It's getting late
Then they came for the homegrowns...
There are phrases in our culture that get invoked and thrown around so much that they become cliche, old hat, or even ridiculous to invoke. The famous confessional, “First They Came”, by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemollar, has been one of those for me:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me-
and there was no one left to speak for me.
This is a piece you see thrown around a lot in progressive spaces online, especially over the last few years. I generally find myself allergic to this kind of stuff, because it feels overly dramatic, and because I think the overuse of Nazi-era rhetorical tropes denudes them of their power when we really need them.
Right now is quickly becoming a time when we really need them. Niemoller’s words have been bouncing in my head as the crisis over deportation the Trump Administration’s showdown with the Supreme Court over El Salvador deepens. This weekend, the United States Supreme Court ordered the Administration to take steps to return legal US resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia from his illegal detention in a concentration camp in El Salvador. The Administration has refused to comply, claiming that Abrego Garcia is in the custody of a foreign government, and thus we have no ability to effectuate his return.
This refusal sets up a genuine Constitutional crisis, with a showdown between the Executive and Judicial branches of our government looming. As Jonathan V. Last noted over at The Bulwark, Chief Justice John Roberts may wish to avoid the worst case scenario here by choosing to back off - JVL terms it “a tactical retreat” - and maintaining the pretext that the Executive did not overtly defy a court order. But make no mistake: any outcome here that does not end in The Administration following the unanimous Supreme Court decision directing them to following the lower court order to bring Abrego Garcia home is a genuine Constitutional crisis, and potentially harkens the end of the Rule of Law as we know it. The Court’s authority rests on the norm that we all agree to follow court orders, despite the fact that the Court does not have an army or police force to enforce those rulings. Once that norm is violated, there is little hope of ever restoring it. Article Three of the Constitution becomes a dead letter at that point.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her Letter yesterday, noted the order of events, and how the President’s fascist advisor Stephen Miller is spreading lies to the President himself:
On April 6, Judge Xinis wrote that “there were no legal grounds whatsoever for [Abrego Garcia’s] arrest, detention, or removal.… Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless.” It is “a clear constitutional violation.” The Supreme Court agreed with Xinis that Abrego Garcia had been illegally removed from the U.S. and must be returned, but warned the judge to be careful of the president’s power over foreign affairs.
At the Oval Office meeting, when Trump asked what the Supreme Court ruled, deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller said it had ruled “9–0…in our favor,” claiming “the Supreme Court said that the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed 9–0 unanimously.” Legal analyst Chris Geidner of Law Dork called Miller’s statement “disgusting, lying propaganda.”
He also noted that when the administration filed its required declaration about Abrego Garcia’s case today, it included a link to the Oval Office meeting, thus submitting Miller’s lies about its decision directly to the Supreme Court.
Yesterday, President Trump hosted President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House. Prior to the join Oval Office press conference in which both dictators reasserted that they wouldn’t be lifting a finger to return Abrego Garcia to the United States, microphones picked up Trump telling Bukele that “home-growns are next” and “El Salvador needs to build about five more places”, ostensible to house these home-growns” - also known as United States citizens.
This is the exact worst case scenario we have been worrying and warning about for weeks and months now - really, since the days after January 6th, 2021, when Donald Trump made it clear that no American tradition, norm, or value was more important than his egomaniacal pursuit of power and control. Every time I think the situation can’t get worse, that we’ve gone as far down the authoritarian path as we surely could, something else comes along and advances us a little further.
It is this gradual, steady erosion - this steady march of authoritarian progress in America - that got me thinking about Niemollar. The reason that piece resonates so much with people, I believe, is because of the way it reveals the gradation of authoritarianism, naming that inevitable method which authoritarian governments use so well and so subtly, shining light for us to see how easy and slippery that slope is. Niemollar reveals to us clearly and concisely what creeping authoritarianism looks like - how quickly the reasonable and logical becomes the terrifying and unthinkable.
That slope is what we are experiencing right now here in America. It started with the demonization and targeting, during the election run-up, of violent and gang-affiliated illegal immigrants, a group that few object to arresting and deporting. Then, the conversation shifted, and the waters were tested, by speaking about removing them without due process. The first little drip.
Next, upon taking office, The Administration shifted the frame again, this time leveraging the long-running support in our country for Israel to target foreign students critical of the on-going genocide in Gaza. Again, this was easy for them to do: young, radical foreigners, with brown skin and Muslim-sounding names, attending elite Ivy League schools, are another group not particularly popular with the average American.
