Trump & Deportations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Trump & Deportations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

main story tonight, which concerns immigrants. Once again named group of the year by right-wing scapegoat magazine. While campaigning, Trump promised a draconian crackdown on migrants. And his administration since made a big show out of following through on that. From inviting Dr. Phil on a ride along with ICE to nauseiating social media posts like this one titled ASMR illegal alien deportation flight featuring sounds of manacles and handcuffs and this one which is somehow in even worse taste. Closing time. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. I know I want to take me home. That is real. They used Closing Time by Semisonic, which obviously isn’t the right song choice. The right song choice would be no song at all because deportation Instagram reel is a combination of words that should never exist like Oscar winner Mr. Beast or Steven Miller nudes or Bill Bellich speaks about his relationship with 24year-old girlfriend. Now Semisonic denounced that video saying we did not authorize or condone the White House’s use of our song in any way. The song is about joy and possibilities and hope. And they have missed the point entirely. And of course they have because according to the band’s drummer, the song’s about the anticipation of fatherhood. A song about being sent forth from the womb as if by a bouncer clearing out a bar. And obviously Liz, we all knew that and got it from the lyrics. It’s closing time. You’re a baby. Get out of that uterus and finish your whiskey and beer. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. It seems every day brings terrible news concerning deportation policy. Some of which has been so surreal, local news has had to run fact checks on it. Like in this sponsored segment. Tonight’s Factor or Fiction is brought to you by America’s Fight Carpet. Tonight, we’re looking into a comment allegedly made by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A story that you may have seen today claims acting ICE director Todd Lions said that he would like the agency to be run like Amazon Prime for human beings. And this is true. Yeah, it is true. And spare a quick thought for that station and its sponsor, America’s Finest Carpet, because verifying ISIS director wanted to expel humans with the speed of a pack of emergency tampons on same day delivery clearly isn’t what their fact or fiction segment is for. It’s for getting to the bottom of actual questions that they’ve answered like sharks test positive for cocaine, woman arrested for cinnamon roll attack, and Ford creates very gay raptor, which you’ll be pleased to know was very much fact. But the intention behind that Amazon Prime idea gets to something important here. For all this administration’s talk of prioritizing hardened criminals, in practice, it seemed to value speed, volume, and spectacle over all else. Perhaps best summed up by the fact at a rally on Tuesday, Trump directed the audience’s attention to a grotesque video of men getting deported to a Salvadoran prison, being marched off an airplane, and having their head shaved, prefacing it by telling the cheering crowd those men were the worst of the worst. Despite the fact when 60 Minutes looked into it, they couldn’t find criminal records for 75% of the men on those flights. And Trump’s own administration has conceded that at least one man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was sent there due to an administrative error. For weeks now, it has been scrambling to come up with reasons why it was okay to send that man to a foreign prison, which has been hard for them to do given that he had a court order protecting him from deportation to El Salvador and no criminal record. At one point, Trump posted a photo of himself holding an image that had been circulating online of ago Garcia’s hand with labels added suggesting the tattoos on his knuckles were somehow secret code spelling out MS-13. Multiple gang experts have disputed that, pointing out MS-13 tattoos tend to feature things like the letters MS and the numbers one and three. But in an interview on Tuesday, Trump not only defended posting that image. He argued that the letters and numbers that had clearly been superimposed were actually tattooed on his hand. And he refused to let go of that idea for an agonizingly long time. And while you may have seen small clips of this exchange, it is worth watching the full 90 seconds because it is absolutely incredible. The man that you picked out, he said he wasn’t a member of a gang and then they looked and on his knuckles he had MS-13. There’s a dispute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS13 on his knuckles. Oh, he had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let’s move on. Wait a minute. Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry. He did not have the letter MS13. It says MS13. That was photoshopped. U. So, let me That was photoshopped. Terry, you can’t do that. Hey, they’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doing the interview. I picked you because frankly, I never heard of you, but that’s okay. I picked you, Terry. Hey, but you’re not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed. We’ll agree to disagree. I want to move on to something else. Terry, do you want me to show you the picture? I saw the picture. You think it was photoshopped? Well, here we go. Here we go. Don’t photoshop it. Go look at his hand. He had He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I’m not an expert on them. I want to turn to Ukraine. I want to get to Ukraine. No. He had MS as clearly as you can be, not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe the news because when he was photographed in El Sal in in El Salvador, they aren’t there. But let’s just go. They aren’t there when he’s in El Salvad. Oh, they there now, right? No, they’re in your picture. Ukraine, sir. He’s got MS13 on his knuckles. Okay, we’ll take a look. It’s you such a disservice. We’ll take a look at this. You just say yes, he does. And you know, go on to something else. It’s contested. Terry. Terry. Terry, you’re in hell. Terry. Terry. This is hell right now. I’m genuinely shocked Trump doesn’t drink alcohol because that is the most drunk at an IHOP conversation I think I’ve ever heard. And no disrespect to, Terry, but maybe don’t move on from that. Well, I know you’ve got other questions to get to, but if the president of the United States is trying to tell you that this amateur hour Photoshop is real, let him go get the picture and make him say it again. Point to that Helvetica looking M and make the president say, “Yes, I believe that artless M that’s weirdly clearer and darker than all the other tattoos is real.” Make him say, “I believe that man went to a tattoo parlor and said, the skull’s pretty spooky, but what I’d really like is a neatly aligned three directly on the bone of my knuckle. Can you please make it so that it doesn’t stretch or bend with the natural curves of the human hand and also make it look like a typewriter did it? Because Terry, sometimes when Trump’s doing his normal racist blue sky, you do need to cut him off to slow the flow of hatred into the world. But if he wants to tell America that this laughably doed picture is evidence of a major threat to American safety, you have an obligation to let the man cook. And for what it’s worth, if Trump’s going to hash out those claims, he probably should be doing that in court, not on TV and after he’s already shipped someone off to a foreign prison. But Abrao Garcia is just one of many horrifying stories surrounding immigration right now. From tourists being detained for weeks to US citizens being caught up in ice drag nets to videos like this. You can see an agent using a large hammer to break the back passenger window of their car. Mary Lou said the agents were focused on her husband, Juan, but kept calling him Antonio. That’s the name of another man who lives in their building. Thinking this is a case of mistaken identity, Juan called his attorney who told him to stay in the car until she got there. But instead of waiting for their lawyer, the agent smashed the car window, broke into the vehicle, and dragged the couple out. They had no reason to detain him. We’ve been following the rules of this country. We are doing things the right way. That’s why we have a lawyer. Right. They’re trying to do things the right way. We have an asylum process in place and while it is not perfect, I don’t think a key step in it is guy smashes your car with a hammer while screaming someone else’s name at you. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg here. So given that tonight, let’s look at Trump and deportations, the aggression of his administration’s crackdowns, its blatant contempt for the law, and where this could be heading. Let’s start with the fact Trump’s off to a much quicker start than last time around. In its first 100 days, this administration has taken 181 immigration specific executive actions. A six-fold increase over that same period in Trump’s first term. And that is deliberate. As the head of one anti-immigration group that advises the White House has put it, the plan has been to do everything all at once everywhere, which sounds less like rational government policy and more like a knockoff DVD sold on the subway. And to do that, they’ve employed a wide variety of tactics. Sometimes they’ve gotten creative by looking through old statutes for cheat codes to expedite deportations. We’ve talked before about how they’ve tried using an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to remove people if the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe their presence here would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. That is the reason they gave for arresting students like Marmud Khalil. And while that was clearly a targeted attempt to frighten students out of voicing solidarity with Palestine, they’ve also taken much broader swings using a federal database that tracks even the slightest interactions with law enforcement to revoke visas and put thousands of international students in jeopardy. And some of the cases have been truly absurd. Like this grad student who was suddenly told he had 15 days to leave the country. Suguru Anda getting a PhD at Brigham Young University in Utah had his legal status in the US suddenly revoked after a criminal records check. But from Japan had no criminal charges on his record, just two speeding tickets and a citation for catching one too many fish. His attorney says that is ridiculous. If you can be flagged for deportation for catching one too many fish, then I truly fear