Rendition to El Salvador: How the Trump Administration Is Sending Asylum Seekers to Labor Camps

Summary

Podcast Summary

It Could Happen Here
Episode: Rendition to El Salvador: How the Trump Administration Is Sending Asylum Seekers to Labor Camps
Date: March 24, 2025
Hosts: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis (Cool Zone Media)

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Overview

This episode explores the Trump administration's unprecedented use of the Alien Enemies Act to forcibly send hundreds of non-citizen migrants — many accused, but not tried or convicted, of gang membership — to a notorious Salvadoran super-prison. The hosts examine the historical roots of this policy, the human rights abuses inherent in its execution, the propaganda surrounding it, and the ongoing constitutional crisis resulting from open defiance of judicial orders by the executive branch. The discussion also highlights the severe humanitarian consequences for those targeted.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What “Rendition” Means in This Case ([03:12])

• The Trump administration has recently sent 300 non-U.S. nationals, accused of gang activity, to El Salvador, not to their home countries.
• Most are alleged members of "Tren de Aragua," a Venezuelan gang recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) ([05:15]), and a smaller group are accused of MS-13 membership.
• This transfer is carried out via the Alien Enemies Act, a law dating back 226 years, previously invoked during WWII for Japanese internment.
• Unlike deportation, there is no due process or legal avenue for appeal. The accused are simply rounded up and expelled.

Quote:

"As we saw in this instance, there is very little recourse to appeal. This isn’t like a deportation hearing where you have a lawyer representing you, where you have even a hearing… These people were rounded up and booted out of the country in very short order."
— Host ([05:32])

2. The Prison at the Center: Secot in El Salvador ([09:00])

• The “Secot” facility is described as a super-prison built under President Bukele's "iron fist" (mano dura) anti-gang policies.
• The prison is notorious for extreme overcrowding, lack of bedding, constant lighting, limited bathroom access, forced hair shaving, no outside contact, and forced labor under the "Zero Idleness" program.
• Only two Bibles per cell are provided as “entertainment.”

Quote:

"People are crammed into cells with more than 100 people…but there are fewer bunks than there are prisoners...For more than 100 prisoners, there are two open toilets."
— Host ([08:48])

Quote:

"It just sounds like a torture camp."
— Co-host/Guest ([09:52])

3. Propaganda and Public Display ([14:12])

• The hosts describe and analyze El Salvador's President Bukele’s social media video, showing detainees’ forced transport, stripping, and entry to Secot set to dramatic music.
• U.S. and Salvadoran governments are using social media to normalize and even celebrate the mass detention and torture of alleged gang members.
• The video is used both as deterrent propaganda and to promote prison labor.

Quote:

"It's basically just three minutes of torture porn. Like, that's what they're doing."
— Co-host/Guest ([19:04])

Quote:

"It’s very much designed to generate this image of like, 'this is what will happen…if you’re in a gang.'"
— Host ([09:54])

4. The “Zero Idleness” Forced-Labor Program ([16:33])

• Bukele touts the so-called “Zero Idleness”—forced labor by prisoners to make the penitentiary system "self-sustainable," including for U.S.-funded detainees.
• The U.S. pays El Salvador a "low fee" to house these prisoners—$6 million for an initial cohort of 300.

Quote:

"The 'Zero Idleness' program is one of the most sinister things I’ve read recently."
— Co-host/Guest ([16:33])

5. Who Are the Detainees? How Are They Identified? ([21:21])

• Many targeted for transfer have been accused but not tried or convicted of any crime in either the U.S. or El Salvador.
• ICE’s identification methods are often shockingly superficial, such as tattoos, football fan symbols, or hand gestures commonly used in photos.
• The hosts cite the example of Jercy Reyes Barrios, a Venezuelan footballer and Maduro dissident, misidentified as a gang member due to a Real Madrid-themed tattoo.

Quote:

"The criteria that they used to identify him were a tattoo...an homage to the logo of Real Madrid, his favorite football club…They have claimed that it's evidence of gang membership."
— Host ([21:45])

• Many affected entered the U.S. legally or through approved asylum processes.

6. Legal and Constitutional Breakdown ([23:00], [28:55])

• A federal judge issued an order to halt the deportation; the government ignored it, flying detainees to El Salvador anyway.
• Trump and allies publically dismiss judicial authority, directly attacking judges on social media (e.g., calling to impeach the judge who issued the stay).
• This open defiance represents an advancing constitutional crisis, as the executive disregards the courts without consequence.

