Exiled Without Trial: Trump’s Deportation of American Citizens
Welcome to the New American Playbook, where toddlers with cancer get deported, facts get waterboarded, and due process is just a dusty relic tossed in the trash next to Trump’s platinum-plated Bible. If you thought the first term was a slow-motion car crash, buckle up — this one’s a flaming limo doing donuts on the lawn of the Constitution.
This isn’t satire. This isn’t exaggeration. This is the real, documented story of how the Trump administration did deport U.S. citizens — literal American children — without hearings, without trials, and in some cases, while they were undergoing cancer treatment. It’s state-sponsored kidnapping with a Stars and Stripes bumper sticker.
And when challenged, they didn’t deny it — they doubled down. They now want to sendd homegrown Americans to foreign torture prisons. They asked Pam Bondi, the political equivalent of a ring girl with a law degree, to see if it was legal. Spoiler: it’s not.
But don’t worry — Justin Jest did the homework. Every legal precedent, every constitutional provision, every warning bell we ignored from history is in the next section. And you’re gonna want to read it. Because this isn’t a Red vs. Blue brawl. This is a fork in the American experiment — and Trump is racing to see how many citizen rights he has already deported before someone changes the locks.
ICE Shreds the Constitution and Shocks the Conscience
So now they are deporting American citizen toddlers with cancer. I don’t know which of those three things is the most horrific. And I’m not kidding. There are reports that the Trump administration has now deported at least three children, ages 2, 4, and 7, who are U.S. citizens — at least one of whom was receiving cancer treatment.
By now you know they’re trying to rendition immigrants off to a foreign gulag in El Salvador without a hearing or a trial. But it looks like they are now trying to send American citizens away next.
I have to admit, before I looked into it, I didn’t know what, if anything, could prevent that. We have private prisons in the U.S., so what would stop the government from simply offshoring all of our prisons to foreign nations and sending citizens away?
Well, thankfully, it turns out — a lot.
In recent weeks, we’ve watched the Trump administration whisk people off for indefinite stays in Salvadoran torture prisons with absolutely no due process rights, no hearings, no jury findings, and not even notice of any criminal or immigration violations. A lot of people have looked at that situation, shrugged, and said they’re not worried — because the people Trump is sending off to torture prison are undocumented immigrants, not U.S. citizens. And nothing like that could ever happen to a U.S. citizen. Most Americans would think that.
But abusive government regimes usually start by persecuting marginalized people first. They test out rights violations on immigrants and minorities — and they rarely stop there.
And you can tell your misinformed uncle who got his law degree from Twitter University that the U.S. Constitution applies to immigrants as well. They, too, are entitled to due process.
Eventually, abusive regimes move on to persecuting everyone.
Trump has now personally indicated that he wants to send “homegrown criminals” to Salvadoran torture prisons as well:
“We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters. I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country.”
Trump’s press secretary confirmed this aspiration, and he’s asked his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to study the question.
“We’re studying the laws right now. Pam is studying. If we can do that, that’s good.”
Well, Pam — take the weekend off. We’ve done your homework for you.
The idea violates several constitutional provisions and a whole bunch of laws.
Can the Trump administration send Americans away without holding criminal trials?
Definitely not.
The short version: ICE has been picking people up off the streets and off campuses and violating their constitutional rights by whisking them away to detention centers — often without even informing them of the justification for their detention, nor charging them with any crime.
A Columbia University protester on a lawful student visa was picked up by plainclothes officers, moved across several detention centers, and denied attorney access. Other immigrants were shuffled between states and ultimately deported to El Salvador — with no hearing, no legal representation, and no explanation. This violates both the Fifth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act.
And now? We have reports that three U.S. citizen children were deported — one of whom was two years old and undergoing cancer treatment. In one case, the father opposed the child’s deportation, but ICE removed the child anyway. A federal judge issued a blistering rebuke:
“Of course it is illegal and unconstitutional to detain for deportation or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen.” — Judge Terry Doughty, U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana.
The Trump administration has claimed parents consented. But no hearing was held. The mother was picked up at a scheduled immigration check-in and deported within 24 hours, along with her citizen children.
In immigration law, due process is still required — notice, a chance to rebut, and access to counsel. But Trump’s administration has treated these rights as optional.
For citizens, protections are even stronger. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee no deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process. This includes procedural rights: hearings, legal counsel, the right to cross-examine witnesses, and an impartial tribunal.
Sending someone to a foreign prison without trial violates these rights. It also runs afoul of the Non-Detention Act, which requires explicit Congressional authorization to detain a citizen. No such law exists here.
Past administrations tried similar tricks. After 9/11, the Bush administration held detainees offshore. But in Rasul v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled Guantanamo prisoners had habeas rights. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Court held even a wartime detainee must receive due process.
Sending convicted citizens to foreign prisons after a trial? That’s also constitutionally fraught. The First Step Act, signed by Trump in 2018, says prisoners must be held close to home. Transferring someone to El Salvador would violate that law — and international treaties like the Convention Against Torture.
And even if a person were convicted, the Eighth Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment. Salvador’s prison system is brutal. Reports cite torture, starvation, untreated medical conditions, and cells packed tighter than EU regulations for livestock transport. The U.S. Department of State acknowledges systemic abuse in these prisons.
The Convention Against Torture prohibits transfer to any country where torture is likely. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and U.S. agencies have all confirmed this is the case in El Salvador.
The only legal way to send someone abroad is through an extradition treaty — and only with a hearing and judge’s approval. In Doe v. Mattis, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the executive cannot surrender citizens to foreign governments without legal authority.
Stripping someone of citizenship to get around this? Also unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment affirms birthright citizenship. Courts have ruled again and again that citizenship can’t be taken away involuntarily.
Even Trump’s own First Step Act and Bush-era precedents support this conclusion: U.S. citizens can’t be sent abroad without legal process.
This isn’t just cruel. It’s illegal.
(End of formatted legal analysis. Gonzo intro to be added above.)