for Henry Winkler. We could be just days away from seeing him in an El Salvador prison, which I’m sure the White House will then justify by badly photoshopping an MS-13 tattoo onto his neck. And while they later reverse that specific decision, this all feels like the inevitable result of a campaign that fearongered about an epidemic of so-called migrant crime, which, as we’ve discussed before, was wildly overblown. But having promised mass deportations and even printed signs for people to wave around demanding them, they’re now scrambling to deliver. While the administration denies it, ICE officials have reportedly been told to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest from a few hundred per day to at least 12 to,500 with the idea being each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day. And for all of this administration’s promises of a worst first strategy where they focus on those with criminal histories, as a former director of ICE pointed out three months ago, that was always unlikely to last. Sarah Seldana believes if arrest numbers don’t increase as rapidly as the administration hopes, it might abandon the worst first strategy and begin targeting community locations like day labor sites. That is really a big concern of mine because that’s not that’s not um again a stretch to think that that might happen next if the numbers are not coming through. Um let’s get the lowhanging fruit, right? And you should avoid lowhanging fruit. I tried to do that. If I were to constantly go for lowhanging fruit, I’d say that worst first doesn’t describe Trump’s immigration policy so much as it describes his children. But again, I’ve avoided saying that because I have standards, so I won’t do it. And the administration now seems desperate to scoop anyone up. Police in places like upstate New York have been stopping Hispanic drivers for minor traffic violations, and if they’re undocumented, handing them over to Border Patrol agents. Also, at one point, tens of thousands of people received emails explicitly telling them to please leave the United States immediately. Some of those were sent by mistake to American citizens, while others went to migrants with illegal rights to be here. The fact is what the administration is doing is sometimes targeted, sometimes arbitrary, usually blatantly racist, and always cruel, and sometimes breathtakingly so. Tonight, the administration is facing criticism from migrant advocates over the removal of two American citizen children of an undocumented woman from Honduras, including her four-year-old son. A migrant rights group says he was sent to Honduras without his medication for stage 4 cancer. How is going after families with young kids targeting the worst of the worst? First of all, we said we’re going to prioritize the worst or worse. You feel like that’s what you’re doing? Absolutely. But but when you prioritize something, it doesn’t mean you forget about everybody else. I’ve said from day one, if you’re in the country league, you’re not off the table. Okay. First, Tom Hman can truly rot in hell. Although I’d expect nothing less from a man who clearly answered the question, what would Shrek look like as a white ogre? And while the government insists that woman chose to have her son deported with her, her lawyers insist that was not in fact the case. And either way, between the government putting that kid on a plane without his medication and the cuts to research at the NIH, it seems this administration’s actively coming out pro- pediatric cancer. I feel there’s a non-zero chance Trump’s about to add a brain tumor to his cabinets and then presumably RFK is either going to eat it or point at it and say it’s from Wi-Fi. But but one of the boldest moves they’ve made to circumvent due process is invoking what’s called the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to detain or deport non-citizens without a hearing and based only on their country of birth or citizenship if he decides that an invasion or predatory incursion by that country is underway. It was famously used to justify the interament of Japanese, Italian, and German immigrants in World War II. But Trump has now revoked it again, saying it lets us do a lot of the things we wouldn’t be able to do. He’s issued an absurd proclamation declaring a Venezuelan gang called Trend Aragua or TDA has invaded the United States. And he’s used that as a pretext to sweep people up in raids, label them as gang members, and deport them. Some have been shipped off to Sakot, a notorious mega prison in El Salvador. And if you’ve only seen it in Trump’s propaganda videos or in Christine’s grotesque photo op, it is worth knowing just how grim it is in there. Inmates are assigned to one of eight sectors, each roughly the size of an airplane hanger, basically prisons within the prison. Once inside, it’s said to be a life sentence. They’ll never leave their assigned sector. Each sector holds more than two dozen large cells, roughly 80 inmates per cell, but that can fluctuate. Inside each cell, toilets, a concrete basin for bathing, and a barrel of drinking water, several rows of metal bunk beds, no mattresses, no sheets, no privacy. Yeah, it is awful in there. The Salvadorian Justice and Security Minister has even bragged that no one who enters the Sakott will ever walk out. They will only be able to leave in a coffin. And you’ll only