Quote:

"This is open defiance of the courts...this is like an actual constitutional crisis."
— Host & Co-host/Guest ([30:43])

Quote:

"[If] you play your trump card and no one cares…then you have no cards left to play."
— Host ([31:27])

7. broader implications, historical parallels, and warnings ([32:17], [36:15])

• The executive’s assertion of power, bypassing judicial and congressional checks, is likened to historical authoritarian regimes and labor camps.
• The normalization of such abuses is dangerous, the hosts urge it should transcend left/right divides and be recognized as a basic human rights violation.
• Public anger and resistance, not complacency, are needed to halt this trajectory.

Quote:

"If you're 'history understanders' should look at what's happening and be like, 'oh, we're doing that again, huh?'"
— Co-host/Guest ([36:59])

Quote:

"You don't have to be like, anywhere on the left to understand this is an assault on basic human rights...it shouldn't be a left-right issue. This should be a right-wrong issue."
— Host ([37:18])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [06:21] Co-host/Guest:
  "With or without due process, we should not be blackbagging people and sending them to...El Salvador labor prison."
• [19:04] Co-host/Guest:
  "It's basically just three minutes of torture porn."
• [28:55] Host (reading Trump’s reaction to the judge):
  "This radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker and agitator...was not elected president…He didn’t win the popular vote…We don’t want vicious, violent and demented criminals, many of them deranged murderers, in our country. Make America great again."
• [30:43] Co-host/Guest:
  "This is open defiance of the courts…an actual constitutional crisis."
• [37:18] Host:
  "This should be like a right-wrong issue."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:55 – Episode introduction and overview of the Trump administration’s actions
• 05:15 – Designation of gangs as FTOs and the Alien Enemies Act history
• 09:00 – Conditions at El Salvador’s Secot super-prison
• 14:12 – Propaganda video analysis, Bukele’s statement, and forced-labor program
• 21:21 – Identification of detainees, case study: Jercy Reyes Barrios
• 23:00 – Judge’s order to halt removals and government defiance
• 28:55 – Trump and administration’s dismissive response to the judiciary
• 32:17 – Discussion of constitutional crisis and systemic breakdown
• 36:15 – Historical parallels, broader implications, and closing thoughts

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Conclusion

The episode is a dire, urgent warning about the Trump administration’s use of centuries-old emergency powers to sidestep both legal process and fundamental human rights, forcibly removing vulnerable migrants to foreign labor camps. It documents the intersection of state violence, political propaganda, and constitutional crisis, urging listeners to register the historic significance and moral gravity of these developments.

Final word:

"It is happening here."
— Host ([38:19])

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For sources and further reading, see the episode description or visit the podcast’s official website.

Transcript

[Host]

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[Host]

Call Zone Media. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the world falling apart. And mostly just about that at the minute. But we do sometimes talk about how to put it back together as well. Joining me today is Garrison Davis. Hi, Garrison.

[Co-host/Guest]

Hello.

[Host]

Hi. And we're on the falling apart theme. Seems like we've been on that one quite a lot the last few weeks. But today we are specifically talking about the what I'm going to call the rendition of non US Nationals by the Trump administration over the last week. The reason I'm calling it, I guess rendition and not deportation is because these people aren't being sent back to the countries they're from. They're being sent to El Salvador specifically. They're being sent to a place called Secot. So the Trump administration has attempted to send 300 people who it accuses of being members of a foreign terrorist organization. We're going to get to how they get there under the Alien Enemies act to a prison in El Salvador where they will be detained for a year at the expense of the United States. We're going to break down exactly how we got there over the course of this episode. So the Trump administration has accused these people of being members of two different gangs. The majority of them, there's 238 people are accused of being members of Trenderagua. Trenderagua is a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration recently declared a foreign terrorist organization. Another 23 it's accusing of being members of Ms. 13, which is a Salvadorian gang. The Trump administration used something called the Alien Enemies act to remove these people. The Alien Enemies act, we actually spoke about it in November of last year when we were looking at provisions of U.S. law that the Trump administration could use for its mass deportation agenda. This is one we spoke about. The Trump administration in the past has been quite good at finding obscure provisions of the United States law to exclude migrants. You can hear my whole series about Title 42 on that. That's kind of the the paramount example. Right. The Alien Enemies act is a 226-year-old piece of legislation. The last time it was used was to inter Japanese people during the Second World War. Right. So that's a pretty shameful part of United States history. And it's great that we're going back there. So who are the enemies in this case? Right. It's generally, like, I should probably point out, the Alien Enemies act is intended for, like, the people you are at war with. Right. So if the United States is at war with, let's say, Canada and there are Canadian citizens in the United States or people who have dual citizenship with Canada, and those people are individuals within that group are suspected to be spies or suspected to be, like, serving the interests of Canada, not the United States, then they could be excluded or detained under the Alien Enemies act or sent out of the country, as is the case here. And as we saw in this instance, there is very little recourse to appeal. Right. This isn't like a deportation hearing or an asylum hearing where you have a lawyer representing you where you have even a hearing. Right. These people were rounded up and booted out the country in very short order.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah. And like, with or without due process, like, we should not be black begging people and sending them to the, like, El Salvador labor prison. Right. Like, this is, like, just doing this at all, even with due process would already be horrifying.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

