There’s Nothing Normal About This Government
Democracy doesn’t run on magic. It runs on norms. Shared fictions. Mutual respect for rules no one can really enforce.
The Constitution only works because the branches of government agree to pretend they’re bound by it. That’s the con.
But here’s the reality:
- The judiciary can’t enforce its rulings.
- Congress can’t enforce shit without the executive.
- And the only branch with guns, jails, and planes? That’s the executive.
Trump knows it.
That’s why when the Supreme Court told him to bring back a man ICE illegally deported to a foreign black site, he just… didn’t.
He gave the middle finger to the highest court in the country. And nothing happened.
There was no enforcement. No accountability.
The court said “jump,” and Trump said “you and what army?”
So ask yourself:
What happens when one branch decides the Constitution is optional—and the others can’t stop it?
Answer: You’re not in a constitutional democracy anymore.
You’re in a system of power. And right now, power lives in the White House.
ICE Is America’s Secret Police
ICE isn’t just lawless. It’s rogue—answering to no one, obeying nothing, and operating in the open like it’s still a secret.
At the top of this unaccountable machine: Kristi Noem—Trump’s immigration enforcer. You might remember her as the governor who shot her own dog in a gravel pit because it wouldn’t behave. Now she’s overseeing ICE, CBP, and USCIS, playing dress-up in tactical gear and posing like she’s leading a hostage rescue in Kandahar.
Let’s call her what she is: Combat Barbie.
All camo, no conscience. Just raw authoritarian cosplay.
And doing cleanup duty at the podium?
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s 29-year-old Press Secretary. A former MAGA influencer turned propaganda mouthpiece, now busy spinning Supreme Court defiance into campaign content.
They call her Nazi Barbie online—and honestly, she’s earned it.
She doesn’t answer questions. She mocks them. She’s not briefing the press. She’s taunting them.
Together, they’ve turned ICE into something we’ve seen before.
Not an immigration agency. A secret police force.
Here’s how it works:
- People are kidnapped in broad daylight—in courthouses, bus stops, sidewalks.
- No warrants. No hearings. No phone calls.
- If a judge orders a stop? ICE just ignores it and flies them out.
Don’t call it enforcement. Call it what it is: political repression.
ICE is no longer a bureaucracy.
It’s a blunt weapon. And it just learned that no one can stop it.
The Courts Tried. The Executive Laughed.
Let’s talk about Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
A Salvadoran man who lived in Maryland for 14 years.
Married to a U.S. citizen. Father of three. Work permit. No criminal record.
Oh—and he’d already won a ruling from an immigration judge in 2019 protecting him from deportation to El Salvador. Legally, ICE couldn’t touch him.
So of course they did exactly that.
In March 2025, ICE arrested Kilmar while he was picking up his kids.
No notice. No warrant. Just gone.
Three days later, he was shackled and dumped into CECOT—El Salvador’s mega-prison where inmates are tortured, starved, and silenced.
It wasn’t a mistake. It was a warning.
The courts told ICE to stop. They didn’t.
A federal judge called the deportation “wholly lawless.”
ICE shrugged and said it was an “administrative error.”
Then came the Supreme Court.
In Noem v. Abrego Garcia, the justices ruled the U.S. government must “facilitate” Kilmar’s release from El Salvador and treat his case as if he’d never been deported.
What happened next?
Nothing.
The Trump administration said “facilitate” didn’t mean they had to do anything.
They wouldn’t ask El Salvador to release him. They wouldn’t negotiate.
They offered a plane seat—if Bukele delivered him to the tarmac.
Spoiler: He didn’t.
“The Supreme Court has spoken.” — Judge Paula Xinis
The highest court in the country issued an order.
The White House ignored it.
The man stayed disappeared.
And that was that.
The Bukele Publicity Stunt Was the Middle Finger
Four days after the Supreme Court ordered Kilmar’s release, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele flew to Washington.
Not to negotiate. Not to comply.
He came for a photo op—with the man who helped him fill CECOT with deported migrants: Donald Trump.
Standing on the White House lawn, Bukele smirked as reporters asked if he’d send Kilmar back.
“Preposterous,” he said.
“He’s a terrorist.”
“I don’t have the power to release him.”
Trump stood beside him and nodded.
Let that sink in.
A foreign dictator stood at the White House, declared he’d keep a U.S. resident in a torture prison despite a Supreme Court order, and the American president backed him.
Not only that—they coordinated it.
The public statements, the legal stonewalling, the fake helplessness. It was a performance. And the audience was the federal judiciary.
The message was clear:
We do what we want. Your court means nothing. And if you don’t like it, what are you going to do about it?
This wasn’t diplomacy. It was domination.
And the Supreme Court got played.
The Playbook Is Out: Defy, Delay, Disappear
This isn’t a one-off. This is the plan.
What happened to Kilmar was the test case.
They wanted to see how far they could go.
How much they could ignore.
How loudly the courts would scream—and how little it would matter.
Turns out? Not much.