be able to leave in a coffin is a horrifying statement no matter where it is. Even if it was on a sign outside a literal coffin dealership, it would be a bit much. I get you’re just trying to make a sale, but come on, tone it down. And look, sending anyone there is unforgivable, whatever they’re accused of. But it’s worth noting we’ve not only done it without due process. In many cases, we’ve done it without cause. Remember, on those first plane loads, 3/4 of the people had no discernable criminal record. And while Tom Holman has insisted that that doesn’t mean anything because a lot of gang members don’t have criminal histories, you clearly shouldn’t be sending people to a Central American forever dungeon just on vibes. And the government’s evidence in some of these cases is just absurdly weak. Take Andre Hernandez Romero, a Venezuelan stylist who was in the middle of seeking asylum in the US to escape persecution for his political views and the fact that he’s gay. Time magazine photographed him having his head shaved upon arrival at Sakott with the photographer saying he was crying for his mother. And as his lawyer points out, the evidence the government shown to justify that is ridiculous. In Andre’s case, the only evidence the government presented in immigration court were these pictures of his tattoos, crowns, which immigration authorities say can be a symbol of Trenaragua. The crowns themselves were on top of the names of his parents. The most possible explanation for that are that his mom and dad are his king and queen. A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said on social media that its intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang affiliate tattoos. She said Andre’s own social media indicates he is a member of Trenagua. We went back a decade and could only find photos like these. That is utterly infuriating. That is your evidence. What about this man? Screams violent gang member. The only thing I’m actually confident he’s a genuine threat to is unacented cheekbones. And for what it’s worth, there are no tattoos that denote membership to TDA. An expert who wrote the book on them has said Venezuelan gangs are not identified by tattoos. But apparently the Trump administration’s been relying on an alien enemy validation guide, specifically its scoring system under which eight points are required for any individual to be identified as a member of Tren de Aragon. That is not a high bar as you can get four points simply for having tattoos denoting membership or loyalty to TDA, which again is not a thing. And four points if you display logos or dress known to indicate allegiance to TDA, which can be as simple as being dressed in high-end urban street wear, especially basketball jerseys from the Chicago Bulls. But that is clearly because if that is all it takes, then 75% of the city of Chicago are TDA from October to April. And somehow it gets even dumber. Tattoos and social media were also used to link another Venezuelan migrant, Hers Reyes Barios, to the Trenawa gang. Immigration court documents include this Facebook post from 14 years ago, showing him flashing what officers said was a gang sign. His girlfriend told us it was all about rock and roll. Immigration agents also flagged Her’s crown tattoo as a gang symbol, but they did not mention the crown is above a soccer ball. Her was a soccer player in Venezuela. His lawyer says the tattoo honors his favorite team, Real Madrid. That is pathetic. And as for this picture of her supposedly throwing up gang signs, if that were true, Rihanna Fergie and former President George W. Bush are all trendy Aragua, too. But when confronted on this in court, the government’s been completely unrepentant. Early on, they violated a judge’s orders to turn around planes carrying deportes to El Salvador. And even after the Supreme Court explicitly directed they facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody there, they’ve chosen to dick around about the exact meaning of the word facilitate. As for Trump, when he was pressed on whether the people he sent to El Salvador deserved any sort of due process, he said this. You know, we have thousands of people that are ready to go out and you can’t have a trial for all of these people and a judge can’t say no, you have to have a trial that let’s the trial is going to take two years and no, we’re going to have a very we’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do. But that’s not how anything works. You can’t just opt out of due process because it’s inconvenient. is why court orders don’t tend to end with if not no worries you do you. And the thing is this could all get worse because while thankfully the courts have tried to curb Trump’s use of uh these two acts, they’ve also seem to sign off on a new diabolical strategy the administration’s been using involving a decades old legal provision called registration of aliens. It allows the administration to require undocumented people register with the government and carry proof of that registration. And it is clearly a trap because if you register and give the government all your information, you become an easy target. But if you don’t or a court not carrying proof, you can be charged with a federal misdemeanor allowing them to label you a criminal and putting you at risk of deportation. And this is already happening. People have been charged in Texas