Kidnapped. Disappeared. Normalized.

Extremist behavior and governance for control of Dissent Speech and Activity is nothing new for the U.S. and its allies. Normalization of extremism has made it this way. It doesn't have to be.

Image of inside of CECOT, El Salvador’s mega-prison. Courtesy of Reuters photo-log article, “Inside El Salvador’s mega-prison where U.S. criminals could be held” on February 6, 2025.

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Before I start: I am not an attorney. I may be incorrect in my opinions presented below on legal matters. I am presenting this from a citizen’s point-of-view, and as my opinion, only. No legal advice is being given.

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Kidnapping under the pretense of Immigration & Violations of Free Speech

Citizens have been watching a crime perpetuated by the U.S. Federal Government for more than two months now. This should be being made clear by the Legacy Media, or Main Stream Media (MSM). I have yet to hear it mentioned specifically.

What’s the crime? Kidnapping. While I understand immigration law to be complex, and oftentimes void of the same principles as other areas of law enforcement, there really should not be any doubt the following constitutes kidnapping: pulling up in an unmarked vehicle with masked unidentified individuals and abducting a person in a public space. Kidnapping, as defined by U.S. Law, per Cornell Law School:

18 U.S. Code § 1201 - Kidnapping

(a) Whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person, except in the case of a minor by the parent thereof, when—

The majority of the abductions are violent, with some of the persons being detained appearing completely cooperative and peaceful, yet very confused. The abductees are nabbed off the streets by Federal Agents in every day street clothes, showing no identification of being law enforcement, and fully masked — in several instances. While in the same moment, completely blind-siding people with physical altercations as they’re going about their daily activities.

In other words: every day citizens going about their daily lives in a normal, peaceful, manner: driving kids to school, walking down the sidewalks, etc., are being snatched and grabbed, violently, and thrown into unmarked cars. They are then taken to holding sites and charged with whatever the Federal Agency has supposedly ID’d them as perpetrating.

After the acts of Kidnapping, there is often lapse in time where no one — lawyers, family, etc. — can contact the persons, and the persons are unable to contact anyone. The individuals are “Disappeared” by the Federal Government, without Due Process, as noted in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. Originally, this is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, Article I. Section 9. “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it”.

I do not believe writing op-eds, exercising free speech via protests, or any other activities are what the Founding Fathers meant by their original language placed in the Constitution. I also do not believe any of the those activities meet the definitions outlined as excusing the Privilege.

Video of the Kidnapping of Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30 year-old Graduate Student at Tufts University. Courtesy of Middle East Eye.

This behavior is unconstitutional, terrifying, and completely abnormal. And it is being imposed by a Federal Agency appearing to act with complete impunity and/or unaccountability for their actions. This is the reality of migrants in the U.S., sadly.

However, the behavior is not stopping with migrants, and is instead being imposed by Marco Rubio on Student Visa holders, who have simply exercised their First Amendment rights. Yes, the Kidnappings are not only being justified against migrants, but against individuals who are responsibly exercising their right to Free Speech.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment, by Supreme Court definition, extends to any persons on U.S. soil. The Courts have complicated this matter over the years and the enactment of Colonial-era Laws by Trump via Executive Order has made matters worse. The laws would be The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and The Sedition Act of 1798. Both are part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.

These were wartime acts of a Colonial-era and should have been completely retracted from the legal records. Both Democrats and Republicans failed the citizenry here. Another bipartisan failure because both establishment parties want to be able to control the public when either one “deems it necessary”. This would be why the Courts are stepping in, instead of the Congressional Legislatures.

The Supreme Court had said in April that deportations could proceed only if those about to be removed had a chance to argue their case in court and were given "a reasonable time" to contest their pending removals.

On Friday, April 18th, 2025, Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson released a statement concerning the whole matters on immigration at this time, including the return of US citizen, Abrego Garcia from El Salvador’s CECOT prison. Judge Wilkinson warns of the “extraordinary” relief the administration is seeking. This further leans into the abnormality the administration is trying to Normalize. Judge Wilkinson’s full statement should be read by every citizen who values any semblance of the Rules of Law:

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

On Saturday, April 19th, 2025, sanity appears to have gripped the Supreme Court and a new ruling has been issued, halting the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The ACLU had made an Emergency Filing on Friday, which the Court undertook, in an abnormal ruling. Thankfully. The Normalization gripping the actions of the current Administration are likely going to require more of these abnormal acts before being quelled.

What’s this all about? Normalization and Control.

This is about Normalizing the stripping of Constitutional Rights. For now, the actions are seemingly only aimed at migrants and Student Visa Holders. However, the range of “Dissent speakers” will likely be extended to all U.S. Citizens, and this should not only be worrisome; this should terrify all citizens.

