A decision by the Department of Homeland Security to deport a high-profile foreign dissident is alarming immigration experts who fear the worst.
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration fast-tracked the deportation of Ecuadorian politician Jose Serrano, a critic of President Daniel Noboa, last month. Serrano was accused of criminal activity, but an immigration judge found it likely he would be tortured if deported back to Ecuador, Times reporter Nicholas Nehamas noted in a post on X.
The deportation prompted outcry online as the Trump administration bypassed the immigration courts to remove Serrano. Nehamas also noted that Serrano had been arrested in Miami last year, just days after former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem met with Ecuador's president.
In a post on X, immigration policy expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted that The Times also reported that three immigration appeals judges appointed by the Trump administration overruled the decision of the immigration judge who ordered that Serrano couldn't be sent back because he faces likely torture.
"This is insane," Reichlin-Melnick reacted. "DOJ officials who by law are required to exercise independent judgment appear to have been ordered to overturn torture protections granted to a political opponent of a Trump ally, with the deportation flight fueled up and ready for their preordained decision."
Political scientist Norman Ornstein simply described the whole incident as "disgraceful."
"Donald Trump's assaults on the democratic process in South America continue unchecked," warned Grant Stern, the executive editor of Occupy Democrats.
Serrano is now being held in El Encuentro, a maximum-security prison modeled after El Salvador's notorious CECOT facility, according to the Times. His lawyers say that during a monitored video call, masked guards photographed and filmed him while he was naked and told him the footage would be sent to Noboa. Ecuadorean officials have denied he was mistreated.