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Massive worker protests killed a "grand bargain" with Republicans proposed by President Obama that would have cut Social Security benefits. (Photo: Fighting back works!)
I was explaining to my 26-year-old son recently that while I'm continuing to work as a writer, because I waited until age 70 to begin collecting my Social Security benefits, I am now collecting almost $29,000 on top of what I earn doing my freelance journalism thing.
He said, matter-of-factly, "Well, I and most of my millennial friends don't expect Social Security to be around when we reach your age...if we ever do."
If that gloomy sentiment is widespread, and I believe it is (one recent poll found 71% of workers don't think they'll get Social Security), it's no accident. There are a lot of scare-mongers out there, most, but not all of them Republican politicians and conservative pundits on cable and radio programs. These shameless shills for Wall Street's investment industry are spreading the lie that Social Security is a "ponzi scheme" or that Social Security will go bust before young workers today ever get the benefits that they currently 6.2 percent of each paycheck deducted, supposedly to pay for.
Here is an example of the scare tactics:
"Social Security Will Be Insolvent in 16 Years" screams an article in the ironically named libertarian magazine Reason.
Another approach, popular in the financial advisory business, is to first tell people that fears that Social Security will go belly up, leaving future workers with nothing are "overblown," but then to add that if nothing is done, the benefits they are supposed to get could be cut by 20% in 2034. That reduced benefit is an amount that could indeed be covered indefinitely by the payroll tax on current workers from that time going forward, but it would make Social Security even less adequate for funding retirees. This second attack on the system is typically followed by an admonition on the importance for current workers, especially younger ones, to "save and invest" (great advice to give if you're an adviser earning fees for "managing" that money!).
But it's all a lie. So here's my message to you young folks like my son: Social Security isn't going away, and it's not going to even be cut 20%. In fact, the odds are that benefits in the future will be getting raised, not cut.
How can I say this? Isn't the country getting grayer, with older retired people becoming an increasing share of the population? Aren't old people taking all the money out of the Social Security Trust Fund and running it down to nothing, leaving nothing for their kids and grandkids?
Nonsense!
Why the Lies about Social Security Won't Work
Let's get a few things clear. Yes, the country's population is aging but as Baby Boomers like myself born between 1945 and 1964 -- a particularly large cohort now well into retirement age --start collecting our Social Security benefits, and as the next generation below us, now in their 50s, start thinking seriously about their Social Security benefits, all will want to ensure the durability of this New Deal program, and not just for ourselves, but for you, our kids and grandchildren.
Republican critics of Social Security, like former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming (now 88 and notorious for once calling Social Security a "milk cow with 310 million teats") have tried to provoke a generational war between young workers and older retirees, the better to undermine and privatize the system. But this strategy has never worked.
Why? Think about it: Have you ever heard a young person complain about the amount of retirement benefits her or his parents were receiving being too great? Of course not! Kids know that without Social Security they'd be having to financially support their aging parents! And have you ever heard old people complain that they need higher benefits and the hell with their children's future Social Security? No! Of course not. Older people have always been the strongest defenders of an enduring Social Security system that will be there for their progeny.
The reason I'm telling you to be confident in the future of Social Security is because everyone in this country depends on it, including you, especially as employers continue to eliminate company pension plans. And even if this democracy we supposedly live in is failing to live up to its promise, corrupted as it has become by the influence of money on politics, by lazy pro-corporate journalism, and by the deliberate misinformation spread by social media, if there are still elections in mid-century, and if there is still a functioning economy, there will be a Social Security System in place paying benefits at least at the level promised to those having the FICA payroll tax deducted from each paycheck to support it year in and year out.
All we have to do to ensure this is to vow to never vote for a candidate who doesn't firmly back Social Security, and to always vote out an incumbent who goes back on that commitment.
That includes any new Alan Simpsons who might keep spreading the lie that the system is in trouble.
The Social Trust Fund is Supposed to be Depleted. That's Its Purpose!
Now about that Trust Fund. It is starting to be depleted. That's true. But what the media don't tell you when they darkly intone that line is that the Trust Fund was set up in the early 1980s precisely because it was understood that retiring Baby Boomers would put a big drain on the system. The idea was to pre-fund some of those benefits and then to deliberately spend the Trust Fund down to zero to help cover the benefits as a wave of Boomers began getting benefit checks in 2007.
