‘Feel so sick’: Deportation fallout grows

I wrote something yesterday about the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan migrants, whom it alleged were gang members, to a prison in El Salvador.

There’s a particular case study, below, that illustrates my point further, but first let’s run through the context again.

These are the deportations that featured in a boastful sizzle reel published by the White House, and in separate photos and footage distributed by El Salvador’s government, which showed the prisoners being manhandled, abused and generally treated like scum on their way into a Central American jail.

Yesterday’s piece was mainly about due process, and the rule of law, and how in any fully functioning democratic society those apply to everyone. Even people you don’t like, and even people who have been accused of serious crimes.

The core issue is this: all we have to go on in judging whether or not all the deportees were actually violent gang members is the Trump administration’s word. They have not been given a chance to defend themselves through any legal process, in part because President Trump ejected many of them using the...
[Short citation of 8% of the original article]