Trump Says He's Fine With Sending U.S. Citizens Convicted of Crimes to Foreign Prisons — And That Should Alarm Every American

Let’s be crystal clear from the start: any U.S. president, any person in public office, who suggests forcibly sending American citizens to prisons in a foreign country is not just flirting with authoritarianism. They are bulldozing over the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the moral core of what this country stands for. And today, Donald J. Trump, from the highest office in the land, made that very suggestion.

He said he’d be OK with sending U.S. citizens, those accused or convicted of crimes, to prisons in El Salvador or other countries.

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Let that sink in.

This isn’t tough talk on crime. It’s not a policy proposal. It’s a full-frontal assault on everything we’ve built over nearly 250 years as a constitutional democracy. And it should piss every American off—regardless of party, race, class, or creed.

This is a betrayal of the American people, of our laws, and of every soldier who ever bled for freedom.

Let’s walk through exactly what laws and constitutional protections Trump would shatter if this dystopian fantasy were ever put into action.

The Right to Due Process (Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments)

The Constitution doesn’t take vacations. Not in red states. Not in blue states. And certainly not at the border of another country.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no citizen shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." That means an American cannot be punished arbitrarily or without legal proceedings, and those proceedings must be fair.

The Fourteenth Amendment reinforces this at the state level, mandating equal protection under the law and due process for all.

You don’t get to shortcut due process just because someone is accused of a crime. You don’t get to outsource justice to a foreign regime because it's cheaper or meaner or more brutal.

You don’t get to deport the Constitution.

The Eighth Amendment: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

El Salvador’s prisons have been described as overcrowded, violent, inhumane, and lawless. They are not correctional institutions; they are hellholes.

If the U.S. government were to send an American citizen to serve time there—knowing full well the conditions—it would be a textbook case of cruel and unusual punishment, banned explicitly by the Eighth Amendment.

You can’t ship someone to be tortured and call it justice. That’s not punishment. That’s sadism wrapped in policy.

The Right to a Fair and Speedy Trial (Sixth Amendment)

Trump’s reckless suggestion completely ignores the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees all criminal defendants the right to a fair, speedy trial by an impartial jury in the district where the crime occurred.

Not in a secret tribunal. Not in a prison thousands of miles from home. Not in a country with different laws, no jury, and no accountability.

No president has the power to erase this right, not even one who thinks the law is a nuisance he can sidestep.

The Right of Citizenship and Protection Abroad

Citizenship is not a suggestion. It’s a legal status enshrined in the Constitution, carrying with it certain inviolable rights.

One of those rights is protection from exile. The United States does not have a legal process for exiling citizens. We do not “banish” people. That’s what monarchs did centuries ago to enemies of the crown.

Sending a citizen to rot in a foreign prison is a de facto exile. That’s not law. That’s tyranny.

Extradition Laws and International Agreements

The U.S. has specific treaties and procedures in place for transferring prisoners to and from foreign nations. Every step requires consent, due process, and legal justification.

What Trump is proposing doesn’t follow the law—it breaks it. And it would upend every single international agreement we’ve made regarding the treatment and transfer of prisoners.

We are not a country that kidnaps its own citizens and dumps them on foreign soil.

Federal Criminal Jurisdiction and Constitutional Authority

The Constitution does not grant the president the unilateral authority to change where U.S. citizens serve their prison sentences.

That authority rests with the courts. The Department of Justice. The Bureau of Prisons. Not with one man who wants to play strongman and export human beings like livestock.

There is no clause—none—that allows for a president to override jurisdiction, ignore sentencing guidelines, and ship people off to foreign regimes. To do so would be an outrageous and illegal abuse of power.

Equal Protection Under the Law (Fourteenth Amendment, Again)

Let’s not ignore what’s lurking underneath the surface of this fantasy: racialized fear-mongering. Talk of sending criminals, often coded language for marginalized communities, to a foreign land to be punished more harshly than white-collar offenders is not just policy malpractice.

It’s discrimination. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s ugly.

Equal protection under the law means everyone gets the same rights. Even if they’ve committed a crime. Even if you don’t like them.

Justice isn’t vengeance. It’s fairness.

Let’s Call It What It Is: Authoritarianism

This isn’t just a bad idea. It’s a deeply dangerous one.

When a sitting president begins to speak about citizens as disposable, prisons as tools of revenge, and justice as something that can be outsourced to other nations, we are not talking about policy anymore.

We are talking about fascism. Plain and simple.

This is how democracies die—not with tanks, but with talk like this. With normalization of cruelty. With leaders who think the Constitution is optional.

Why This Moment Matters

I’m angry. I’m scared for the next generation of American. And I’m not alone.

Because this kind of rhetoric isn’t just divisive, it’s corrosive. It eats away at the rule of law. It poisons trust in government. It divides neighbor from neighbor. It teaches our children that freedom is conditional and justice is selective.

It’s not just policy differences anymore. This is about the soul of the country.

If we let this go unchallenged, we normalize it. If we don’t speak up, we become complicit. If we don’t fight for the rule of law, we lose it.

Summary: What Trump’s Statement Breaks—and What We Must Defend

Let’s be blunt. If Donald Trump were ever to act on this threat:

- He would violate the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

- He would undermine U.S. criminal jurisdiction and due process.

- He would strip citizens of their rights based on vengeance, not justice.

- He would destroy our credibility as a nation that upholds human rights and the rule of law.

- He would drag us closer to authoritarian rule—under the guise of “tough on crime.”

We cannot allow this to stand. Not as lawyers. Not as voters. Not as citizens.

This is not who we are.

But it damn sure might be who we become—unless we fight back. With our words. With our votes. With our courage.

Our kids and grandkids are watching. Let’s make sure we leave them a democracy that still knows the difference between justice and cruelty.

Mitch Jackson, Esq. | links

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