From AP March 31. The Trump administration said Monday that it has deported 17 more “violent criminals” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs to El Salvador, as it doubles down on a policy of removing people from the U.S. to countries other than their own despite criticism over lack of transparency and human rights issues.

Good thing you might be thinking. But then.

From Reuters, on April 1. This is not a joke. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration erroneously deported a Salvadoran man as part of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador last month, after a judge’s ruling prohibited the man’s removal to his home country, a court filing on Monday showed. Lawyers for the man, Kilmer Abrego-Garcia, disputed U.S. government allegations that he was a member of the MS-13 gang and demanded his immediate return to the United States. The government, however, said it did not have the legal authority to bring him back from El Salvador.

It makes me wonder about those 17 and the other 238 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador, many of whom had active asylum cases. Or the other repots we are hearing of students here legally on student visas being taken into custody by unidentified agents with no identification, markings, badges or uniforms and unmarked vans—even wearing masks—so being abducted. And foreign travelers detained for questionable reasons.

“The government, however, said it did not have the legal authority to bring him back from El Salvador.”

This administration has claimed legal authority to deport someone to a place from where they can never return. Therefore, being erroneously accused (by the administration’s own admission) of being in this gang is an automatic life sentence. Sounds more like the Gulag to me.

This is the importance of due process. Not just for U.S. citizens, but for everyone on U.S. soil. Why do they deserve it? Because they are human. No other reason needed. Because they are human.

Let me ask you this. If you were stopped on the street by agents, or anyone really, could you prove your U.S. citizenship? I couldn’t. I could show my Minnesota driver’s license, a credit card or two, medical card, etc., but nothing that is definitive proof of my documentation as a U.S. born or naturalized citizen. I’m a middle-aged white guy with a Minnesota accent so, I’m probably safe. But am I?

Cory Booker just spoke on the floor of the Senate for 25 hours and many times invoked the memory of John Lewis and the idea of getting into good trouble. I’m not sure what that looks like for a lone voice with little power and influence such as myself, but it can begin with speaking up and out. Will that get me noticed? Could that put me on a list that Marco Rubio is reviewing and then on a list that ICE uses to round up enemies of the state and deport (apparently with no hope of return) to the El Salvador Gulag? With no due process.

This is where we are. If you think you are safe, you are not. Now that this line has been crossed by the administration they will not retreat and we cannot trust them to limit their deportations to “criminals” because to them anyone who disagrees with them is a “criminal.”

This is wrong and it must end.