The fact that they're just doing it, like, without even any, like, court process entirely and, like, trying to, like, bypass that just adds, like, another level to an already, like, horrifying and, you know, evil and shameful action.

[Host]

Yeah. It's terrible. I want to define some of the categories here. I want to start with trend. Aragua Spanish understanders will will notice the word tren, meaning train. That's because they came out of construction unions who were building trains as part of a Venezuelan infrastructure project. In Aragua, which is part of Venezuela, there are other Venezuelan gangs. Trent Degliano is the other one that springs to mind, which also come from the same place and does have similar names, but just people should understand that they're different organizations. They also have a strong presence in Venezuelan prisons. They have in the past been accused of doing violence on behalf of the Venezuelan state. But in 2024, Maduro blamed them for the protests after his election. People remember that that election was widely seen as fraudulent, and I covered that in my series on the Darien Gap. If people want to learn more about Venezuelan politics and migration to the United States. In 2024, Biden named Trentar Agua a transnational criminal organization, and then Trump named them a foreign terrorist organization. He labeled several cartels as FTOs as well. @ the time, there's a lot of speculation about why was it to. To allow for, like, drone strikes or covert operations. I think we're now seeing that this was part of this, this larger ploy of deportation.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah. Because like quote, unquote, terrorists have even less quote unquote rights than quote unquote criminals.

[Host]

Yes.

[Co-host/Guest]

Right. Like it's, it's like. Yeah, it like the. In like the triangle of like which. Which deplorable class has the least amount of rights? Terrorists are always like the ones with the least.

[Host]

Yeah. And we've been doing that for 20 odd years now with Guantanamo Bay and renditions to Egypt and Syria and other places. In this case, people are being sent to Secot, which is this prison in El Salvador. It sometimes refers.

[Co-host/Guest]

Can you spell that?

[Host]

Yeah. C, E, C. Centro Secot. Yeah, Secot. I guess it stands for terrorism confinement Terrorism Detention center. It is largely referred to as a super prison. Right. It was built in El Salvador by Bukele as part of his iron fist would be the way you translate it, it's iron fist policy against gangs and against crime. And it has been widely condemned for human rights abuses. People are crammed into cells with more than 100 people. But there are fewer bunks than there are prisoners. Right. So they can't even all lie down at the same time. The bunks don't have bedding. They're just flat metal sheets. They're four high, so you have to climb over other people to sleep. For more than 100 prisoners, there are two open toilets. That's the only access to a bathroom that you have. They might be allowed out for half an hour each day. They're not allowed to communicate with their families or the outside world. They're forced to shave their heads and they all wear white. The lights are left on all day. As I said, they're provided with no bedding, no contact with the outside world. Very little access to anything other than standing in that cell. There's two Bibles in each cell. It's the only sort of entertainment they're allowed.

[Co-host/Guest]

It just sounds like a torture camp.

[Host]

Yeah. This is completely inhumane. Right. It's horrific. And for a couple of years now, Bukele has been doing these media tours of Sekkot, like using it to generate content. It's very much designed to generate this image of like this is what will happen, quote, unquote, what will happen to you if you're quote unquote, in a gang. It's sort of been used to promote his image of someone who's taking an iron fist to gangs. And as we saw when these people were sent to El Salvador, this tendency to use I don't know what you would call it. Incarceration as a way of making content was very much the case here, right?

