Every time I think I’ve written enough articles to sufficiently cover the fast-moving pace of the current presidential administration, the endlessly-giving generosity of President Donald Trump provides me with yet more ammunition to spray across the front page of The Chronicle’s opinion section. This time, it concerns his flagrant immigration policy, which has now led to a direct constitutional crisis regarding the fundamental civil liberties of United States residents. 

Every week, a new case involving the disappearance and deportation of legal immigrants in the U.S. emerges, amounting to blatant government overreach. Unfortunately, our own university, Duke, has not been exempt. Earlier this month, the federal government terminated the visas of two Duke graduate students and an alumnus. Senior Associate Dean of International Students Kevin D’Arco stated that the students are consulting their immigration attorneys regarding the visa terminations. But Trump has shown open contempt for any legal challenge to his deportation edicts in threats to law firms and immigration attorneys, and is likely to attempt to follow his previous pattern of denying them a trial to remain in the U.S.

In ordering the arrest and deportation of legal immigrants on bogus charges in disregard of the law, Trump earned the legal reprimand of the Supreme Court, which intervened in a recent case that has rocked our country. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man from Maryland who has been legally living in the U.S. since seeking refuge from El Salvador in 2019, was mistakenly and illegally deported back to El Salvador by Trump on March 15. 

Garcia, and others like him, were subject to targeted interference by the federal government and denied fundamental constitutional liberties. Garcia was simply whisked away by the government on false charges and no criminal record, completely by accident. What we are now consequently witnessing is the unraveling of one of the most essential rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution: that of due process.

Found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, due process sanctifies the right of every individual inside the U.S., including non-citizens, not to have their inalienable liberties deprived by the government without first undergoing certain legal procedures such as a trial. So important is this principle that due process remains the only command in the Constitution to be repeated twice. First appearing in the Fifth Amendment, a second iteration is stated in the Fourteenth Amendment, reading, “No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” 

In utterly disregarding due process, Trump has made war on the U.S. Constitution. According to a recent article on the matter from Politico, “critics and legal experts have argued that the case sets a dangerous precedent of allowing the executive branch the expansive and chilling power to imprison individuals in different countries without due process — especially as Trump continues to float sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.” As the end of the above quote suggests, Trump has even expressed enthusiasm at the idea of sending American offenders to be detained in El Salvador’s notorious mega-prisons, inaugurating a whole new untread legal and political nightmare. 

The designated location for sending these prisoners has a special kind of significance though, one which deserves scrutiny. Alongside Trump in his purge of due process has been a staunch new ally of the U.S., President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. From the inception of the second Trump administration, El Salvador’s dictator-esque president has warmly endorsed and welcomed the plan to host American criminals in El Salvador’s uniquely repulsive prisons. Just this last week, Trump affectionately hosted Bukele in the Oval Office, where they both sneered about the human trafficking of Abrego Garcia and vilely pretended neither of them had the power to return the man back to the U.S. 

What is this perverse love-relationship that has developed between El Salvador and the United States? Who is Bukele, and why is he being fondly embraced in the Oval Office as an ally by Trump? These questions may provide a very revealing clue as to what Trump’s disregard for due process may look like in our country if carried out to its full extent, because it has already happened under Bukele in El Salvador. 

Bukele was first elected as El Salavdor’s president in 2019 on a promise to crack down on the country’s spiraling crisis of gang violence. His administration certainly delivered on this pledge, rounding up 80,000 presumed gang members and throwing them into maximum security “terrorism confinement centers.” The resulting wave of popularity he received from this catapulted him to a landslide victory for a second term in 2024, winning 85% of the popular vote, effectively empowering him to exercise presidential power however he chose and leading to proclaiming himself the “world’s coolest dictator.” 

While Bukele did drastically reduce gang violence in El Salvador, the methods used were Orwellian in their violation of civil liberties. Declaring a state of emergency that placed few limits on the power of the federal government, Bukele’s troops went door to door arresting thousands of people, often arbitrarily. Due process was systematically disregarded as individual trials, a right guaranteed in El Salvador, were bypassed in favor of mass trials which delivered draconian verdicts. Amidst this hysteria, thousands of innocent people were mistakenly arrested, as were thousands of children, prompting the alarm of international human rights groups who condemned what they asserted as gross human rights violations.

Bukele’s concentration of power eroded El Salvador’s democracy in less conspicuous ways too. In 2021, using his party’s legislative majority, Bukele dismissed five of the judges on El Salvador’s Supreme Court, replacing them with loyalists instead. The move came just in time for Bukele to announce his intention to seek a second term in 2024, despite the fact that the El Salvadoran Constitution limits presidents to a single 5-year term. Bukele’s newly-appointed corrupt judges proceeded to rule it admissible for him to bypass the Constitution and run for reelection, which is the only reason the self-proclaimed dictator still leads El Salvador.

