up the ICE budget 10-fold.

[...]

Government attorneys argued that the United States no longer has jurisdiction over deportees after ignoring emergency court orders that blocked their arrival in El Salvador. But Salvadoran authorities recently told the United Nations that the “legal responsibility for these people lie exclusively” with the U.S. government.

[...] Several federal judges have temporarily blocked immigration officials from deporting more Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, teeing up yet another Supreme Court battle challenging the president’s sweeping executive actions related to his anti-immigration agenda. Lawyers for deported immigrants inside CECOT have argued for class-action relief, which would give them an opportunity to challenge allegations against them in court. “Significant evidence has come to light indicating that many of those currently entombed in CECOT have no connection to the gang and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations,” District Judge James Boasberg wrote last month.

[...] www.yahoo.com — The Independent — July 18, 2025

As flimsy as having a tattoo:

Tattoos of deported Venezuelans don't necessarily signal gang affiliation, experts say — NBC News, March 21, 2025

At least these ‘discards’ of the ‘American Justice’ system, have finally gotten out of that hell-hole gulag ...

[...]

The deportations drew fierce criticism from human rights groups and a legal battle with the Trump administration over allegations that due process was not followed . Family members of many of the Venezuelans and their lawyers deny they had gang ties , and say they were not given a chance to contest the Trump administration's allegations in court. "I can't believe it," said Angie Rios, the U.S. citizen wife of Venezuelan CECOT detainee Jesus Rios after seeing Bukele's X post about the release. "I have chills all over my body." Some family members of Venezuelan CECOT prisoners told Reuters they expected to greet their loved ones from a distance before the men are processed by Venezuelan authorities. The government has said all the men will receive a full medical check and then be released to go home. It says only seven of them have a serious criminal record .

[...] www.msn.com — Reuters — July 18, 2025 [Videos and photos of released prisoners]

Sounds like they will receive mostly a warm welcome, back in Venezuela. Let’s hope so anyways.

Venezuelan migrants detained in the US returned to Caracas after prisoner swap

FRANCE 24 English — France 24 is a French public broadcast service.

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I’ve thought about these wrongfully detained, and illegally deported immigrants/prisoners everyday, since this Trump-inspired abomination has happened. Imagining their horror, their hunger, their lives abruptly truncated.

I felt guilt as an American, that our country did this to them. Maybe now, I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep, knowing that these American deportees will soon rest well, too.

Not sure how long my “American shame” will take to subside however … as the wholesale dismantling of that “shining beacon on the hill” continues, largely unabated. And swept under the proverbial 24/7 news-cycle rug.

That a majority of Americans could vote for this — with many cheering it on even — makes me wonder how in the world we’ve gotten here. How we fell so far, so fast? And how if ever, we can return from their Project 2025 abyss.

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Where is our Project Democracy!? And will we pursue it with all the determination, that it will take, to restore what they have ruthless, and often illegally, shredded and dismantled.

Will we let Speaker Johnson find the ‘Budget Ceiling votes’ from among his own ‘den of thieves’? Or will Dems ride to the rescue again — despite the GOP’s unconstitutional rescissions, and going back on revoking their word … breaking their meaningless promises?

Only time will tell. Assuming American civil society lasts that long.

Long enough, for Dems to get another chance — to lead.

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Great slogan — fits on a bumper-sticker too.

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