It seemed like the Trump administration couldn’t go much lower than defying a court order and shipping hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to a notoriously inhumane prison in El Salvador.
But always eager to find a new bottom, Trump has decided to send Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem south of the border to continue her cosplay parade alongside the prisoners.
Noem is visiting Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador this week to “underscore the importance of our partner countries to help remove violent criminal illegal aliens from the United States,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg. She will tour CECOT, the mega-prison in El Salvador now housing the alleged gang members for a cool $6 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The former South Dakota governor has been working overtime to get the best photo ops possible as she gallivants around the country doing anything other than her actual job. In January, Noem went viral in all the wrong ways for the perfect blowout and impeccable makeup she sported while dressed up as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
“ICE Barbie” continued her career day shenanigans on March 17, when she was photographed as a firefighter operating a water hose.
Even the usually Trump-friendly tabloid Daily Mail piled on to Noem’s PR stunts and said she was cosplaying as a “Border Patrol cowgirl” while visiting the southern border in February.
But while the unrepentant puppy-killer makes sure the cameras get her best angles, human beings are being held in CECOT, a so-called terrorism confinement center with a history of abuse. These immigrants are being shaved, shackled, dehumanized, and detained far away from their homes.
While Donald Trump and his team are calling this a win and claiming the inmates are all members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang, one woman is crying out for help and insisting her imprisoned brother is innocent.
“He was asking for help. And that help didn’t come from the lips. It came from the soul,” Jare Yamarte Fernandez told the Miami Herald after she recognized her brother Mervin in a video shared on social media.
Adding that her brother has no previous criminal record, she told the outlet, “You know when someone has their soul broken.”
Over 200 Venezuelans were sent to the maximum security prison without a trial after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which was last used to send Japanese Americans to internment camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941. He later denied invoking the 1798 law to send the immigrants to El Salvador—but paper doesn’t lie, and his signature was seen on official documents available to the public.
After U.S. District Judge James Boasberg blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, all hell seemed to break loose between the judicial system and Republicans.
The president and his allies in Congress have been calling for Boasberg’s impeachment and disbarment, while the judge refuses to let up on his block. As of Monday afternoon, a federal appeals court was considering the Trump administration’s argument to overturn the initial ruling as they push to ship more undocumented immigrants to other prisons.
“There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” Judge Patricia Millett said during the hearing. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.”
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As for Noem, the disconnect in perspective is stark. During a Cabinet meeting Monday, she claimed that the intention of the Trump administration’s ongoing sweeping deportation effort is to “get people out of this country that don’t belong here and take them home.”
But when it came to those who have allegedly committed crimes, Noem turned cold.
“We’re not only getting the worst of the worst out, we’re making sure there are consequences for being here and committing crimes in our communities,” she said.
“If you are thinking about coming to America illegally, don’t do it,” Noem warned. “You are not welcome. America has changed, because we are putting Americans first.”