Now, it isn’t new or surprising to see a self-appointed strongman like Bukele willingly make the trade-off of sacrificing civil liberties in favor of order. That is, after all, the apparatus of dictators. But what is fascinating is the explosive popularity that Bukele has consistently enjoyed from the public whose rights are the ones being denied. The benefits of reduced gang violence have allowed Bukele to convince the public in El Salvador that the civil liberties trade-off is a worthy one. 

As a result, El Salvador’s system of checks and balances has crumbled, perhaps irreversibly, and dissent has been crushed. 61% percent of El Salvadorans now report self-censoring out of fear of expressing their opinions. This means that when the jubilation over Bukele eventually breaks, and his popularity begins to slip, there will be little power the people possess to stop him, all with the full knowledge that they were led to willingly sacrifice this power. 

Everything described above is taking place in its latent stage in the United States as Trump solidifies control. Due process is to him a worthy and necessary sacrifice in the name of preserving America (himself), and the fulfillment of his own flirtations with the unconstitutional idea of running for a third term remains to be seen in the hands of our own Trump-sympathizing judges Supreme Court. 

But on a deeper societal level, what is most concerning is that Trump is finding success in copying Bukele’s strategy of persuading the people that due process is a worthy sacrifice too. Americans are subtly being fed the illusion that the dismantling of democracy is in our best interest for the sake of protection against allegedly impending security threats. But unlike in the case of Bukele where rampant gang violence posed a legitimate threat to safety, the narrative touted by Trump of the “security threat” posed to America by supposedly dangerous immigrants, is a problem that, in reality, is overstated and unsolved by Trump’s policies. 

All eyes should now be on El Salvador. Its abrogation of civil liberties in the name of safety is precisely the model on which Trump is basing his rule, and if any country can show us what America may look like if our constitutional rights continue to be capitulated, it is El Salvador. Its democracy index has slipped every year of Bukele’s regime, receiving a rating of 70 out of 100 in 2018, and subsequently declining to 47 out of 100 in 2025. In El Salvador, Bukele has shown us what happens when due process dies. In America, it is our due diligence to make sure it stays alive.

The Chronicle: https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025/04/due-process-el-salvador

¿Está muerto el debido proceso? La respuesta se encuentra en El Salvador.

Cada vez que creo haber escrito suficientes artículos para cubrir el vertiginoso ritmo de la actual administración presidencial, la inagotable generosidad del presidente Donald Trump me proporciona aún más munición para la sección de opinión de The Chronicle. Esta vez se trata de su flagrante política migratoria, que ha desembocado en una crisis constitucional sobre las libertades civiles fundamentales de los residentes en Estados Unidos.

Cada semana surge un nuevo caso de desaparición y deportación de inmigrantes legales en Estados Unidos, una extralimitación gubernamental flagrante. Lamentablemente, nuestra propia universidad, Duke, no ha quedado al margen. A principios de este mes, el gobierno federal anuló las visas de dos estudiantes de posgrado y de un exalumno de Duke. El decano asociado sénior para estudiantes internacionales, Kevin D’Arco, indicó que los estudiantes están consultando a sus abogados de inmigración sobre la revocación. Pero Trump ha demostrado un desprecio abierto por cualquier impugnación legal a sus edictos de deportación mediante amenazas a bufetes y abogados, y probablemente intentará negarles un juicio para permanecer en el país.

Al ordenar la detención y deportación de inmigrantes legales con cargos falsos y al margen de la ley, Trump se ganó la reprimenda del Tribunal Supremo, que intervino en un caso que ha sacudido al país. Kilmar Abrego García, residente legal en Maryland desde que buscó refugio procedente de El Salvador en 2019, fue deportado por error e ilegalmente a El Salvador por Trump el 15 de marzo.

Abrego García y otros como él fueron objeto de interferencia gubernamental selectiva y se les negaron libertades constitucionales fundamentales. El gobierno simplemente lo sacó del país con cargos falsos y sin antecedentes penales. Estamos presenciando el desmantelamiento de uno de los derechos más esenciales consagrados en la Constitución de EE. UU.: el debido proceso.

Presente tanto en la Quinta como en la Decimocuarta Enmienda, el debido proceso garantiza que ninguna persona, incluidas las no ciudadanas, sea privada de sus libertades sin los procedimientos legales correspondientes. Este principio es tan importante que la Constitución lo repite dos veces. La Decimocuarta Enmienda establece: “Ningún Estado podrá privar a persona alguna de la vida, la libertad o la propiedad sin el debido proceso legal, ni negar a persona alguna la igual protección de las leyes”.

