Disappeared

Morning Dispatch

Over the last few months, some erstwhile supporter’s of Donald have started to notice his blatant disregard for human life, as if this disregard is new. I personally have been aware of this since the 1970s. Others who started paying attention during the 2015/2016 presidential campaign have also long been well aware of his cruelty and lack of empathy—particularly towards the more vulnerable among us

As the Trump regime ramps up its mass deportations of migrants to El Salvador's, infamous mega prisons even the likes of Joe Rogan, who helped get him elected, are starting to be alarmed.

JOE ROGAN

You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting like lassooed up and deported and sent to like El Salvador prisons, that kind of shit.

JAMIE VERNON

When you do things quickly and you do things aggressively, that's how you get shit done. But that's also when mistakes get made. And I think a human being being plucked out of nowhere and ending up in a country he’s never been in a maximum security prison with gang members seems like a bad thing to happen to me.

ROGAN

It's horrific. It’s

Horrific.

I don't think that should be controversial.

VERNON

No, that's not controversial at all. And this is the thing, measured twice, cut once. This is kind of crazy that that could be possible. That's horrific. And that's again, that's bad for the cause. The cause is let's get the gang members out. Everybody agrees, but let's not—innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs. And then how long before that guy can get out. Can we figure out how to get 'em out? Is there any plan in place to alert the authorities that they've made a horrible mistake and correct it?

VERNON

Well, if you think about it from a government perspective, and this is where I think it gets quite sinister, is once you've done that, the incentive structure is never going to be to admit that and deal with it. The incentive structure is to say nothing, to cover it up, to pretend it didn't happen.

ROGAN

Wow, that is horrible.

What Rogan is referring to here is the fact that innocent people are mistakenly being identified as gang members and being deported without any due process whatsoever. ICE doesn’t even know for a fact whether or not these men are who ICE claims they are. Knowing the fascists behind these lawless acts are the so-called “Border Czar” Tom Homan and Secretary of Homeland Security and puppy murderer Kristi Noem, I have every reason to believe the “mistakes” are intentional.

The gay hairdresser Rogan referred to is actually makeup artist, Andry José Hernández Romero, who was deported based on his having a crown tattoo. Romeros is described by those who know him as a kind, creative soul who is an active member in his church drama troupe.

I have one question for Rogan: When did you start paying attention? Because if this is the first inkling you have of what Donald Trump and the sycophants and fascist with whom he surrounds himself are capable of, you clearly have not been paying attention.

You're telling me that these recents events, as horrific and un-American as they are, were your first clue that Donald may not have people’s best interests at heart; that he may indeed have a malign purpose that does not square with your delusions about him?

Hundreds of thousands of unnecessary COVID deaths did not raise a red flag for you? Do you remember the thousands of children who were kidnapped, separated from their parents, and put in internment camps during the first Trump administration? That apparently was not a bridge too far for you.

I'm glad that Rogan is finally waking up to our reality because, sadly, tens of millions of people listen to what he has to say. I guess it’s better late than never, right? Or maybe not, because it may actually be too late.

The disappearing of Mr. Romero was only one example of people being grabbed without warning, without charges based on some fantasies ICE agents have constructed about what it means when a brown person has a tattoo they think is suspicious.

Here's an incomplete list of some of the men who have been wrongfully detained and illegally transported to the notorious CECOT mega-prison:

• Franco Tiapa, 26, from Venezuela who was simply deported for having the wrong kind of tattoo.

• Daniel Camargo, a 20 year old asylum seeker deported for a tattoo of his daughter’s name and praying hands.

• Neri Borges, a Dallas man, who was arrested and deported because of an autism awareness tattoo he got in honor of his brother.

• Luis Carlos Jose Marcano Silva, a 26-year-old barber who was detained at an immigration hearing in Miami last month because he has a tattoo of Jesus of Nazareth and one of his daughters name.

• Jerse Reyes Barrios, a former professional footballer who was deported based on a tattoo of a soccer ball with a crown on top of it, in honor of his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.

• Francisco Casique, who was deported for having tattoos that say “Live in the Moment” and “Family” in Spanish.

Casique’s family has published evidence that he has no criminal background whatsoever. One has to wonder if it will matter.

The Trump regime has bestowed upon itself the authority to deport Venezuelan migrants they claim are part of Tren de Aragua, a violent gang from that country, based primarily on their tattoos or the kinds of clothes they wear.

Court documents submitted this past weekend show that lawyers for the Venezuelan migrants were presented with a government document, the Alien Enemy Validation Guide, which outlines the criteria officials must follow to designate someone as a member of the gang. Because Donald erroneously labeled the gang a terrorist organization, he insists he has broad authority under 1898’s Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members, claiming he is not required to follow due process or the rule of law.

The irony is not lost on me that Donald is the only confirmed domestic terrorist in this scenario, having incited thousands of people to engage in an insurrection against our government. But because he, and they, they won, they get to rewrite that history.

These are some of the qualifications that ICE is using to confirm gang members' identities.

Section two E: Subject displays, insignia, logos, notations, drawings, or dress known to indicate allegiance to TDA as observed by law enforcement in person or via virtual mediums.