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah.

[Host]

Gonna break for ads. When we come back we will be consuming content that is people being stripped of their human rights.

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[Host]

And we are back. Garrison, do you want to go ahead and play this? So the, the tweet in question, the zeet in question, it's by Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador. Right? Should I read it out?

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, I think you should. I think it's worth noting that like this style of propaganda closely mirrors a lot of what like DHS and the Trump administration is doing on their official accounts. A lot of, a lot of the like memeified content creation format like aesthetics being used to just display like torture and deportations and human rights abuses is very common among government accounts in the States right now. It's pretty, pretty horrifying to look at and this, this kind of follows suit and is possibly even more bleak. Yeah, but yeah, we should read, read this whole, this whole message and then, and then we'll probably skip around on the video and talk about what we're seeing.

[Host]

Yeah, so I'll just read it. Obviously you don't understand it. I'm quoting it here directly from him. Today the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization Trend arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to secot, the Terrorism Confinement Center. For a period of one year parentheses renewable. The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us. Over time, these actions combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labour under the Zero Idleness Program will help make our prison system self sustainable. As of Today it costs 200 million per year. On this occasion the US has sent us 23 Ms. 13 members wanted by Salvadorian justice, including two ringleaders. One of them is a member of the criminal organization's highest structure. This will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS.13, including its former and new members. Money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators and sponsors. As always, we continue advancing in the fight against organized crime. But this time we are also helping our allies, making our prison system self sustainable and obtaining vital intelligence to make our country an even safer place, all in a single action. May God bless El Salvador and may God bless the United States. I should probably just add that the US sent $3 million to pay for these $6 million. I'm sorry, to pay for the 300 prisoners that intended to send.

[Co-host/Guest]

The Zero Idleness program is one of the most sinister things I've read recently.

[Host]

Yeah, I mean you could pull it out of a George Orwell or like a Aldous Huxley or something, Right. And it wouldn't sound out of place.

[Co-host/Guest]

I mean, it's even like, you know, it's almost cliche now to point to like German work camps. But like, come on.

[Host]

Yeah, I mean, come on. Yeah, we're doing it again.

[Co-host/Guest]

So. Yeah, we'll probably play a clip of the music and then I'm going to skip around on the video. We can just talk about what we're seeing here. At first we have a shot of an airport with three different planes and people getting rounded up and pushed on in single file. It has like this like action movie type music, lines of soldiers. So as, as the people getting loaded on the plane, they're getting like forced, forced down. There's like people with like guns. Police, military.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

Like manhandling people, pushing their heads down, physically removing clothing.

[Host]

Yeah. They're showing their tattoos there. Right. That's what they're pulling up. His shirt. Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

But like even the way that they just like walk around with these people, like, like, like forcing their heads, almost like they're concrete as they make them shuffle along the ground. Just like basic dehumanization.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

Shows them getting transported onto buses.

[Host]

So they said they're arriving at secot now. Sort of bright white, very sterile facility. Now they're being forced onto their knees. Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

And shaved, getting their beards shaved, heads shaved, getting shackled, all while being forced onto their knees on the ground.

[Host]

Then the cops doing this are all wearing, I guess, balaclavas. I would describe them as face masks and hats.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah. All of the military and police officials are trying to hide their identity as they publicly display the actions that they're doing. When they're shaving and holding people's heads up for the camera. So it. It's. It's a lot of that kind of stuff. You see. You see them, like, pushing. Pushing people all in matching white clothes.

[Host]

Yep.

[Co-host/Guest]

In single file into cells.

[Host]

Yeah. And this is the cell so we. We spoke about before. We'll include this link in the. In the sources.

[Co-host/Guest]

It's basically just three minutes of torture porn. Like that's. Like that's what. That's what they're doing.

[Host]

Yeah. It's pretty bleak. Honestly.

[Co-host/Guest]

I don't know what else to say about it. Besides, it's just channeling pure evil. There's nothing else to say.

