Columbia DSA

Over the weekend, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law written when Black people were still enslaved, to kidnap and disappear people—some of whom could be asylum seekers, legal residents, or even U.S. citizens—and sent them to one of the most violent and inhumane prisons in the world in El Salvador. This move was taken despite a federal judge’s order blocking the deportations. Let us repeat that: The government kidnapped people without trial, shipped them to a foreign prison, and ignored a court order telling them not to do that. But this country has done this before. In the 1850s, the Fugitive Slave Act let white people snatch free Black people off the streets and disappear them into slavery with no evidence, just an accusation. In 1919, during the Red Summer, the government deported Black radicals and immigrants who fought for their rights, calling them a ‘threat’ to the state. In the 1960s and 70s, COINTELPRO hunted, assassinated, and exiled Black revolutionaries. When the government can round people up without trial, ignore court rulings, and send them to foreign prisons to disappear, democracy is not dying, it is already dead. We demand: -The return of every person deported under this law. -Abolition of the Alien Enemies Act -An immediate end to this administration’s war on Black and Brown people. -For everyone watching to wake the hell up.