This is pre-textual. ICE is dictating the criteria that will make it easier for them to fulfill their deportation quotas. It's hard, after all, to find immigrants and undocumented workers who are the kinds of criminals Donald and ICE claim are running rampant through our country. As everybody should know, immigrants and undocumented workers commit fewer crimes than the average American citizen. And all of us are significantly less likely to commit as many crimes as Donald Trump, a lifetime recidivist who is, thanks to a broken system and the corrupt illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court, above the law.

Donald and his regime claim people chose to put him in office specifically for them to be as cruel as humanly possible to people with brown skin—especially if they're undocumented workers who have allegedly committed crimes. The idea that they would take care specifically to target such people was unbelievable from the outset—especially given the Trump regime’s hostility to all marginalized communities and its clear intention to do away with Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment (Section three has already been rendered inoperative).

So many of the men detained by ICE and sent to El Salvador have no criminal records. ICE agents targeted them simply because they had “suspicious” tattoos and brown skin. It is an exercise in petty power designed to elevate the worst among us. We are throwing the keys over to the brown shirts.

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The American people are beginning to lose track of how often these events are occurring. Even worse, so too is ICE. According to a report from MSNBC:

The Trump regime “acknowledged in a court filing yesterday, it inadvertently deported a Maryland man to El Salvador because of an administrative error, but that US courts are powerless to order his return. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadorian national who came to the US at the age of 16 and 2011 after fleeing gang threats in his native land. According to Politico, he was deemed by an immigration judge in 2019 to be a likely member of the MS 13 gang, a decision he sharply contested and that the government credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant. But the court also agreed at the time that he should not be deported to El Salvador, finding that his fear of being persecuted or tortured was credible. On Monday, attorneys for the government admitted that Abrego Garcia was deported accidentally.

Despite the mistake, if that's indeed what it was, and there is no reason to believe them, the Trump regime claims it cannot retrieve Abrego Garcia because he is no longer in US custody. According to them, this means the government has no power to act. This is absurd on its face.

Court documents reveal that Abrego Garcia has no criminal record; he has a young child; and he checks in regularly with immigration authorities. This appears to be the first instance in which the Trump regime has admitted to having committed an error related to the deportation of El Salvadoran and Venezuelan nationals. This admission only occurs in the courtroom in order to avoid perjury charges. Publicly, the regime shows absolutely no remorse whatsoever and has no plans to release Brego Garcia from the El Salvadoran prison.

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Since the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald has been claiming erroneously that the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua is a terrorist organization. It is particularly rich for a group of domestic terrorists who organized and carried out a violent coup against this country to be pointing fingers. It is becoming increasingly clear that, in addition to the deflection and projection in which they constantly engage, the central goal here is to scare people. As long as they can keep us guessing, as long as we don’t actually know who is the target of their raids or if the criteria keep changing, they chill people's ability to live their lives, or to feel safe. I’m sorry to put it this way, but the minions and the brown shirts, the enablers and the sycophants, J.D. Vance and Elon Musk and Donald Trump all get off on having the power to make people suffer horribly at their hands.

Although as far as I’m concerned this is not the most important aspect of this situation, the deportation crackdown is costing American taxpayers millions of dollars. Since the beginning of the term, U.S. efforts to manage the southwestern border and detention operations at Guantanamo Bay have totaled nearly $300 million. Of that total, almost $40 million has been spent on deportation flights and detention operations at Guantanamo Bay. Currently, only small number of deported migrants are being held at the Guantanamo Bay facility. Then we have the cost to the American people for Donald's illegal Venezuelan deportations, which have been branded as a counter-terrorism operation and includes a $6 million payment to El Salvador to detain 238 Venezuelan men averaging $25,000 per detainee a figure.

A federal judge issued an emergency order mandating that deportees receive a fair opportunity to seek humanitarian protection that the administration has provided no proof of compliance. This is where we are right now: thus country is being led by a lawless regime that is accountable to nobody, including the other two formerly co-equal branches of government. The Republicans who control both houses of Congress have already abdicated all of their constitutional responsibilities and handed them over to the executive branch. The judicial branch, or at least much of it, at least in the aggregate, is trying its level best to hold Donald and his regime to account, but the process takes too long. Even if the rulings of many of these judges are correct, some of them seem still not to understand the current moment.

Justice grinds slow, but fine, yes, but we don't have time for this anymore. We don't have time to give prosecutors who have nothing but disdain for the judicial process second, third, and fourth chances. How many instances of contempt does a judge need to see before they stand up and say enough and no more and actually do something? Will it change anything if they slap DOJ prosecutors with contempt charges? Maybe not, but maybe it will put the DOJ on notice that they can't get away with their lack of professionalism, unpreparedness, condescension, and refusal to obey judge’s orders.

What I do know for sure is that by continuing to do nothing, by continuing to act as if this is all normal—as if in the year 2025 we are going to allow the government of the United States of America to disappear people without lifting a finger to stop it, we are as far away from who we thought we were than it is possible to articulate.

And yet, here we are.

Again, it is 2025 in the United States of America and our government, with the aid of our very own brown shirts, is disappearing people.