[Host]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how anyone can watch that and think good. So we should talk about how they're identifying these people, and we should talk about the process by which they were sent there. ICE policy says a person can be deemed a gang member if the officer notes, to quote, gang membership identification criteria. One of the criteria that they seem to be using in this instance is their tattoos. So there are some gangs that have a process of tattooing to enter the gang. Right. Ms. 13 Mara Salva structure is what the Ms. Stands for, being one of them. These, like Mara Central American gangs have tended to use that in the past. This isn't really something that happens with trend. Iragua, as far as I'm aware of some people, they've pointed to tattoos of trains. In a document that Gaya found from the Texas Department of Public Safety, they're pointing to stars as evidence that people were part of trend, as far as I'm aware, Trenderagua does not have a policy of tattooing people specifically because this is a thing that has been used by law enforcement to identify members. Right. Like, it would be silly to keep going that once it's become so clear that the state uses that. So the one sort of case that I've seen legal documents on, of these people, the one name we have, one of these people who's been sent, is a man named Jercy Reyes Barrios. He was a footballer, professional footballer in Venezuela, who protested against the Maduro regime, was tortured and detained as a result. I've spoken to, probably, I would imagine, thousands of Venezuelan migrants. Right. Again, I would like you to listen to my series on the Dalian Gap. If you haven't, it would. I put a lot into it. All of these people have stories of watching people be shot. The brutal repression of protests, state violence, economic collapse, persecution for supporting the opposition in the country. Right. And this is one of those stories. The criteria that they used to identify him were a tattoo which had a football with a crown over the top and then the word Dios God in English underneath. Reis Barrios lawyer says that this is an homage to the logo of Real Madrid, his favorite football club. They have claimed that it's evidence of gang membership. That's what the government is claiming here. The other criteria that they used is a picture of him like throwing up the horns, I guess, which I believe it means I love you in sign language. I'm not sure if that's like a urban legend or if that's the case. And there are obviously different sign languages. But this is a hand gesture that's especially common in the Spanish speaking world. If you're not familiar, I have my little finger and my index finger extended and my two other fingers curled up as if I was making a fist.

[Co-host/Guest]

Almost like a, almost like a spider man hand symbol, I guess.

[Host]

Sure, I'm not familiar, but if you.

[Co-host/Guest]

Say so to visually reference for people.

[Host]

If you were making a little cow like a bulk with your hands, that's what you would be doing. Shadow puppeting. It's very common.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yes. It's a very typical hand symbol.

[Host]

It's a thing that people do when they're taking photos. I've even seen it when if I'm working with a photographer and they're just snapping photos, photos of large groups of people, people just do it. Just like people do the peace sign. It's a thing to do with your hands. Those are two criteria they used. So I should point out that none of these people have been accused or convicted of a crime either in the United States or in El Salvador. Right. Even if they had been accused of a crime, even convicted of a crime in the United States, it's very unclear what legal basis there would be to then detain them in El Salvador. Right. Like the United States doesn't have a system whereby we can send people to penal colonies. At the time of writing, this has of course been challenged in court. Right. A district court judge attempted to block. The district court judge did block these removals. Now he actually blocked them before the people had arrived in El Salvador. However, despite this, the planes didn't turn around. And I'm just going to quote directly from what the judge said here. Quote, any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States. Then it's a little. Another quote later. This is something you need to make sure is complied with immediately. This didn't happen. Right. The planes went from the US to Honduras, Honduras to El Salvador. They didn't stop even when the judge had given this order for them to stop. Now, normally in legal proceedings such as this, the government or one of the parties may not agree with the findings of the judge and they may choose to appeal it. Right. That's very normal. You still comply with the order, then appeal it. Right. You don't just keep doing whatever you feel like doing because you don't think the judge was right. Like, that's in theory, not how this works. Now, in practice, what means does a judge have to force the executive to listen to him? I don't know. We're not seeing any of them on display at the minute. The government has cited various reasons for ignoring the ruling. One of them, Press secretary Caroline Leavitt claimed that there was, quote, no lawful basis for the ruling. Go back to my previous statement about how you're supposed to appeal things. They also claimed in court that a verbal order is not the same as a written one. That's not something that's generally understood to be the case. And that because the flights were over international water, the order did not apply. This was then part of the foreign policy powers reserved to the President. That last one is particularly worrying. You effectively don't have your rights in international waters or like humans don't have rights in international waters.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, it's just allowing the US government or the US Government trying to say that it's allowed to do whatever it wants if the actions being taken are not like immediately on US soil or other foreign soil.

[Host]

Yeah. So we're gonna take another break and when we come back, we will talk about their response to this judge's ruling.

