Disappeared

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Seattle Soundbites

1. On Tuesday, Washington’s Senate passed a bill bringing significant zoning changes around light rail stations, commuter rail stations, and bus rapid transit stops. This “would be one of the largest state-sponsored upzonings ever in the US.”

2. A Trump Administration directive will expand logging in national forests, including almost in Washington state.

3. China has reportedly instructed its country's domestic airlines to stop accepting deliveries of Boeing jets, as part of an escalating trade war between China and the US. This could potentially impact about scheduled to ship nearly 10 737 Max aircraft scheduled to Chinese carriers.

Disappeared

The Trump White House has used U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “disappear” thousands of immigrants, regardless of legal status, all the while gutting transparency controls around why these people are being deported in the first place.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was "accidentally" sent to an El Salvadorian super-max prison, has made headline news over the past few weeks. But Garcia's case is just the tip of an iceberg of profoundly distressing detentions and deportations that appear to also be targeting individuals based on their identity and political expression, regardless of legal status.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish postdoctoral student at Tufts University, represents another chilling example of this disturbing trend. Ozturk, here in the United States on a green card, was apprehended by non-uniformed ICE officers directly off the streets of Boston.

Her alleged offense? Co-authoring an op-ed that criticized her university's response to the war in Gaza. Not supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas. Not engaging in violent protests. Simply expressing her political views in writing—an act that should be protected by the First Amendment.

The Trump Admin attack on what they deem as “woke” or “wrong think” on college campuses has also impacted Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident with a green card, who was recently detained and ordered deported due to his participation in last year’s campus protests against the war in Gaza.

These incidents aren't isolated. The United States has revoked approximately 1,000 student visas in what is a systematic targeting of non-citizens who express political opinions at odds with the current administration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement made this policy explicit: "Every one of them I find, we're going to kick them out."

There is no denying the message being sent: public expression of political beliefs that differ from this administration's positions can and will result in immediate detention and deportation.

Efforts are underway to paint Kilmar Garcia and these immigrants in a negative light. For example, news headlines have started trickling out about a past domestic violence incident of Garcia’s. But these articles ignore the most important, salient point I can possibly make:

Garcia could the worst alleged criminal on earth. He should still be afforded due process.

Habeas Corpus, the right of a prisoner, citizen or not, to appear in front of a judge, is a core tenet of American democracy. It is actively being ignored. If we give up our right to due process to this administration, we give up everything.

Early on in Trump’s presidency (which is hardly over 100 days old), ICE was given quota mandates requiring hundreds to thousands of detentions daily. Make no mistake, in the rush to meet these numbers, U.S. citizens are being wrongfully detained in the process. This is nothing short of a fundamental breakdown in the system of due process that has historically been afforded to both citizens and immigrants alike, regardless of legal status.

But Trump and his team are taking this route in a direction that should raise every red flag we have on hand. Trump has directed his Attorney General Pom Bondi to explore legal pathways to send incarcerated American citizens to El Salvador's notorious supermax prison, a position later confirmed again by his own press secretary.

What we're witnessing is not normal. It's not legal, (if legal standards still carry meaning in today's political climate). This is an assault on constitutional rights afforded to people under U.S. jurisdiction. When non-citizens can be detained and deported for expressing political opinions, and when even citizenship doesn't guarantee protection from arbitrary detention, we have entered dangerous, unprecedented territory.

Donald Trump’s administration is experimenting with the boundaries of the powers of the executive. He is ignoring court orders, denying due process, and intentionally hurting American citizens and immigrants.

Words like fascism and autocracy are scary words that Americans falsely attribute to countries and regimes far away from the United States, or to failed states in our history books.

But these words are not black and white. They describe a spectrum of political action; a spectrum the US is leaning heavily towards. Pretending, or willfully neglecting that these actions taken by Trump are anything but authoritarian in nature is how autocrats rise to power.

Lets call it what it is.