A simple legal question: Can the U.S. government send American citizens to prison in another country?
The Trump administration’s position is that:
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If it deports an individual to foreign soil,
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And this individual leaves U.S. airspace before a court order forbids it,
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Then the government has neither the ability to bring, nor an interest in bringing, the individual back to U.S. soil. Ever.
We have seen this argument deployed in pieces already.
If these precepts are allowed to stand—and so far, they have been—what would stop the government from apprehending a U.S. citizen, putting the American on a plane to El Salvador, and handing him to that country’s government with the expectation of indefinite imprisonment?
It is true that an American citizen cannot be jailed on American soil without due process. But couldn’t he be jailed on foreign soil without due process?
Couldn’t the government just . . . do it? Certainly if some namby-pamby, woke, DEI lawyer filed a writ of habeas a court might say, “This is very bad. You, government attorneys, cannot do that.”
To which the government would respond, “Maybe we ‘can’t.’ But we did. And there is no longer a remedy for this action. We have no jurisdiction over the El Salvadoran government. Moreover, no one in America has standing to contest our actions. Where’s the defendant? I don’t see any defendant here. Do you see a defendant, your Honor?”
I know what you’re thinking: That’s not possible. The U.S. government cannot snatch a citizen off the street, take him to an airport, and rendition him to a gulag in El Salvador without recourse.
Let me explain to you why Trump could do exactly that.
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