So here’s the new playbook:
| Step | Tactic | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Deport without warning | By the time courts respond, it's too late |
| 2 | Deny jurisdiction | "He's no longer in the U.S., so you can't touch us" |
| 3 | Reframe compliance | "Facilitate" doesn't mean *do* anything |
| 4 | Coordinate with foreign leaders | Shift blame abroad, pretend your hands are tied |
| 5 | Mock the courts publicly | Signal that defiance is now part of the brand |
This is what strategic defiance looks like.
It’s not jackboots on the steps of Congress (yet).
It’s paperwork delays. Legal reinterpretations. PR spins. Executive shrugs.
Until one day, you realize the court doesn’t matter.
The law doesn’t matter.
All that matters is who has the planes, the prisons, and the guns.
Spoiler: That’s not the Supreme Court.
The Next Disappeared Will Be a Monster
They started with a man no one could reasonably hate.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia:
- Legally in the U.S.
- Protected by court order
- Married to a citizen
- No convictions
- Father of three
But they knew people might care about him. Might fight for him. Might notice when ICE tossed him into a torture prison.
Next time?
They’ll pick someone no one wants to defend.
A murderer. A rapist. A child molester.
Someone so radioactive, even the ACLU will hesitate.
Because that’s how they make you accept the new rules—by starting with someone you’d never want to share a courtroom with.
It’s the authoritarian stress test:
“Can we disappear someone truly awful—and get away with it?”
And if the answer is yes?
They can disappear anyone.
Because here’s the thing:
The moment you decide someone is “too evil” for due process… you’ve killed due process.
That’s the whole point of rights.
They apply to everyone—or they mean nothing.
CECOT Is a Death Camp. But They Torture You First.
No Lawyer
Detainees have no access to legal counsel. Not now. Not ever.
No Trial
No hearing. No charges. Just indefinite confinement in total darkness.
No Family Contact
No phone calls. No letters. Families don’t even know if they’re alive.
70 Men Per Cell
Concrete boxes stuffed past capacity. No room to sit, let alone sleep.
Rotten Food, If Any
Once-a-day portions of moldy rice. Water sometimes comes from a hose.
No Medical Care
Tuberculosis, infections, malnutrition—and zero access to treatment.
Wounds and Disease
Fungal infections, scabies, lice—open sores left untreated for months.
State-Sanctioned Torture
Beatings with batons. Electric shocks. Punishment for speaking or moving.
By the time you die—and hundreds have—you’ve already been buried alive.
- Some in mass graves.
- Some never even identified.
- Some whose families were never told they were dead.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both said it clearly:
“This meets the legal definition of enforced disappearance.”
And the U.S.? We paid for it.
The Biden administration laid the groundwork.
The Trump administration paid $6 million to hold our deportees there for a year.
Let’s talk morality for a second.
The “Christian” party calls this justice.
They say tattoos are proof of gang ties. That being brown is a threat. That crossing a border is a capital crime.
But these men?
Most were legally in the U.S.—waiting on asylum claims.
Some had work permits. Some had refugee status.
Their only “evidence”? A Real Madrid tattoo. A soccer ball. A crown. A Bible verse.
Even if they weren’t here legally, let’s say it plainly:
Illegal immigration is not punishable by death.
This isn’t tough on crime.
It’s sadism dressed up as border policy.
And if you’re okay with that?
You’re the fucking problem.
Van Hollen Is Trying. Alone.
When the executive ignored the courts, and ICE ignored the law, one person stood up and said:
“I’ll go get him myself.”
That person wasn’t the Attorney General.
Not the Vice President.
Not a federal judge.
It was Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Why?
Because Kilmar Abrego Garcia was his constituent.
And no one else was doing a damn thing.
So this week, Van Hollen got on a plane to El Salvador, trying to:
- Visit Kilmar inside CECOT
- Meet with Salvadoran officials
- Bring the man home
Let that sink in:
A U.S. Senator is trying to rescue a legal resident from a foreign death camp
—because his own government won’t.
There’s no guarantee he’ll be allowed in.
Bukele already said Kilmar isn’t leaving.
Trump already said it’s not our problem.
But Van Hollen is going anyway.
This is what resistance looks like now.
Not sweeping legislation.
Not Supreme Court rulings.
One man. One seat on a plane. One disappeared father.
And a government that’s hoping we all just forget.
The Courts Can’t Save Us
The courts told Trump to stop.
He didn’t. Nothing happened.
They told ICE to bring Kilmar back.
They didn’t. Nothing happened.
They ruled that deporting asylum seekers without due process was unconstitutional.
ICE kept doing it. Nothing happened.
And why would it?
The judiciary has no army.
No planes.
No handcuffs.
The courts rely on the executive to carry out their rulings.
But Trump controls the executive.
So now we’re watching a game where the referee makes a call and the players laugh.
Here’s the difference between a democracy and an autocracy:
- In a democracy, the law constrains the ruler.
- In an autocracy, the ruler is the law.
If you can deport someone against a judge’s order, detain them in a foreign death camp, and say “oops” while refusing to fix it…
You’re not constrained by law anymore.
