The Trump Lesson: Terrorism 101

By Jessie Seigel / April 19, 2025

The fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, in pertinent part:

No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…

The 14th Amendment, Section 1, adds:

…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Readers, take note: these amendments do not limit the protection against deprivation of life, liberty or property to citizens only. Rather, they plainly use the word “persons.”  They refer to all people in the United States, citizen or not—and apply both to the federal government and to states.

The term “due process of law” means, at a minimum, that people in this democracy—when accused of a violation of U.S. law, civil or criminal—are entitled to notice of the claimed violation or crime, and an opportunity to defend against it before a neutral decision-maker.

In criminal cases, that would mean a court of law, where the accusers must prove the accused’s guilt.

Donald Trump and his administration are trampling on the Constitution and rule of the nation by laws as if it was all so much dirt under their feet. 

In March, Trump issued a proclamation that a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua was conducting “irregular warfare” in the United States, and ordered the removal of those his administration claimed were members of that gang.

The Trump regime then quickly and unceremoniously rounded up hundreds of Venezuelans and flew them off to detention in a hellish prison in El Salvador, with no avenue for appeal or to ever leave. According to National Public Radio (NPR), this occurred within hours after the proclamation.

The U.S. government has not presented evidence—let alone proof—that any of those deported are members of the Tren de Aragua gang or, indeed, of any gang. Nor were those kidnapped and spirited away given any opportunity to challenge the veracity of the claim that they are gang members before being sent to hell.

The speed and disdain for due process with which the sweep and removal occurred cannot help but make one wonder whether Trump ordered his henchman to find him several hundred immigrants to remove—any immigrants would do—so long as they helped to fill his quota so he can claim “mission accomplished” to his voracious MAGA followers. After all, Trump is the man that tried to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes in the 2020 election. Immigrants? Voters? What’s the difference? So long as it serves the regime’s purpose?

One of those abducted with the Venezuelans, Kilmar Ábrego Garciá (a Salvadoran) was not only in the United States legally, but there was a 2019 court order that had granted him legal protection from deportation.

The Trump Administration has since conceded that Garciá’s inclusion amongst those taken to El Salvador was a mistake. They have dismissed it an “administrative error.” Yet they have had the nerve to claim that because Garciá is out of the country, he is out of their jurisdiction, and they have no power to bring him back to the U.S. They claim it is up to El Salvador to decide. But Nayid Bukele, president of El Salvador, has claimed he has no power to return Garciá to the United States.

This, of course, is a transparent shell game likely worked out between Trump and El Salvador’s president. The U.S. government is paying El Salvador to keep Garciá—and the others—in its prison. El Salvador has no interest other than money and Trump’s good will to keep Garciá there. Clearly, if the Trump administration requested his return, Bukele would have no interest in refusing to do so.

In addition to these deportations, foreign students’ visas have been revoked without informing them or giving them a reason. Some have been accosted in broad daylight, kidnapped by unidentified men in masks—forget any warrant—and carried off to a detention prison in Louisiana, far from the states in which they were living. This was deliberately done before courts could stop their removal.

It has been reported by the American Civil Liberties Union that the government is, even now, rounding up more souls for similar treatment. And doing so in defiance of a Supreme Court order requiring due process before removal.

These extra-judicial abductions by the Trump regime are nothing but terrorist thuggery.

Laurence Tribe, Harvard University professor emeritus of constitutional law, told NPR:

…literally any of us, whether we are from Venezuela or were born in the United States, whether we are immigrants or not, whether we are citizens or not, any of us is vulnerable to basically being kidnapped by masked agents of the United States government who don't tell us why they're picking us up, perhaps never to be seen again because we're located somewhere in a dungeon, a prison cell, rotting away, whether it's in El Salvador or anywhere else in the world.

Any citizens who believe that the actions of Trump and his minions will apply only to immigrants or foreign visa holders are in for a very sorry awakening when ICE, Homeland Security or some other arm of the Trump regime grabs them off the street without recourse to even an attorney. What Trump has done to Garciá, he plans to do to U.S. citizens who displease him as well. In his oval office meeting with Bukele, Trump said: “The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You’ve got to build about five more places.”

According to NPR, at Trump’s news conference last Monday, he “confirmed he has ordered U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to explore whether sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador might be a legal and cost-effective way to house American prisoners.” Trump also suggested his administration might send citizens to be incarcerated in other countries.

Even more outrageous than Trump is Pam Bondi. During her appearance Monday on the Fox News show Jesse Watters Primetime, Bondi—the Attorney General of the United States—promoted this illegal plan, stating: "These are Americans who he [President Trump] is saying have committed the most heinous crimes in our country, and crime is going to decrease dramatically."

