Just two days ago, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in her blistering dissent in the Supreme Court decision that ruled Kilmar Abrego Garcia and others illegally shipped to El Salvador mega-prison would stay there indefinitely:
The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this Nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise.
She’s referring to the part where Chief Justice John Roberts and his four co-signers decided Lord President Executive can use WAR POWERS to declare anybody an enemy combatant, even when the US is not at war, and use that to detain and/or deport anybody, like little George Takeis. And when it comes to getting innocent people out of a torture prison they are OOPS-in, well, the Roberts Court says don’t be too hasty!
Roberts Court Making Up New Laws For Trump Again
Can’t wait for them to tackle birthright citizenship. And guess who’s a-slobbering over THAT “taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress” possibility? Oh, you already know who!
In addition to planning to spend $45 billion-with-a-B on domestic ICE concentration camps, on Sunday night Trump also fantasized to reporters about being able to send American wiseguy citizens who bop old women on the head to foreign prisons:
“If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and that hit people over the back of the head and that purposely run people over in cars, uh, if he would take them I’d be honored to give them, I don’t know what the law says on that, but I can’t imagine the law would say anything different, if they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us I’m all for it, but I’d only do it according to the law, but I have suggested that, you know, why should it stop just at people that cross the border illegally? We have some horrible criminals, American-grown and -born, and if we have somebody that bops an old woman over the head, if we have somebody that is in jail 20 times and goes back and shoots people all over the place and then has a bad judge or a bad prosecutor that do nothing about him, and all they worry about is politics, they don’t worry about that, I think if we could get, uh, El Salvador or somebody but to take them I’d be very happy with it but I have to see what the law says.”
Those bad judges, prosecutors and politicians, always so worried about not looking soft enough on crime.
And after the Supreme Court decision on Monday, Karoline Leavitt’s spokeshole made some more foreign lock-em-up fantasies:
“These would be heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly. These are violent, repeat offenders on American streets. […] The president has said if it’s legal, right, if there is a legal pathway to do that, he’s not sure. We are not sure if there is, it’s an idea that he has simply floated and has discussed very publicly as in the effort of transparency.”
Well, thanks for the warning?
The Supreme Court has actually already somewhat been here before; you may recall that Guantánamo was set up in 2001 after George W. Bush’s lawyers such as John “Torture Memo” Yoo opined that if the US had a prison at the naval base in Cuba, well, that is not technically on US soil, and therefore is a law-free zone where torture, indefinite detention, and no due process would be just fine.
And two American citizens did wind up there: Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was detained at Guantánamo in 2001, with no access to a lawyer or the courts, after being captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. So, American citizen and also an alleged enemy combatant, fighting for a country that Congress had even approved an Authorization for Use of Military Force for. And also José Padilla, a US citizen born in Brooklyn, New York, who was arrested in 2002 and sent to Guantanamo, under suspicion of planning a dirty bomb attack using an Al-Qaeda recipe.
But even the Dubya administration and John Yoo knew that holding American citizens in an offshore prison on a naval base and subjecting them to Geneva Convention-violating torture was illegal and a bad look, even if said citizens really were enemy combatants. Hamdi was moved to the naval brig at Norfolk, and Padilla to the military brig in Charleston. And then in 2004 in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo detainees must have a meaningful opportunity to challenge their enemy combatant status and have access to lawyers, and that the Geneva Conventions apply to them. And the Supreme Court required the Department of Defense to create military tribunals for reviewing the status of enemy combatants, overseen not by civilian lawyers but by military officers appointed by the Secretary of Defense. But while the opportunity for a detainee to challenge their status had to be meaningful, it did not have to be fast. One detainee, Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi, was held at Guantánamo for twenty years without ever being charged for a crime.
So hey, remember how Ginni Thomas fantasized about military tribunals for the Bidens? Her husband and pals have now given Trump a playbook for how that could happen, you’re welcome, Ginni! Just call anybody an enemy combatant now, then wartime laws will apply.
Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem have been openly fantasizing about refilling Guantánamo in such a way, too. It’s America’s dirty little legal loophole! Since 2001, 780 people from 48 countries have been imprisoned there, though thanks to the efforts of Obama and Biden, only 15 prisoners remain.
Trump Gitmo Concentration Camp Wet Dream Wishes Will Finally Come True
And it gets worse! Yesterday (acting) ICE director Todd Lyons told eager private-prison-proprietors at the 2025 Border Security Expo in Phoenix that he wants to run “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings,” and use AI to “free up bed space” and “fill up airplanes.” There really is a trade show for everything. Border czar Tom Homan also told attendees that family detentions are also still being considered. Time to invest in prison-bassinet futures!
It’s all grim stuff, but you should know. And hey, check on your immigrant friends, because they are for sure not okay.
Palate cleanser needed!
[NBC / NPR / Arizona Mirror]
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