First, They Came For The Venezuelans

• by: Sonali Kolhatkar

Sonali Kolhatkar

03-31-2025 ~ Trump is turning deportation into a weapon of mass destruction. None of us—undocumented immigrants, people with papers, naturalized citizens, or native-born citizens—are safe.

President Donald Trump promised to unleash mass deportations on immigrants during his presidential campaign. But he has gone much further, with the disappearing of hundreds of Venezuelan nationals from the United States to El Salvador’s notorious gulag. It’s a warning shot—one that has serious consequences for all of us, immigrant or not.

The method and speed of his actions are breathtaking. Over several years, there has been an exodus of millions of Venezuelans from the left wing regime of Hugo Chávez, now overseen by President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. Congress granted them Temporary Protected Status (TPS), enabling nearly 350,000 Venezuelans to legally reside in the United States.

That designation remained on the government’s books until the beginning of 2025. But, within weeks of Trump’s second-term inauguration in January 2025, he rescinded TPS for Venezuelans, invoked a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act, and immediately dumped three planeloads of Venezuelan men to El Salvador’s prisons for allegedly being gang members.

When an emergency ACLU-led court hearing resulted in U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordering an immediate halt to the deportations, including a demand that the flights be turned around midair, the Trump White House defied the order and pressed ahead. Their justification was that the planes were outside U.S. airspace and, therefore, the order didn’t apply.

This action, only one in an overwhelming series of violent political earthquakes unleashed by the Trump regime, is an intentional test of myriad institutional norms and laws.

First, Trump is making clear that this is no longer about deporting undocumented immigrants and that anyone can be disappeared at any time. His government is going after U.S. citizens of color. It is targeting academics of color who are working or studying in the country with valid papers, particularly those who are Muslim or seeking justice for Palestine, such as Mahmoud Khalil and Bader Khan Suri. He is also targeting white Europeans and Canadian tourists, artists, and others. The situation is so dire that Germany and the UK have issued travel advisories against the United States.

Second, Trump is using disinformation so willfully and skillfully that he has news media fumbling on fact-checking him, as they take him at face value. He has asserted “pro-Hamas aliens” have infiltrated college campuses—relying on the bipartisan conflation of anti-Israel criticism with antisemitism—and is ominously taking his lead from a Zionist organization that sent him a list of thousands of potential deportees. Indeed, if Nazis—the worst antisemites—are to be found anywhere, it is among Trump supporters. Read more