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[Host]

All right. And we are back. So Trump's response to this Judge Boasberg's ruling was I'm just going to read this is a true social post, AKA a truth quote this radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected president. M dash, I'm not going to say when it's capitalized, just understand that it's sporadically capitalized in the fashion that Trump likes to do. He didn't win the popular vote. Parentheses by a lot, exclamation mark, comma, he didn't win all seven swing states. He didn't win 2,750 to 525 counties. He didn't win anything. I won for many reasons in an overwhelming mandate. But fighting illegal immigration may have been the number one reason for this historic victory. I'm just doing what the voters wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the crooked judges I'm forced to appear before, should be impeached. We don't want vicious, violent and demented criminals, many of them deranged murderers, in our country. Make America great again. Tom Homan, the border czar, also told Fox News, quote, I don't care what the judges think.

[Co-host/Guest]

We made a promise to the American people. The President Trump has made a promise to American people.

[Host]

We're going to make this country safe again. I wake up every morning loving my job because I to want. I worked for the greatest president in the history of my life, and we're going to make this country safe again. I'm proud to be a part of this administration. We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks.

[Co-host/Guest]

We're coming.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

I just love seeing you going through.

[Host]

These protesters just crunching on the apple as their liberal tears just flood the hallway.

[Co-host/Guest]

Tom Holman, thanks so much for joining the program.

[Host]

You got it.

[Co-host/Guest]

Thank you.

[Host]

This is open defiance of the courts. Right? Like, I don't really know.

[Co-host/Guest]

It's. It's what we've been talking about the past month on Executive Disorder, how we are just continually, like, ramping up this clash between the executive branch and the judicial branch. The congressional branch has already basically given up all of their power. And, yeah, this is like an actual constitutional crisis.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

Very few people are taking this as seriously as what it should be. And even the courts seem a little bit tepid to, like, actually enforce their own power or, like, try to.

[Host]

Yeah. I mean, Boasberg mentioned contempt once from what I can find on pacer. But, like, obviously these judges, I think, are somewhat concerned that if they, you know, they find the government in contempt of court, then what happens? Because if you, like.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah.

[Host]

If you Play your trump card and no one cares and you have no cards left to play.

[Co-host/Guest]

It's, it's kind of odd how the judges themselves are seemingly afraid of, like, pushing this constitutional crisis into, like, explicit territory. Right. To be. Like, what if we do the thing that then makes it clear to everyone else, like, what's happening? We have no power. Like, like, we actually have, like, like it is just authoritarianism via the executive branch.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

It's almost like they're trying to like, backpedal from this, like, very obvious accelerationist push of like, no, we need to actually test. Test this out.

[Host]

Yeah. Because we need to know where we're at.

[Co-host/Guest]

Like, and they're scared to. Because they're scared. What if, what if that testing causes, like, the Trump side to win?

[Host]

Yeah, but they were already winning in the, in the absence.

[Co-host/Guest]

Exactly. And the problem is, is that in absence of that, you are just giving up and letting Trump win. Yeah. Like, after Trump called to impeach the, quote, unquote, radical leftist lunatic of a judge who tried to temporarily halt the, the deportation of these 300 Venezuelan immigrants, Chief Justice John Roberts made a rare public statement rebuking calls to impeach judges for rulings that don't align with political agendas. And that's as far as they're going right now. They're making rare public statements saying you probably shouldn't call to impeach a judge. Meanwhile, Musk complains on Twitter.com about a quote unquote judicial coup and mistakenly calls for 60 senators to impeach leftist judges. Now, of course, the Senate does not do impeachments. The House does. And The Senate requires 67 votes to convict it and remove someone from office once impeached. So, ha ha, we got you. We got you, Elon. You made a mistake. We winotes cove thefting.

[Host]

Yeah, it's where we're at right now with this case. We're recording this on Thursday. Boisberg gave them a 24 hour extension to provide details about the flights. The government has suggested that it might claim that these are state secret secrets, despite the fact that it has widely publicized his flights, including in the video that we discussed.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, they're turning these into fucking like TikTok Instagram real hype videos. They're not state secret. You're publicly displaying these to show that these people are not human. Yeah, like you're, you're trying to scare everyone into saying, we decide if you are a person or not, and if you're not a person, this is what we can do.