Faced with the challenge of funding Baby Boomer retirees, President Reagan and a Democratic Congress came up with a bi-partisan reform plan that combined higher payroll taxes by current workers, a slight increase in the so-called "full" retirement age, rising gradually from 65 to 66 and finally to 67, and taxes on some Social Security benefits. The combination of these changes predictably led to a growing surplus, eventually reaching over $2 trillion, a Trust Fund invested in Treasury Bills which it was thought would be sufficient to cover the looming cost of the those benefits.
Here's the problem: In what should be viewed as a happy surprise, the birth rate has continued to decline, leading to a reduction of anticipated workers paying FICA payroll taxes into the system along with their employers, and longevity has also improved through medical breakthroughs and better health. As a result the Trust Fund has proven not to have been inadequate to the task. That is of course a good thing, but it means another adjustment is needed to fully cover Boomer retirement payments until that population wave is over sometime in about 2055 when the last surviving Boomers born in 1964 and still listening to the '80s Rock will be 91.
This actuarial problem has been known for at least two decades, and if our politicians were responsible people, they'd have tweaked things just a bit back then and we'd have no looming shortfall in benefits spread scare stories about. But Republicans have stubbornly refused to make those minor changes, like perhaps raising the payroll tax on employers and employees by 1% when that would have done the trick, or by raising the income level that gets subject to the payroll tax. Since they have refused to take any action, payroll taxes now would have to be raised by several percent, or the cap on income subject to the payroll tax would have to be raised significantly or eliminated altogether, making the wealthy pay a lot more than they'd get back in benefits.
The unstated goal of inaction by Republicans and some conservative Democrats has been to make Social Security too expensive to rescue, and thus to lead to privatization of retirement funding -- something Wall Street has been trying to do for decades.
Time to Fight for What You Deserve
So your job, young people, is to not allow that to happen.
And you have the power to do that. Fully 79 million Americans will be receiving Social Security benefits by 2034. For the majority of retired couples those benefits will be their primary source of income, as it will be for 71% of single retirees. Cutting all those benefits by 20% would cause a national riot the likes of which this country has never seen.
The Social Security system we have isn't perfect. Benefits are clearly far too low for most people to live on. But the system is nonetheless extraordinary. Despite being a socialist idea in a country that has always officially rejected and ridiculed socialism, it is hands down the most successful government program in the history of this nation. So don't listen to the crooked doomsayers. Just vow to get rid Washington of them!
Most of the rest of the developed world has government retirement systems that are far more generous than ours. They have kept those systems, which allow people to have secure comfortable retirement years, under socialist, liberal and even conservative governments, solvent because the people of those countries, elders and their children, have demanded that from their elected officials.
We all, young and old, can have the same thing, but we need to demand it and to fight for it.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
I was explaining to my 26-year-old son recently that while I'm continuing to work as a writer, because I waited until age 70 to begin collecting my Social Security benefits, I am now collecting almost $29,000 on top of what I earn doing my freelance journalism thing.
He said, matter-of-factly, "Well, I and most of my millennial friends don't expect Social Security to be around when we reach your age...if we ever do."
If that gloomy sentiment is widespread, and I believe it is (one recent poll found 71% of workers don't think they'll get Social Security), it's no accident. There are a lot of scare-mongers out there, most, but not all of them Republican politicians and conservative pundits on cable and radio programs. These shameless shills for Wall Street's investment industry are spreading the lie that Social Security is a "ponzi scheme" or that Social Security will go bust before young workers today ever get the benefits that they currently 6.2 percent of each paycheck deducted, supposedly to pay for.
Here is an example of the scare tactics:
"Social Security Will Be Insolvent in 16 Years" screams an article in the ironically named libertarian magazine Reason.
Another approach, popular in the financial advisory business, is to first tell people that fears that Social Security will go belly up, leaving future workers with nothing are "overblown," but then to add that if nothing is done, the benefits they are supposed to get could be cut by 20% in 2034. That reduced benefit is an amount that could indeed be covered indefinitely by the payroll tax on current workers from that time going forward, but it would make Social Security even less adequate for funding retirees. This second attack on the system is typically followed by an admonition on the importance for current workers, especially younger ones, to "save and invest" (great advice to give if you're an adviser earning fees for "managing" that money!).
But it's all a lie. So here's my message to you young folks like my son: Social Security isn't going away, and it's not going to even be cut 20%. In fact, the odds are that benefits in the future will be getting raised, not cut.
