Trump's deportation spectacle

Zoom in: In the two weeks since Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, numerous reports have cast doubt on the alleged gang ties of some of the Venezuelans sent to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center.

• The Department of Homeland Security says each of the individuals has been thoroughly investigated, with tattoos and social media posts among the evidence used to confirm their involvement with Tren de Aragua.
• But the families and lawyers of some of the detained men have pushed back aggressively, claiming they were targeted because of tattoos that have nothing to do with gang ties.

In at least one case, a Venezuelan man with a pending political asylum case — and no tattoos — was deported to El Salvador because of a paperwork error, his lawyer alleged in an immigration hearing.

Between the lines: The Trump administration has refused to acknowledge the possibility that innocent people are winding up in El Salvador's megaprison, a legal black hole known for torture and inhumane conditions.

• "DHS intelligence assessments go beyond a single tattoo and we are confident in our findings," DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in response to allegations that one man's soccer tattoo was used as evidence of gang ties.
• "Where was Laken Riley's due process? All these young women that were killed and raped by members of TdA, where was their due process?" Trump's border czar Tom Homan argued on ABC's "This Week."

Zoom out: While the Trump administration has celebrated the arrests of violent criminals who entered the country illegally, authorities are also dedicating considerable resources to detaining legal immigrants involved in campus activism.

• The crackdown reached a potential inflection point this week after Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was arrested by six masked agents and transferred to a facility in Louisiana.
• Ozturk had co-authored an op-ed demanding Tufts acknowledge the "Palestinian genocide" and divest from Israel, but DHS has not provided evidence for its claim that she "engaged in activities in support of Hamas."

What they're saying: Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the administration's right to revoke student visas at a press conference this week, but did not respond when asked what specific action Ozturk took to prompt her arrest.

• "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa," Rubio said, speculating that the number of revocations "might be more than 300 at this point."
• The Trump administration has discussed plans to block colleges from having any foreign students if it concludes too many are "pro-Hamas," as Axios first reported this week.

The big picture: The promise of mass deportations was central to Trump's campaign, and recent polls show he's getting relatively high marks for his handling of immigration.

• But backlash is brewing among some conservatives, who are increasingly alarmed by both the lack of due process and the callousness with which the administration is treating deportations.
• DHS Secretary Kristi Noem drew flak this week when she posed against a backdrop of shirtless prisoners at El Salvador's megaprison, warning "this is one of the consequences you could face."
• The official White House X account has used viral memes to mock undocumented immigrants, including a ChatGPT-generated cartoon of an accused drug dealer crying while being handcuffed.

The bottom line: "I don't defend due process because I love 'child rapists & drug dealers.' I defend it because the government often gets things wrong," Reason reporter Billy Binion wrote in a heated debate on X this week.

• "The Constitution protects unpopular people for a reason."