and Arizona using this mechanism. Basically, they can’t find enough criminals to deport, so they found a way to turn more people into criminals so that they suddenly can. It’s a desperate but depressingly effective move. And that’s not even getting in to the other plans they’ve teased. From Marco Rubio saying, “We are actively searching for other countries to take people to the administration floating the idea of labeling suspected gang members as enemy combatants.” They’ve also tried to stop anyone who stands in their way. Just last week, they arrested a judge in Wisconsin for supposedly helping an immigrant evade ICE. And on Thursday, ICE made a big production out of serving a search warrant as part of investigation into these flyers that were posted months ago with information about ICE agents on them. They even released dramatic footage of them rolling up to the house of their targets parents, who were understandably pretty surprised. Drone video this morning shows ICE agents moving into an Irvine neighborhood. Annie Yang and Yuzong Chang are still in shock after being woken up by Homeland Security investigators. woke up to this this morning. Neighbors captured the scene outside their home. They describe hearing, “We have a warrant. Come out with your hands up over a loudspeaker.” Never happened to us before. I feel like I was in a movie set or something. I mean, this so unreal. Yeah. I’m afraid this is real life, though. 17 vehicles with armed agents did a zero dark 30 on a lovable middle-aged couple looking for a guy who’d put up flyers warning about ICE overreach. Fun fact, guess who was on site for that raid? the ICE acting director who said the Amazon Prime thing. Guess who wasn’t there? The guy they were looking for as he apparently moved to New York last month. A mistake for the record that Amazon would not make. And while that’s almost laughably absurd, it’s also obviously scary and extremely dangerous. And and it kind of gets to the heart of all of this, which is Trump loudly selling his supporters the lie that he’ll protect them from existential threats, only to further government overreach and state violence, even while deporting makeup artists, unlucky soccer fans, and four-year-olds with cancer. So, what can we do? Well, some of this depends on elected leaders. And to their credit, a number of prominent Democrats have gone to El Salvador to call attention to this, which is definitely preferable to the approach that others have taken, with some anonymous House Democrats quoted as saying, “Should it be the big issue for Democrats? Probably not.” And complaining, “Rather than talking about the tariff policy in the economy, we’re going to go take the bait for one hairdresser.” which is absolutely enraging, especially as many voters do seem to get the clear problem with deporting people without due process to a prison for life, even in red states. Here’s Chuck Grassley being confronted at a town hall in Iowa. You’re going to bring that guy back from El Salvador. Why not? Well, because that’s not a that’s not a powerful conquer. Supreme Court said to bring you back the president. You’re on the judiciary committee. Trump don’t care. If I get an order to pay a ticket for $1,200 and I just say no. Does that stand up? He’s got an order from the Supreme Court and he just said no. Exactly. Exactly. That man who definitely owes a real $1,200 ticket is right on the nose there. The president is clearly not following the law as he is required to. And look, if your elected officials aren’t holding town halls, you can still tell them you care about this issue. Call them and say if they believe in due process, they should work to repeal the Alien Enemies Act and amend a part of section 237 of the INA that lets Marco Rubio decide whose free speech is a threat. But in the meantime, we’re going to need to help immigrants defend themselves. Remember, those in the immigr immigration court are not guaranteed a lawyer. And if they don’t have one, their chances are basically zero. So, if you can, it is worth supporting nonprofits like these that provide legal services for immigrants or local ones in your community. And this is an issue where I do think there is a practical value to public protest because this is going to be in the courts and those inside them need to be made aware of public opinion on this because it can make a difference. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Renquist once wrote that no honorable judge would ever cast his vote because he thought the majority of the public wanted him to vote that way, but that in certain cases, judges are undeniably influenced by the great tides of public opinion. And I would argue the moment we’re in right now isn’t just worthy of a great tide. It is worthy of a tsunami because this is an absolute outrage. And it is one where it is important to remind our elected leaders that all people are worthy of safety, protection, and due process. Because that is indisputably, in the words of this country’s single weirdest carpet sponsored local news segment, a fact.

John Oliver discusses the recent deportations by the Trump administration, the conditions in the facility people are being sent to abroad, and why even Henry Winkler could be in danger of being expelled from the U.S. Yeah, even national treasure Henry Winkler.

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