How can I say this? Isn't the country getting grayer, with older retired people becoming an increasing share of the population? Aren't old people taking all the money out of the Social Security Trust Fund and running it down to nothing, leaving nothing for their kids and grandkids?
Nonsense!
Why the Lies about Social Security Won't Work
Let's get a few things clear. Yes, the country's population is aging but as Baby Boomers like myself born between 1945 and 1964 -- a particularly large cohort now well into retirement age --start collecting our Social Security benefits, and as the next generation below us, now in their 50s, start thinking seriously about their Social Security benefits, all will want to ensure the durability of this New Deal program, and not just for ourselves, but for you, our kids and grandchildren.
Republican critics of Social Security, like former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming (now 88 and notorious for once calling Social Security a "milk cow with 310 million teats") have tried to provoke a generational war between young workers and older retirees, the better to undermine and privatize the system. But this strategy has never worked.
Why? Think about it: Have you ever heard a young person complain about the amount of retirement benefits her or his parents were receiving being too great? Of course not! Kids know that without Social Security they'd be having to financially support their aging parents! And have you ever heard old people complain that they need higher benefits and the hell with their children's future Social Security? No! Of course not. Older people have always been the strongest defenders of an enduring Social Security system that will be there for their progeny.
The reason I'm telling you to be confident in the future of Social Security is because everyone in this country depends on it, including you, especially as employers continue to eliminate company pension plans. And even if this democracy we supposedly live in is failing to live up to its promise, corrupted as it has become by the influence of money on politics, by lazy pro-corporate journalism, and by the deliberate misinformation spread by social media, if there are still elections in mid-century, and if there is still a functioning economy, there will be a Social Security System in place paying benefits at least at the level promised to those having the FICA payroll tax deducted from each paycheck to support it year in and year out.
All we have to do to ensure this is to vow to never vote for a candidate who doesn't firmly back Social Security, and to always vote out an incumbent who goes back on that commitment.
That includes any new Alan Simpsons who might keep spreading the lie that the system is in trouble.
The Social Trust Fund is Supposed to be Depleted. That's Its Purpose!
Now about that Trust Fund. It is starting to be depleted. That's true. But what the media don't tell you when they darkly intone that line is that the Trust Fund was set up in the early 1980s precisely because it was understood that retiring Baby Boomers would put a big drain on the system. The idea was to pre-fund some of those benefits and then to deliberately spend the Trust Fund down to zero to help cover the benefits as a wave of Boomers began getting benefit checks in 2007.
Faced with the challenge of funding Baby Boomer retirees, President Reagan and a Democratic Congress came up with a bi-partisan reform plan that combined higher payroll taxes by current workers, a slight increase in the so-called "full" retirement age, rising gradually from 65 to 66 and finally to 67, and taxes on some Social Security benefits. The combination of these changes predictably led to a growing surplus, eventually reaching over $2 trillion, a Trust Fund invested in Treasury Bills which it was thought would be sufficient to cover the looming cost of the those benefits.
Here's the problem: In what should be viewed as a happy surprise, the birth rate has continued to decline, leading to a reduction of anticipated workers paying FICA payroll taxes into the system along with their employers, and longevity has also improved through medical breakthroughs and better health. As a result the Trust Fund has proven not to have been inadequate to the task. That is of course a good thing, but it means another adjustment is needed to fully cover Boomer retirement payments until that population wave is over sometime in about 2055 when the last surviving Boomers born in 1964 and still listening to the '80s Rock will be 91.
This actuarial problem has been known for at least two decades, and if our politicians were responsible people, they'd have tweaked things just a bit back then and we'd have no looming shortfall in benefits spread scare stories about. But Republicans have stubbornly refused to make those minor changes, like perhaps raising the payroll tax on employers and employees by 1% when that would have done the trick, or by raising the income level that gets subject to the payroll tax. Since they have refused to take any action, payroll taxes now would have to be raised by several percent, or the cap on income subject to the payroll tax would have to be raised significantly or eliminated altogether, making the wealthy pay a lot more than they'd get back in benefits.
The unstated goal of inaction by Republicans and some conservative Democrats has been to make Social Security too expensive to rescue, and thus to lead to privatization of retirement funding -- something Wall Street has been trying to do for decades.
Time to Fight for What You Deserve
So your job, young people, is to not allow that to happen.