Al ignorar el debido proceso, Trump ha hecho la guerra a la Constitución. Según Politico, “críticos y expertos legales sostienen que el caso sienta un precedente peligroso al permitir que el poder ejecutivo encarcele personas en distintos países sin debido proceso, especialmente mientras Trump sigue barajando enviar a ciudadanos estadounidenses al Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo de El Salvador”. Trump incluso ha mostrado entusiasmo ante la idea de mandar infractores estadounidenses a las célebres megaprisiones salvadoreñas, inaugurando una nueva pesadilla jurídica y política.

El lugar designado para estos presos tiene un significado especial que merece escrutinio. Junto a Trump está su nuevo aliado, el presidente Nayib Bukele de El Salvador. Desde el inicio del segundo mandato de Trump, el presidente salvadoreño —de tintes dictatoriales— ha respaldado el plan de albergar delincuentes estadounidenses en las prisiones, singularmente repulsivas, de su país. La semana pasada, Trump recibió a Bukele en el Despacho Oval, donde ambos se mofaron del tráfico humano de Abrego García y fingieron carecer de poder para devolverlo a EE. UU.

¿Qué clase de relación se ha forjado entre El Salvador y Estados Unidos? ¿Quién es Bukele y por qué Trump lo abraza como aliado? Estas preguntas revelan cómo podría lucir el desprecio de Trump por el debido proceso si se lleva al extremo, porque eso ya ocurre bajo Bukele.

Bukele fue elegido presidente en 2019 prometiendo frenar la violencia de las pandillas. Su gobierno detuvo a 80 000 presuntos pandilleros y los envió a “centros de confinamiento del terrorismo” de máxima seguridad. La popularidad resultante le otorgó una victoria aplastante para un segundo mandato en 2024, con el 85 % de los votos, y él mismo se proclamó “el dictador más cool del mundo”.

Aunque Bukele redujo drásticamente la violencia, sus métodos fueron orwellianos. Declaró un régimen de excepción que otorgó poder casi ilimitado al gobierno; sus tropas arrestaron a miles de personas puerta a puerta, a menudo arbitrariamente. El debido proceso se ignoró sistemáticamente: los juicios individuales fueron sustituidos por macrojuicios con veredictos draconianos. Miles de inocentes, incluidos niños, fueron detenidos, lo que motivó la condena de organismos internacionales de derechos humanos.

También erosionó la democracia de forma más sutil. En 2021, con su mayoría legislativa, Bukele destituyó a cinco magistrados de la Corte Suprema y los reemplazó por leales. Esto le permitió anunciar su intención de buscar un segundo mandato, aunque la Constitución limita a los presidentes a un solo periodo de cinco años. Sus nuevos jueces dictaminaron que podía eludir la Constitución y postularse de nuevo; por eso el autoproclamado dictador sigue en el poder.

Lo sorprendente es la popularidad que Bukele mantiene entre los mismos ciudadanos cuyos derechos vulnera. La reducción de la violencia ha convencido a muchos salvadoreños de que renunciar a las libertades civiles vale la pena.

Como resultado, el sistema de frenos y contrapesos de El Salvador se ha desmoronado y la disidencia ha sido aplastada. El 61 % de los salvadoreños admite autocensurarse por miedo. Cuando la popularidad de Bukele se desplome, el pueblo tendrá poco poder para detenerlo, habiendo renunciado voluntariamente a ese poder.

Todo esto ocurre de forma latente en EE. UU. mientras Trump consolida el control. Para él, el debido proceso es un sacrificio necesario en nombre de preservar América (a sí mismo), y el desenlace de sus coqueteos con la idea de un tercer mandato está en manos de jueces simpatizantes.

Más preocupante es que Trump copia la estrategia de Bukele para persuadir al pueblo de que sacrificar el debido proceso es legítimo. Se alimenta la ilusión de que desmantelar la democracia protege contra supuestas amenazas. Pero, a diferencia de Bukele, donde la violencia pandillera era real, la narrativa de Trump sobre el “peligro” de inmigrantes supuestamente peligrosos está exagerada y sus políticas no lo resuelven.

Todas las miradas deberían dirigirse a El Salvador. Su abrogación de las libertades civiles en nombre de la seguridad es el modelo que Trump sigue, y si un país puede mostrarnos cómo luciría EE. UU. al capitular sus derechos constitucionales, ese país es El Salvador. Su índice de democracia cayó de 70/100 en 2018 a 47/100 en 2025. En El Salvador, Bukele nos ha mostrado qué ocurre cuando muere el debido proceso. En Estados Unidos, es nuestra obligación mantenerlo con vida.

The Chronicle: https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025/04/due-process-el-salvador