Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game (deported to El Salvador)

The United States has deported to El Salvador, 238 Venezuelan nationals who are now being housed in a supermax prison in El Salvador. El Salvador has been in a State of Exception, for the past three years, where the country has suspended several constitutional protections.

The U.S. government claims that the Venezuelan nationals, with no legal status in El Salvador, have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. The government alleges it has the power to effect these removals under the "Alien Enemies Act," (AEA) passed in 1798, which gives the president the power to detain and remove people from the United States in times of war.

Many of these individuals had asylum claims as well as active cases pending in front of the immigration courts in the United States. More horror stories are being released that most of these individuals did not have any gang affiliations but were wrongly classified due to tattoos, including tattoos of a soccer ball and the autism acceptance movement.

Additionally, an individual, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who won his case in front of an immigration judge, after the judge found that he would suffer persecution if removed back to El Salvador, was unconstitutionally removed to that country and now the U.S. government continues to defy orders for his return, claiming they cannot bring him back.

Even more appalling is that a federal judge issued an order preventing these removals from occurring in the first place but the government defied the order and removed them anyways.

Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court has issued two disappointing decisions regarding both the removal of Venezuelan nationals and Mr. Abrego Garcia.

First, regarding Mr. Abrego Garcia, Chief Justice John Roberts granted the administration's emergency request to stay the lower court's order to return Mr. Abrego Garcia. That order is now on hold while the Court is considering the case.

Second, the Court is allowing the administration to proceed with removing Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador under the AEA, despite the fact that we are currently living in a peacetime.

The Court, has, however, indicated that these noncitizens are entitled to due process in the form of notice and the opportunity to be heard and that the "notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs."

This post's title comes from the Bob Dylan song, "Hurricane," from the 1976 album Desire. The song is about the boxer Rubin Carter's wrongful conviction for a 1966 triple homicide in Patterson, New Jersey. After serving a close to 20 year sentence, Carter was released in November 1985 after a federal judge found that his prosecution had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure."

To quote another Bob Dylan song, "Bury the rag deep in your face for now’s the time for your tears."