And you have the power to do that. Fully 79 million Americans will be receiving Social Security benefits by 2034. For the majority of retired couples those benefits will be their primary source of income, as it will be for 71% of single retirees. Cutting all those benefits by 20% would cause a national riot the likes of which this country has never seen.
The Social Security system we have isn't perfect. Benefits are clearly far too low for most people to live on. But the system is nonetheless extraordinary. Despite being a socialist idea in a country that has always officially rejected and ridiculed socialism, it is hands down the most successful government program in the history of this nation. So don't listen to the crooked doomsayers. Just vow to get rid Washington of them!
Most of the rest of the developed world has government retirement systems that are far more generous than ours. They have kept those systems, which allow people to have secure comfortable retirement years, under socialist, liberal and even conservative governments, solvent because the people of those countries, elders and their children, have demanded that from their elected officials.
We all, young and old, can have the same thing, but we need to demand it and to fight for it.
I was explaining to my 26-year-old son recently that while I'm continuing to work as a writer, because I waited until age 70 to begin collecting my Social Security benefits, I am now collecting almost $29,000 on top of what I earn doing my freelance journalism thing.
He said, matter-of-factly, "Well, I and most of my millennial friends don't expect Social Security to be around when we reach your age...if we ever do."
If that gloomy sentiment is widespread, and I believe it is (one recent poll found 71% of workers don't think they'll get Social Security), it's no accident. There are a lot of scare-mongers out there, most, but not all of them Republican politicians and conservative pundits on cable and radio programs. These shameless shills for Wall Street's investment industry are spreading the lie that Social Security is a "ponzi scheme" or that Social Security will go bust before young workers today ever get the benefits that they currently 6.2 percent of each paycheck deducted, supposedly to pay for.
Here is an example of the scare tactics:
"Social Security Will Be Insolvent in 16 Years" screams an article in the ironically named libertarian magazine Reason.
Another approach, popular in the financial advisory business, is to first tell people that fears that Social Security will go belly up, leaving future workers with nothing are "overblown," but then to add that if nothing is done, the benefits they are supposed to get could be cut by 20% in 2034. That reduced benefit is an amount that could indeed be covered indefinitely by the payroll tax on current workers from that time going forward, but it would make Social Security even less adequate for funding retirees. This second attack on the system is typically followed by an admonition on the importance for current workers, especially younger ones, to "save and invest" (great advice to give if you're an adviser earning fees for "managing" that money!).
But it's all a lie. So here's my message to you young folks like my son: Social Security isn't going away, and it's not going to even be cut 20%. In fact, the odds are that benefits in the future will be getting raised, not cut.
How can I say this? Isn't the country getting grayer, with older retired people becoming an increasing share of the population? Aren't old people taking all the money out of the Social Security Trust Fund and running it down to nothing, leaving nothing for their kids and grandkids?
Nonsense!
Why the Lies about Social Security Won't Work
Let's get a few things clear. Yes, the country's population is aging but as Baby Boomers like myself born between 1945 and 1964 -- a particularly large cohort now well into retirement age --start collecting our Social Security benefits, and as the next generation below us, now in their 50s, start thinking seriously about their Social Security benefits, all will want to ensure the durability of this New Deal program, and not just for ourselves, but for you, our kids and grandchildren.
Republican critics of Social Security, like former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming (now 88 and notorious for once calling Social Security a "milk cow with 310 million teats") have tried to provoke a generational war between young workers and older retirees, the better to undermine and privatize the system. But this strategy has never worked.
Why? Think about it: Have you ever heard a young person complain about the amount of retirement benefits her or his parents were receiving being too great? Of course not! Kids know that without Social Security they'd be having to financially support their aging parents! And have you ever heard old people complain that they need higher benefits and the hell with their children's future Social Security? No! Of course not. Older people have always been the strongest defenders of an enduring Social Security system that will be there for their progeny.
The reason I'm telling you to be confident in the future of Social Security is because everyone in this country depends on it, including you, especially as employers continue to eliminate company pension plans. And even if this democracy we supposedly live in is failing to live up to its promise, corrupted as it has become by the influence of money on politics, by lazy pro-corporate journalism, and by the deliberate misinformation spread by social media, if there are still elections in mid-century, and if there is still a functioning economy, there will be a Social Security System in place paying benefits at least at the level promised to those having the FICA payroll tax deducted from each paycheck to support it year in and year out.
