Trump is pointing to Kilmar Abrego Garcia's tattoos to justify his indefinite detention without charge in the ultra-oppressive Salvadoran prison gulag. These notoriously include a cannabis leaf, demonstrating the continued propaganda utility of the "Reefer Madness" stigma, even as a multi-million dollar legal industry emerges. But the White House actually added the characters "MS13" (name of the notorious Salvadoran gang) to the shot of Abrego Garcia's knuckles in a crude photoshop job—despite transparent denials from Trump. Lubricating the emerging transnational mass detention program with this Orwellian post-truth stratagem, the Trump regime meanwhile moves toward actual deportation of US citizens. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 277 of the CounterVortex podcast.

At an April 29 rally in Michigan to commemorate the first 100 days of his term, Donald Trump focused on his border crackdown and deportations above all else. While he touched on the economy and bragged of firing "unnecessary deep state bureaucrats" in his speech, his racist attacks on migrants took center stage. Those attacks accelerated and entered uncharted territory the following week: the administration launched massive immigration raids, targeted sanctuary cities in an executive order, prosecuted migrants for breaching a recently declared "military zone" near the border, separated families, and even deported US citizens.

US-directed repression and counter-insurgency in El Salvador in the 1980s allowed the imposition of "free trade" or "neoliberal" regimes in the generations since then—ultimately culminating in the adoption of CAFTA. This, in turn, has exacerbated the expropriation of the traditional lands of the peasantry by the agro-export oligarchy. It also led to the hypertrophy of the narco economy and a new nightmare of violence, which Nayib Bukele has exploited to establish a new dictatorship. This dictatorship is now openly in league with Donald Trump, and has in fact become critical to his fascist agenda. In Episode 275 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks down El Salvador's historical role as a laboratory of genocide and police-state methods for US imperialism, and the imperative of trans-national resistance.

The Trump administration's deportation policies took center stage this week as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visited the White House, courts continued challenging the legality of the deportations, and a Maryland senator travelled to El Salvador in an attempt to make contact with a man known to be wrongfully deported.

Detained Syrians held in harsh conditions in Lebanon are demanding their release, asserting that the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship invalidates the terrorism-related charges against them, which were originally made due to their support for the opposition or affiliation with the rebel Free Syrian Army. Since the revolution began in 2011, hundreds of Syrian refugees have been detained in Lebanon, sometimes in relation to their supposed membership in armed groups, but often arbitrarily. 

UN experts on April 7 called for an end to the arbitrary, indefinite detention of tens of thousands of people in camps in northeast Syria. The detained individuals are those whom the local Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have accused of adherence to the extremist group Islamic State in Iraq & the Levant (ISIL), with over 52,000 people currently held without any due process, 60% of whom are children.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded March 19 that widespread enforced disappearances and torture committed by Russia during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine constitute "crimes against humanity." The announcement marks a significant development, as crimes against humanity constitute one of the most serious classifications of international crimes.

Human Rights Watch on March 13 criticized the proposed European Union "Returns Regulation" for undocumented migrants as "cruel and unrealistic" for allowing longer detention and harsher treatment.

The European Commission seeks to establish standardized procedures so that returns of migrants can be more efficient while still respecting fundamental human rights. The proposed rule provides mandatory forced return if the undocumented migrant does not cooperate with an EU member state in the return procedure. Additionally, individuals deemed security risks could be detained for more than 24 months with judicial authorization.