The Different Drummer

Oops

Trump takes a chainsaw to the Constitution and illegally deports an innocent man, stripping the father of his due process rights.

The CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo) mega prison in El Salvador is the type of place America used to condemn. As the leader of the free world, we were supposed to be against a prison whose occupants are purposely dehumanized, confined to 100-person cells for 23½ hours a day, with lights always on. We were supposed to be against making people disappear into this type of hellhole, losing contact with their families for the rest of their lives.

There was a time when El Salvador’s lack of due process, imprisoning prisoners in CECOT without any access to lawyers, trapping innocent people within this hellhole’s walls, would have been an affront to our values. Those values shifted dramatically with the election of Donald Trump. In his quest to make America great again, he has destroyed what made our country exceptional.

Instead of leading the world in condemning CECOT, Trump has grown envious. Operating under a state of emergency, El Salvador’s President can operate without the inconveniences of judicial oversight, due process, or conforming to fundamental human rights. As an aspiring dictator, this is…