I do not like the way this is going. I remember growing up in a neighborhood where one fellow who lived a block away was shipped off for ten years. We were told he went insane one evening, but he came back quieter, older, and pretty broken. The prison did not fix him, it simply paused his life for a while, and so when I listen to a president, of all people, talk about sending American citizens to foreign prisons, it feels kinda off to me.
When Trump says "homegrowns are next" as a joke, it doesn't sound like policy, it sounds like a threat, and sure, people did laugh, but when you think about it, that makes it all the worse. Because if jokes like these are met with nods and laughter in seats of power, they're no longer jokes, they're agendas.
I understand crime happens.
Human beings do terrible things, and there is punishment, but when you start to think about sending American citizens overseas to other prison systems, it is no longer justice, it is exile and exile is not law and order it is erasure. Some people will say it’s a bluff, and maybe it is, but I’ve learned to take powerful people seriously when they speak casually because casual words become policy drafts, then they become proposals, then they become normalized.
The horrifying gets bureaucratic.
I just can't stop thinking about that term "homegrown," man that label's always been elusive. What does it mean when the state gets to decide who's "grown from home" and who gets to remain? I've witnessed neighborhoods that have been deemed as problematic due to the way rowdy their kids are, or what their cars look like, or how they look, so yeah, I don't believe in the way that label would be used.
And Bukele's response, "we've got space," only makes the proposal sound more plausible, as if already something is already in the making. I don't know, maybe it's all politically staged or just me being too paranoid.