You’re above it.
“No president is above the law.” — Every civics textbook in America
We Don’t Need New Laws. We Need a Spine.
Don’t say, “We need legislation.”
The laws already exist.
Don’t say, “We need the courts.”
The courts have spoken—and they were ignored.
Don’t say, “This isn’t who we are.”
This is exactly who we are when no one pushes back.
ICE disappeared a man.
The White House defied the Supreme Court.
A foreign dictator mocked our legal system from our own front lawn.
And the party of “law and order” cheered them all on.
So what now?
The system won’t save itself
Checks and balances are theater when one branch ignores the others.
The courts can’t enforce
Judges write orders. The executive has the guns. Guess who wins that standoff?
Congress won’t act
No subpoenas enforced. No consequences. Just strongly worded letters.
Trump won’t police Trump
If you think Nazi Barbie or Commander Cosplay are going to jail themselves, good luck.
So it’s up to us
Raise hell. Disrupt. Organize, sue, leak, resist, expose, protect—and fight like our lives depend on it. Because they do.
This isn’t about Kilmar.
It’s about the next one.
And the one after that.
Until there’s no one left to fight for but yourself.
You don’t wait for a fascist to cross the line.
You drag the line in concrete—and dare them to step over it.
Update: The Judge Isn’t Done. And He Has a Nuclear Option.
While we were writing this, the story escalated.
Judge James Boasberg just found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court. Why? Because they defied a direct order to halt deportations of asylum seekers—people who had no hearing, no lawyer, no chance to appeal before getting dumped into El Salvador’s authoritarian gulag 21, 22.
This is not a slap on the wrist. It’s criminal contempt, not civil. That means jail time.
But here’s the kicker: the Justice Department—run by Trump—gets to decide whether to prosecute his own cronies.
Sound like a dead end? Not quite.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 1987 Young v. U.S. ex rel Vuitton ruling, if DOJ refuses, the judge can appoint his own special prosecutor. That’s right—Boasberg can pull a Jack Smith out of a hat and go full scorched earth if the feds stonewall.
This isn’t just about immigration anymore. It’s about whether courts still have power, or if we’ve officially crossed into banana republic territory—where the king’s enforcers ignore the law and nobody stops them.
If Boasberg makes the call, we’re in uncharted waters. And Trump might finally meet the one thing he can’t fire: a judge with a grudge.
March 15, 2025
Trump invokes the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Over 200 Venezuelans and Salvadorans are deported to CECOT within hours.
March 16–18, 2025
Federal judge issues restraining order, but ICE flights go out anyway. Judges call it “lawless.”
April 7, 2025
SCOTUS rules detainees must get notice and the chance to challenge AEA removals via habeas corpus. Deportations continue.
April 10, 2025
SCOTUS orders government to “facilitate” return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—wrongfully deported. Trump refuses.
April 14–16, 2025
Sen. Van Hollen flies to El Salvador to pressure Bukele. Bukele grins for cameras, calls return “preposterous.”
April 16, 2025
Judge Boasberg finds probable cause for criminal contempt over ICE's defiance of court orders. Notes DOJ could prosecute—or he could appoint his own special prosecutor if they don't.
Sources
[1] El Salvador President Bukele says he won’t be releasing a Maryland man – AP News
[2] U.S. human rights law likely violated in $6M payment for El Salvador prison – News from the States
[3] Trump deports 238 ‘gang members’ to El Salvador: What’s the controversy? – Al Jazeera
[4] Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: Supreme Court, El Salvador Renditions, Mass Deportation – WOLA
[5] Supreme Court says Trump administration must work to bring back deported man – AP News
[6] March 2025 Venezuelan deportations – Wikipedia
[7] US/El Salvador: Venezuelan Deportees Forcibly Disappeared – Human Rights Watch
[8] Supreme Court requires noncitizens to challenge detention and removal in Texas – SCOTUSblog
[9] Bukele Claims He Can’t Return Abrego Garcia. That’s a Lie. – Truthout
[10] Maryland Sen. Van Hollen to visit El Salvador to check on mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia – CBS News
[11] Trump admin defies court over Maryland deportation, ignites legal showdown – Yahoo News
[12] ‘We are in a moment of constitutional crisis’ – Courthouse News
[13] Deportations Put US ‘Beyond’ Constitutional Crisis – TIME
[14] World Report 2025: El Salvador – Human Rights Watch
[15] Unlawful Expulsions to El Salvador Endanger Lives – Amnesty International
[16] White House ignores court and invokes Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds – PBS NewsHour
[17] We Can Arrest Anyone We Want – Human Rights Watch
[18] Disappearances of Migrants as a Result of U.S. Border Policies – IRAP
[19] Federal Appeals Court Keeps Block on Trump Use of Alien Enemies Act – ACLU
[20] Van Hollen Requests Meeting with Bukele – Office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen
[21] Judge finds Trump administration disregarded order on Venezuelan deportations – Reuters
[22] US judge considers contempt charges over Trump-era deportations – BBC News
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