All we have to do to ensure this is to vow to never vote for a candidate who doesn't firmly back Social Security, and to always vote out an incumbent who goes back on that commitment.
That includes any new Alan Simpsons who might keep spreading the lie that the system is in trouble.
The Social Trust Fund is Supposed to be Depleted. That's Its Purpose!
Now about that Trust Fund. It is starting to be depleted. That's true. But what the media don't tell you when they darkly intone that line is that the Trust Fund was set up in the early 1980s precisely because it was understood that retiring Baby Boomers would put a big drain on the system. The idea was to pre-fund some of those benefits and then to deliberately spend the Trust Fund down to zero to help cover the benefits as a wave of Boomers began getting benefit checks in 2007.
Faced with the challenge of funding Baby Boomer retirees, President Reagan and a Democratic Congress came up with a bi-partisan reform plan that combined higher payroll taxes by current workers, a slight increase in the so-called "full" retirement age, rising gradually from 65 to 66 and finally to 67, and taxes on some Social Security benefits. The combination of these changes predictably led to a growing surplus, eventually reaching over $2 trillion, a Trust Fund invested in Treasury Bills which it was thought would be sufficient to cover the looming cost of the those benefits.
Here's the problem: In what should be viewed as a happy surprise, the birth rate has continued to decline, leading to a reduction of anticipated workers paying FICA payroll taxes into the system along with their employers, and longevity has also improved through medical breakthroughs and better health. As a result the Trust Fund has proven not to have been inadequate to the task. That is of course a good thing, but it means another adjustment is needed to fully cover Boomer retirement payments until that population wave is over sometime in about 2055 when the last surviving Boomers born in 1964 and still listening to the '80s Rock will be 91.
This actuarial problem has been known for at least two decades, and if our politicians were responsible people, they'd have tweaked things just a bit back then and we'd have no looming shortfall in benefits spread scare stories about. But Republicans have stubbornly refused to make those minor changes, like perhaps raising the payroll tax on employers and employees by 1% when that would have done the trick, or by raising the income level that gets subject to the payroll tax. Since they have refused to take any action, payroll taxes now would have to be raised by several percent, or the cap on income subject to the payroll tax would have to be raised significantly or eliminated altogether, making the wealthy pay a lot more than they'd get back in benefits.
The unstated goal of inaction by Republicans and some conservative Democrats has been to make Social Security too expensive to rescue, and thus to lead to privatization of retirement funding -- something Wall Street has been trying to do for decades.
Time to Fight for What You Deserve
So your job, young people, is to not allow that to happen.
And you have the power to do that. Fully 79 million Americans will be receiving Social Security benefits by 2034. For the majority of retired couples those benefits will be their primary source of income, as it will be for 71% of single retirees. Cutting all those benefits by 20% would cause a national riot the likes of which this country has never seen.
The Social Security system we have isn't perfect. Benefits are clearly far too low for most people to live on. But the system is nonetheless extraordinary. Despite being a socialist idea in a country that has always officially rejected and ridiculed socialism, it is hands down the most successful government program in the history of this nation. So don't listen to the crooked doomsayers. Just vow to get rid Washington of them!
Most of the rest of the developed world has government retirement systems that are far more generous than ours. They have kept those systems, which allow people to have secure comfortable retirement years, under socialist, liberal and even conservative governments, solvent because the people of those countries, elders and their children, have demanded that from their elected officials.
We all, young and old, can have the same thing, but we need to demand it and to fight for it.
"South Sudan is about to blow up into potentially another country-wide civil war, putting civilians at risk. But yea let's force people to go back now," wrote one professor.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday announced that the United States is revoking visas for all South Sudanese passport holders, "effective immediately"—sparking criticism from several observers, including those who pointed out that the country could soon tip into another civil war.
Rubio announced on X that the move, which includes restricting any "further issuance" of visas, comes in response to the South Sudanese government's failure to return "its repatriated citizens in a timely manner."
"This is wrongheaded cruelty," wrote Rebecca Hamilton, a professor at American University Washington College of Law and executive editor at the digital law and policy journal Just Security, on X on Saturday. "The vast majority of South Sudanese in this country (or, frankly inside South Sudan, right now) have no say in what their government does. They are here working, studying, building skills essential for their nascent country."
