FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

April 15, 2025

MEDIA CONTACT: 

e: jessica.myers@mail.house.gov

c: 202.913.0126

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09) issued the following statement:

“Among the limitless list of Donald Trump’s abuses, illegality, and cruelty, what this disgraceful president has engineered in El Salvador is an atrocity comparable only to America’s most mortal sins. Without convictions and, in many cases, without even trials, his administration expelled hundreds of men innocent in the eyes of the law to a foreign prison 3,000 miles from their families. However, in the eyes of Donald Trump, our laws are secondary to filling up his quota for human suffering. Let’s be clear: this is an existentially dangerous situation for our nation.

“Yesterday, this administration’s vile undertaking culminated in an Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador. There, we watched these two eager, up-and-coming dictators who are obsessed with keeping and accruing power fall abruptly powerless when asked if they’d abide by the United States Supreme Court’s unanimous order to save the life of an innocent man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Rather than admit their error in condemning Mr. Abrego Garcia to rot in El Salvador’s violent mega-prison, CECOT, they lied and maligned him as a ‘terrorist.’ They mocked the reporters who questioned their actions. And they feigned total exasperation that any court would have the authority to give them orders.

“In the same meeting, we also heard President Trump tell the small tyrant to his left that ‘Home-growns are next’ – a reference to his intention to inflict the same fate upon American citizens. What’s more, the president’s promise comes in the aftermath of his Administration’s proposed partnership with the despicable gang of mercenaries and war criminals known as Blackwater, which has volunteered to design their next phase of mass detention. In the context of this administration’s war against due process and the rights of everyone in this country to the presumption of innocence, these developments are deeply, deeply disturbing. 

“While this situation is already severely troubling, I am certain it will only continue to deteriorate without Congressional intervention. To my Republican colleagues, I ask you to stand up for justice and against authoritarianism. I ask you to commit yourself to the truth and to what is right. And, when you fail to answer, I ask: what will it take for you to say that innocent men do not have to die just so the president does not have to admit he’s wrong?

“We know the Trump Administration broke the law when it sentenced these men to a gulag in El Salvador. We know it’s breaking the law again by not even trying to overturn the death sentences it has passed. And, while I am haunted by what has transpired from the deliberate actions of this president and his administration, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is no longer a Constitutional crisis – it’s an all-out catastrophe. On the orders of this president, our foundational principle of “Innocent until proven guilty” is over. Donald Trump believes every and any American is either guilty today, or guilty tomorrow. Under this administration, it’s only a matter of time until our day comes.”

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