Is This America?!

This is not how a democracy treats people. This is not how Americaโ€”the supposed beacon of freedomโ€”should handle deportations. And yet, here we are, witnessing grotesque, dystopian images of Venezuelan deportees shackled, bent at 90-degree angles, heads forced down, paraded like subhuman criminals. This isnโ€™t justice. This is humiliation. This is domination. This is a deliberate act of dehumanization.

Worse still, many of those deported had not even been convicted of a crime. No trial. No defense. No due process. Just a one-way ticket to a prison infamous for its brutality. These are not hardened felons. These are human beings. Refugees. Asylum seekers. Fathers. Mothers. Young people fleeing regimes that the U.S. has condemnedโ€”only to be sent to another authoritarian hellscape, by the very country that promised them refuge.

These images, reminiscent of Russiaโ€™s brutal prison system, now belong to the United States. Until now, we believed America stood for something greater.

โ€œNazis Got Better Treatment.โ€

Thatโ€™s not hyperboleโ€”thatโ€™s a legal assessment from a sitting federal judge. And yet, the Trump administration presses on, invoking a wartime law from 1798โ€”a relic of authoritarian paranoiaโ€”to justify removals that bypass fundamental human rights.

Make no mistake: this is not about law and order. This is about cruelty as policy. Humiliation as deterrent. Pain as spectacle.

When did we accept torture-adjacent punishment as a form of immigration enforcement? When did we decide human rights are optional? That dignity is a privilege, not a right?

This is how Putin treats his prisoners. This is how Xi Jinping crushes dissent. This is not who we are.


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