Who, other than his majesty Donald Trump, does Bondi intend should decide whether any crimes have actually been committed before American citizens are buried alive in a foreign prison with no possibility of even a trial?

It matters not a whit whether Bondi was trying to please her boss with her statements on Fox. An attorney that would embrace this desecration of the Constitution has forfeited the right to call herself an attorney at all.

The Courts’ Reactions

The federal court system’s adequacy in defending the Constitution has been a mixed bag. District courts have appropriately found that the government’s actions broke the law and required that it return those deported to El Salvador. But given that the government has repeatedly defied the courts’ orders without explanation or defense, those courts are giving the government far too much time to comply before holding those responsible in contempt.

That said, Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the District Court for the District of Columbia (presiding over the case concerning the Venezuelans), has set out what action he will take if it the government both refuses to comply and refuses to prosecute those ultimately held in contempt. One can read about his plan here.

The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has been duplicitous as usual, particularly in the Garciá case, pretending to follow the Constitution while using language that aids the Trump regime in sustaining its illegal actions.

In the case of Mr. Garciá, the District Court Judge, Paula Xinis, had ordered that the government must “facilitate and effectuate” Garciá’s return to the U.S. But the Supreme Court maintained that because a court must give deference to the executive branch of government concerning foreign policy, Xinis could only require facilitation, not effectuation.

That limitation has permitted Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to argue that facilitation only requires them to make Garciá’s return easier if El Salvador decides to return him but does not require them to take any action themselves.

The Supreme Court’s requirement of deference to a president’s right to make foreign policy decisions is inapposite here. Garciá is not a hostage like Americans in Russia, whose release our government must negotiate, weighing the price of their release against other foreign policy interests. He is in the El Salvadoran prison at the behest of the United States, which is paying El Salvador to keep him. This is a U.S. operation from top to bottom--funded by our tax dollars.

In any event, on remand from the Supreme Court, Judge Xinis revised her order to require only facilitation. Trump’s DOJ nevertheless refused to comply, instead appealing to the 4th Circuit Appellate court.

In the 4th Circuit’s scathing rejection of DOJ’s arguments, the very conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote:

The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country

in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court has finally directed the Trump administraton to temporarily halt the deportation of Venezuelan men currently in immigration custody. Specifically, the Court wrote: “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court.”

Nevertheless, overall, courts have been cautious and slow to make decisions the administration may refuse to enforce, and have yet to figure out how to deal with the defiance Trump has already demonstrated. If the courts hold back for fear that their orders will not be obeyed, they will only be creating a façade behind which they can pretend to have power they no longer possess. Better to do what is right. If the Trump regime will not obey the decisions, at least its fascism will be totally out in the open and the nation will know to a certainty where it stands.

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A BONUS—TWO IMPORTANT SHORT TAKES:

Short Take One: Is Martial Law Coming Next?

On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order calling upon the secretaries of the Department of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.” The deadline for delivery of that report is tomorrow, Sunday, April 20.

Who are the secretaries that will provide that report? None other than Pete Hegseth for DOD and Kristi Noem for Homeland Security. What are the odds that these sycophants will provide a report limiting Trump’s power?

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, since issuing his executive order, Trump has also:

…replaced the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a Conservative Political Action Conference darling who endeared himself to Trump by wearing a MAGA hat. And he fired the top judge advocate generals for the Army, Navy and Air Force — the top uniformed lawyers responsible for reviewing the orders from the commander in chief and defense secretary to determine whether they’re legal. Trump’s defense secretary explained this action was taken preemptively to prevent the JAGs from blocking “orders that are given by a commander in chief.” Clearing the way, among other things, for the White House to begin consolidating federal law enforcement under military leadership. The secretary of the Army… in a move consistent with preparing for martial law, was just placed in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives…

The Chronicle added that Trump “has wasted no time taking actions designed to subvert the military” in order to declare martial law.

To quote Bette Davis from the film, All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

SHORT TAKE TWO: To Members of the DC Bar Association—Voting in the 2025 Bar election is crucial. Here’s why:

Attorney-General Pam Bondi’s brother, Bradley Bondi, is running to be president-elect of the DC Bar Association. And Alicia Long, deputy to Ed Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, is running for treasurer.

Bar Associations determine who can become a lawyer and who may be disbarred for misconduct, and the DC Bar has been in the forefront of holding MAGA attorneys like Rudi Guiliani and Jeffrey Clark accountable for their unethical and illegal actions. In that context, the candidacy of Bondi and Long appear suspiciously like a push by the Trump administration to gain control of the DC Bar Association. And to do so under the radar in an election many lawyers generally might not bother with.

The D.C. Bar’s 2025 elections are taking place online from mid-April to early June. If you are a member in good standing, please ensure retention of the Bar’s integrity and independence by voting. And if you are not a member of the D.C. bar but know someone who is, please urge them to vote.

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