Mike Brand, an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut and Georgetown University who focuses on human rights and atrocities prevention, wrote on Saturday: "South Sudan is about to blow up into potentially another country-wide civil war, putting civilians at risk. But yea let's force people to go back now."
South Sudan is the world's youngest country, having only declared independence from Sudan in 2011 following two lengthy civil wars.
The young nation was once again plunged into civil war in 2013 due to violence between warring factions backing President Salva Kiir and his deputy, Riek Machar. A peace deal was brokered in 2018, though the country has still not held a long-delayed presidential election and Kiir remains in power today, according to Time.
Fears of full-on civil war returned when, last month, Machar was arrested and his allies in government were also detained. Machar's opposition political party declared the country's peace deal effectively over, per Time.
Shortly after Rubio's announcement on Saturday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on X that the government of South Sudan had refused to accept a South Sudanese national who was "certified by their own embassy in Washington" and then repatriated. "Our efforts to engage diplomatically with the South Sudanese government have been rebuffed," Landau wrote.
On Monday, the government of South Sudan released a statement saying that the deportee who was not permitted entry is a citizen of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not South Sudan. The government also said it has maintained consistent communication and cooperation with the U.S. government regarding "immigration and deportation matters."
In the early 2000s, thousands of "lost boys" stemming from a civil war in Sudan that began in the 1980s and eventually led to South Sudan's independence were resettled in the United States.
John Skiles Skinner, a software engineer based in California, reacted to Rubio's announcement by writing on Bluesky: "I taught a U.S. citizenship class to South Sudanese refugees in Nebraska, 2006-2007. Fleeing civil war, they worked arduous jobs at a meat packing plant. Many had no literacy in any language. But they studied hard for a citizenship exam which many native-born Americans would not be able to pass."
In 2011, the Obama administration granted South Sudan nationals in the United States "temporary protected status" (TPS)—a designation that shields foreign-born people from deportation because they cannot return home safely due to war, natural disasters, or other "extraordinary" circumstances. The Biden administration extended it, but the designation is set to expire early next month.
As of September 2024, the U.S. provides TPS protections to 155 people from South Sudan.
In a Monday post for Just Security, Hamilton of American University and a co-author wrote that "while there has been no public determination by the secretary of homeland security regarding an extension of TPS for South Sudanese, Rubio's announcement presumably means [U.S. Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Kristi Noem is planning to terminate their TPS."
Observers online also highlighted that Duke University star basketball player Khaman Maluach, whose family left South Sudan for Uganda when he was a child, could be impacted by the State Department's ruling.
"You may not deport a U.S. citizen, period," said one legal expert.
With a deadline looming for the Trump administration to return a Maryland resident to the U.S. after expelling him along with hundreds of other people to an El Salvador detention center under a shadowy deal with the Central American country, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday stunned observers by expressing a desire to send U.S. citizens into El Salvador's prison system.
In a press briefing aboard Air Force One Sunday evening, Trump was asked by a reporter about an offer made by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept prisoners sent by the U.S. from its federal prison population.
"I love that," Trump said. "If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and hit people over the back of the head and purposely run people over in cars, if he would take them, I would be honored to give them."
"I don't know what the law says on that," he added. "I have suggested that, why should we stop at people who cross the border illegally?"
Podcaster and former Obama administration staffer Jon Favreau said Trump's remarks could be summed up as: "He wants to send American citizens to a foreign gulag."
Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which permits the U.S. government to detain and deport noncitizens during wartime, to expel 238 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they are being held in the country's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). About two dozen people who were originally from El Salvador were also sent to the prison, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a Maryland man who had legal protected status, was not convicted of a crime, and had previously received a court order barring the U.S. from deporting him to his home country for fear of persecution and torture.
Trump said several times in his comments Sunday that he was unsure of the legality of sending U.S. federal prison inmates to a foreign prison system.
In February, after Bukele first offered to imprison U.S. citizens, Lee Gelernt of the ACLU told NPR that the idea was a "non-starter."
"You may not deport a U.S. citizen, period," Gelernt, deputy director of the group's Immigrants' Rights Project, told the outlet. "The courts have not allowed that, and they would not allow it... It would be blatantly unconstitutional to deport a U.S. citizen."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also touted Bukele's offer at the time, calling it "an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country."
Trump's remarks on potentially expanding his deal with the Salvadoran president to include U.S. citizens followed U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis's order mandating the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S. with a deadline of 11:59 pm Monday.
