NEW YORK, CMC—Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke has issued her most serious criticism to date of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies.
Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York, denounced Trump’s “atrocities” against Caribbean and other migrants.
“Among the limitless list of Donald Trump’s abuses, illegality, and cruelty, what this disgraceful president has engineered in El Salvador is an atrocity comparable only to America’s most mortal sins,” Clarke, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“Without convictions and, in many cases, without even trials, his administration expelled hundreds of men innocent in the eyes of the law to a foreign prison 3,000 miles from their families.
“However, in the eyes of Donald Trump, our laws are secondary to filling up his quota for human suffering. Let’s be clear: this is an existentially dangerous situation for our nation,” she added.
Clarke said the administration’s “vile undertaking” culminated on Monday in an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador.
“There, we watched these two eager, up-and-coming dictators who are obsessed with keeping and accruing power fall abruptly powerless when asked if they’d abide by the United States Supreme Court’s unanimous order to save the life of an innocent man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” she said.
“Rather than admit their error in condemning Mr. Abrego Garcia to rot in El Salvador’s violent mega-prison, CECOT, they lied and maligned him as a ‘terrorist,'” the congresswoman added. “They mocked the reporters who questioned their actions. And they feigned total exasperation that any court would have the authority to give them orders.”
In the same meeting, Clarke noted that Trump told “the small tyrant to his left that ‘Home-growns are next’ – a reference to his intention to inflict the same fate upon American citizens.
“What’s more, the president’s promise comes in the aftermath of his administration’s proposed partnership with the despicable gang of mercenaries and war criminals known as Blackwater, which has volunteered to design their next phase of mass detention,” she said. “In the context of this administration’s war against due process and the rights of everyone in this country to the presumption of innocence, these developments are deeply, deeply disturbing.”
But Clarke said that while this situation is already “severely troubling,” she is “certain it will only continue to deteriorate without Congressional intervention.”
“To my Republican colleagues, I ask you to stand up for justice and against authoritarianism. I ask you to commit yourself to the truth and what is right. And, when you fail to answer, I ask: what will it take for you to say that innocent men do not have to die just so the president does not have to admit he’s wrong?”
Clarke said the Trump administration broke the law when it deported these immigrants to a detention center in El Salvador.
On Tuesday, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York, also condemned the detention of Columbia University student activist Mohsen Mahdawi.
The US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detained Mahdawi at a citizenship appointment in Colchester, Vermont on Monday.
Mahdawi, who has a green card or permanent residency, has lived in the United States for over a decade.
“The detention of Mohsen Mahdawi is an assault on our democracy, due process, and free speech,” Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president, told CMC, adding, “Mahdawi is a legal permanent resident, who has not been accused of any crime.
“The fact that this abduction occurred at an appointment that related to his naturalization interview demonstrates the cruelty and disregard this administration has for the rule of law and the hypocrisy of demanding people emigrate the ‘right way.
“Once again, the Trump administration is ripping a page from the authoritarian playbook by weaponizing immigration law to silence dissent and suppress activism. We demand the immediate release of Mr. Mahdawi and call on elected officials to stand up and defend the principles of justice and liberty enshrined in the constitution,” he said.
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