Then, it was foreign students who simply spoke out. This came almost concurrent with the expansion of the scope of who would be considered an illegal immigrant, now held to include those with legal permanent resident status, or those with legitimate and acknowledged claims of asylum. One of these, Merwil Gutierrez, was reported on this week by The City. Mr. Gutierrez, who is not a violent criminal, has no tattoos, and has not broken any laws, who did everything exactly by the book, just as MAGA supporters claim they want people to do. When ICE agents detained Merwil, one of them noted he was not the target they were actually looking for. “Take him anyway,” another ICE agent said. And so they took someone who did everything we asked of him:
On May 19, 2023, Wilmer began the journey to the U.S. on foot and by bus. Merwil, his father, and his nephew Luis joined him. Their first stop was Colombia, where they crossed the Darién jungle towards Panama — a route taken by nearly every Venezuelan migrant trying to reach the U.S. The journey lasted about a month until they reached Ciudad de Juárez, a town in Mexico near the U.S. border. From there, they applied for an appointment to seek humanitarian parole using the CBP One app. They waited one week until they were able to secure an appointment with immigration authorities. In the city, they even got a job on a hotel remodeling site while waiting until June 21, the date they had to show up to the immigration authorities. Wilmer recalls sleeping rough that night, right on the U.S. border. They had to do it to avoid losing their place in the long line that formed outside the immigration office each day.
Once inside the country, they reported to the authorities, explained their situation, and they opened an asylum case. They were first sent to a shelter in Texas, then transferred to Denver, and eventually took bus tickets to New York.
Doing it the right way clearly does not matter, because the goal is not making our immigration work in sane way; the goal for Donald Trump and MAGA is to expel all immigrants, stop all foreign immigration, and purge the United States of any and all they deem unworthy of inclusion in America, citizen, immigrant, or otherwise. And so, again, the looming threat of violence and social disorder was invoked, as well as their supposed threat to national security and American foreign policy. More waters were tested, so soon after the last testing: Europeans on vacation or business trips, Canadian college professors with appointments in the United States.
This week, the focus has shifted again; the waters have been sufficently tested, the pump primed. It has been established, with minimal judicial or political pushback, that The Administration can disappear even harmless non-criminals like Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Merwil Gutierrez without suffering any consequences. So now the groundwork is being laid to do something with American citizens who have committed crimes, as President Trump laid out in this press conference. But, to think they will stop with just criminals is to ignore everything that has come before now. It is to grant The Administration a benefit of the doubt on their desire to seize power and crush dissent that they have clearly not earned.
So, the next target appear to be political opponents of this Administration. Consider the Executive Order issued last week, targeting Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, two government officials who had the temerity to faithfully execute their job duties and declare there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Krebs and Taylor were accused in the EO of sowing “chaos and distrust in government.” These are the exact kinds of accusations that get turned into excuses to set aside the rule of law and due process by authoritarian governments.
Who is next? More prominent government officials who refuse to accede to the lie that Donald Trump in fact won in 2020? Elected officials whose criticism of The Administration are construed as threatening or dangerous to national security? What about regular citizens like you or I, who aren’t deemed sufficiently loyal, or an active threat to security and order, or who just got on the wrong side of the wrong person?
Heather Cox Richardson, again in her Letter yesterday, highlighted the analysis of Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny:1
Scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder explained the larger picture: “On the White House’s theory, if they abduct you, get you on a helicopter, get to international waters, shoot you in the head, and drop your corpse into the ocean, that is legal, because it is the conduct of foreign affairs.” He compared it to the Nazis’ practice of pushing Jews into statelessness because “[i]t is easier to move people away from law than it is to move law away from people. Almost all of the killing took place in artificially created stateless zones.”
The hour is quite late. In just three months, we’ve slid to levels that I think most observers expected to take years to reach. Invocations of Niemoller no longer feel quite so overwrought.
It is beyond time for the legislative branch of our government - Constitutionally, the most powerful, most important, and more prominent branch of our government - to do their job of representing us, to stand up for the rule of law and democracy and take steps to put a stop to the lawlessness and authoritarianism, up to and including Donald Trump from office. Even more, its time for all of us to stand up and pushback, loudly. The hour is late. Lets act now, before time is up.
Richardson and Snyder are two of the most essential voices you should be reading right now. You can find them both on Substack, Richardson at Letters from an American, and Snyder at Thinking About…