[Host]

Yeah, we can do whatever we want to. Yeah. It should be noted as well, there is actually a process in US Law through the Alien Terrorist Removal Court for the expedited removal of terrorist suspects without revealing classified information publicly. In fact, Boasberg was chief judge on that court for five years.

[Co-host/Guest]

Jesus Christ.

[Host]

But we are not using that process. Right. We're using the Alien Enemies act instead. So, yeah, this is his new exciting territory. On Monday, so that's the day that you're hearing this. A panel of judges from the District Court in D.C. will hear an appeal by the United States government against Boasberg's tentative restraining order, the one that it didn't obey anyway. So we will have more on this and we will keep updating you on this. And suffice it to say that I guess again, this is a constitutional crisis. This is what it looks like. I don't know if people expect fireworks to go off or some confetti to drop and it to be separation of powers is gone. But if the government can ignore the courts, and that is what is happening. So I guess we will see. In the meantime, these people, many of whom, one of them was a musician, one of them was a football player. Right. Like, I've interviewed hundreds if not thousands of Venezuelan migrants, and most of them, it will shock you to hear, are just people who don't want to live with the boot, the state on their neck. People who want to make a decent living for their, their families. For what it's worth, none of the Venezuelan migrants I met in the Darien Gap are in the United States or have come to the United States, to my knowledge. Just for people who are like, wondering how those stories kind of resolve, they resolve with people currently stuck in Mexico in pretty terrible conditions, either working for very little or unable to work at all and trying to work out what to do. It's pretty bleak for them. It's pretty bleak for us too. If this is the direction that things are going to be, I don't know if I have much more to say.

[Co-host/Guest]

No, I don't know what else there is to say about them. Just bypassing the courts to do a complete authoritarian over grab so that they can send hundreds of people to essentially like a labor camp black site in a different country for an unknown period of time without any legal process. Like it's.

[Host]

And to be clear, not all of these people even entered the United States between ports of entry, which has been charged as a misdemeanor, generally isn't charged. Some of them came with CBP.1, the fucking app, the thing you're supposed to do.

[Co-host/Guest]

These are not proven criminals. Like these. These. These are just people, some of whom who immigrated legally and have been detained by ICE and are now shipped off to a, like, torture labor prison in a different country where they're going to stay for at least a year in parenthesis, renewable. So, like, in death.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Guest]

Like, it's like they can be forced.

[Host]

To labor for the rest of their lives. A thing that has happened before in human history.

[Co-host/Guest]

No, like, if you're like, history understanders should look at what's happening, be like, oh, we're doing that again, huh? And the only way that this ends is with people getting angry enough to start doing something about it. And I feel like we are. We're so, like, everyone's become so complacent that it's even hard to get people to, like, care or like, hear about this sort of thing from happening.

[Host]

Yeah. And you don't have to be like. I want to phrase this in radical terms. You don't have to be like, anywhere on the left to understand that, like, this is an assault on basic human rights. It's assault on the foundational principles of the United States government. And everyone should be concerned about this. It shouldn't be a left right issue. This should be like a right wrong issue. And so hopefully you can all have some talks with your family this week. I don't know. I think it's really important to push back on the idea that these people have done any crimes because they have. Not that they have been convicted or found using any reasonable degree of evidence, be members of gangs like Trend.

[Co-host/Guest]

And even if they have been convicted, they should not be sent to the El Salvador torture labor camp. But the fact that they're not even convicted, these are just random in some cases, like random Venezuelan men who have been rounded up for the crime of.

[Host]

Having tattoos, for the most part.

[Co-host/Guest]

Fucking horrifying.

[Host]

It's petrifying.

[Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, it's happening.

[Host]

It is happening here.

[Co-host/Guest]

Every day we're getting closer to the cool zone as more and more people start taking this situation seriously.

[Host]

Yeah. So, yeah, take it seriously. You know, advocate for these people. Best of luck. And if you want to email us, you can do at coolzonetipsoton. That's an encrypted email address, but it's only encrypted end to end. If you also send from encrypted email address, do your due diligence and yeah, send us. Send us tips. If you have tips. Ideas. If you have ideas and we will be back tomorrow with more things that are happening here. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Danielle Fishel]

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media.

[Host]

Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It.

[Co-host/Guest]

Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions.

[Host]

Thanks for listening.

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[Host]

This is an iHeart podcast.