Xinis on Sunday rejected the administration's request to lift the order, saying Abrego Garcia's expulsion had been "wholly lawless" and that the "risk of harm shocks the conscience."
On Monday, the administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block Xinis' order, saying her demand that the White House adhere to the Constitution was "district-court diplomacy" and accusing the judge of trying to "seize control over foreign relations."
The administration has attacked the district court in Washington, D.C. in recent days over the order, with homeland security adviser Stephen Miller calling on Congress last week to "step up" and abolish the panel by refusing to fund it.
The White House has called Abrego Garcia's expulsion and imprisonment in El Salvador an "administrative error" and claimed the Maryland father is no longer under U.S. jurisdiction, so the administration cannot order him to be returned.
"We suggest the judge contact President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt last week.
Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins said that under the same logic, "there is also nothing that prevents them from shipping American citizens to a gulag in El Salvador and saying, 'Nothing we can do.'"
Hope people understand the trajectory that we’re on: if the executive is arguing that it has no recourse once people here end up in a prison in El Salvador, then that’s the precedent for there being no recourse when this starts happening to United States citizens.
[image or embed]
— Alexander Ross (@alexander-ross.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 7:03 PM
As Trump expressed interest in expelling U.S. citizens to a foreign prison system, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council pointed out that the details of the White House's deal with Bukele have not been publicly disclosed.
"We literally know nothing about it, other than we're paying them $6 million," said Reichlin-Melnick. "No law in the United States authorizes us to pay another country to imprison people. And yet! They're doing it."
Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director for Detention Watch Network, told Newsweek Monday that the deal with Bukele is being used "as a tool of propaganda with the core objective to dehumanize and villainize people while carrying out their cruel mass detention and deportation agenda unchecked."
"Bottom line, Trump and Bukele's partnership deepens collaboration with authoritarian leaders," said Ghandehari, "further jeopardizing democratic values in the U.S. and around the world."
"The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia's repression playbook concerning Palestine."
In an op-ed dictated to his attorney from a detention facility in Louisiana, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil late last week condemned the Ivy League institution's complicity in the Trump administration's targeting of Palestinian rights advocates and campus dissent more broadly.
Khalil, who has said he is a political prisoner, argued in the Friday op-ed that Columbia "laid the groundwork for my abduction" last month by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. The Trump administration's detention of and effort to deport Khalil—who helped lead student protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—have sparked widespread alarm and backlash, much of it directed at Columbia.
"The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia's repression playbook concerning Palestine," Khalil wrote, pointing to the recent arrests of other international students who have spoken out in support of Palestinian rights.
Writing in the university's daily student newspaper, Khalil noted that "Columbia has suppressed student dissent under the auspices of combating antisemitism," an approach also taken by the Trump administration, which said the arrest of Khalil was carried out in alignment with the president's "executive orders prohibiting antisemitism."
"This institution's singular concern has always been the vitality of its financial profile, not the safety of Jewish students. This is why Columbia was all too happy to embrace a superficial progressive agenda while still disregarding Palestine, and this is why it will soon turn on you, too," he warned. "If there was any illusion left, it shattered last week when the board of trustees executed a historic maneuver to seize direct control of the presidency. Cutting out their middleman, the board appointed fellow trustee Claire Shipman to a position reserved for academic leadership. Who can still pretend this is an educational institution and not the 'Vichy on the Hudson'?"
"Faced with a movement for divestment they couldn't crush, your trustees opted to set fire to the institution they're entrusted with," Khalil continued. "It is incumbent upon each of you to reclaim the university and join the student movement to carry forward the work of the past year."
Khalil and his legal team are currently fighting the Trump administration's effort to remove him from the country. Earlier this month, a second federal judge rejected the Trump administration's request to transfer Khalil's case to Louisiana, a demand that civil liberties advocates decried as a ploy to "manipulate federal court jurisdiction" in order to receive a favorable ruling.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union—which is representing Khalil—stressed in an NBC News op-ed last week that Khalil "has never been accused, charged, or convicted of any crime."
"The Trump administration is sending a message to everyone in America: If you dare to disagree with the president, you will be punished," Lieberman wrote, alluding to a fight over federal funding. "Columbia was just the first target. Harvard and Princeton are now in danger of similar treatment. This is a full-scale attack on the system of free inquiry, discussion, and debate that is at the core of higher education, which is so crucial to the strength of our democracy."