Normalizing this type of activity is simply about the Control of any “dissent speech” against the actions of the current administration. After all, even Trump’s own supporters are having a hard time coming to terms with this.

This is the level of extremism being Normalized for Control.

Beyond just Normalization, I think everyone should ask themselves a couple more focused questions: What happens when the current Administration is finished causing massive damage to our Constitutionally protected Rights, and the next Administration takes over? How does this all play out in the future?

The CATO Institute has a very good article on why this should terrify EVERY U.S. CITIZEN.

Zooming out from those direct effects on speech, this assault on noncitizens undermines the moral and philosophical foundations that are necessary for a robust defense of free speech for U.S. citizens. The administration’s defenders cannot explain why free speech is good for Americans but bad for noncitizens, so they just revert to the argument that the government has the power to crack down on dissident speech, so it should, because it is obvious that we shouldn’t want “adverse” speech in America.

But once we accept that the government knows The Truth and should enforce The Truth with guns, why should its efforts be limited only to noncitizens? Clearing the house of problematic noncitizen speakers won’t solve the problem of “bad speech,” since the number of “deluded” U.S. citizens outnumber the deluded noncitizens by an order of magnitude.

It is no surprise, then, that President Trump’s administration is threatening U.S. citizens’ free speech rights in many other ways, such as: threatening arrests of people who inform noncitizens of their constitutional rights, filing shakedown lawsuits against media companies, attacking law firms that defend unpopular clients, canceling contracts in states where governors have criticized Trump, threatening sanctions against media companies for negative coverage of him, banning disfavored media from the White House, and sanctioning federal contractors for use of the words “diversity, equity, or inclusion.”

The administration’s assault on noncitizen speech reveals a much deeper problem. A significant portion of the American public has simply forgotten the value of free speech entirely, and that’s the biggest threat to free speech of all.

Emphasis on the last sentence of the quote.

Where is the precedent coming from?

The U.S. does not really need any other precedent for this type of behavior. The government’s own historical punting of Constitutional Rights whenever it wants to run rampant — See FDR’s Executive Order 9066 — Japanese-American Internment Camps, Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback”, Bush’s “Patriot Act” — among many other examples, are more than sufficient. However, there is an ally who has Normalized Kidnapping and Disappearing persons of Dissent.

Israel has a long and sordid history of arresting Palestinians without cause, not allowing the individual any type of contact with a lawyer, family, etc. “Disappearing”, then, holding them for extended periods of time in administrative detention. This means no Due Process. Often times the Palestinians are held for decades without any charges from the Israeli government. If there are charges drummed up, the imprisonments are even worse. Torture is frequently used. The practices are horrifying. Amnesty International outlined both in a November 2023 report, along with noting decades of the practices. To say everything has only worsened would be an understatement. There has been no accountability for Israel, for decades. Therefore, acting with impunity is normal in the eyes of Israeli and U.S. citizens.

This is the point of “Normalization”: To let extremist behavior continue to escalate while the public simply, “goes along to get along”. A.k.a. — “meh, what can I do?”

Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention – detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely – which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October.

Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa

The beating to the rest of my body did not stop, at one point he started jumping on my back – three or four times – while yelling ‘die, die you trash’ … in the end before this finally stopped, another officer urinated on my face and body while also yelling at us ‘to die’.

A victim attacked by Israeli settlers and military in East Ramallah

Israeli authorities have also subjected thousands of Palestinians from Gaza with permits to enter Israel, mostly workers, to a third form of arbitrary detention where they were held incommunicado for at least three weeks on two military detention bases in Israel and the West Bank. Many were released, however, there is no transparency from Israeli authorities around how many are still detained.

“Israeli authorities must immediately reverse the inhumane emergency measures imposed on Palestinian prisoners and grant them immediate access to their lawyers and families. All Palestinians arbitrarily detained must be released. We urge Israel to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to conduct urgent visits to prisons and detention facilities and to monitor conditions for Palestinian detainees,” said Heba Morayef.

The imperial boomerang effect has come home to roost.

The United States public has become completely numb and complacent (Normalized) when it comes to our Government’s involvement in these types of Kidnappings and Disappearing of persons, overseas. This is a big problem, and I have talked about why in a past article. The “imperial boomerang effect”. If you are unfamiliar, Verso has a great series on the subject.

the ‘imperial boomerang effect’ is a term for the way in which empires use their colonies as laboratories for methods of counter-insurgency, social control and repression, methods which can then be brought back to the imperial metropolis and deployed against the marginalised, subjugated and subaltern within.

Normalization of the behaviors of our Government and our allies overseas, made current domestic behaviors possible. Citizens have become lazy and complacent, while justifying atrocities has become everyday practice. This is a very slippery slope because it does not apply solely to acts of war, but also to arrests and detention practices.

Some kids got killed, I’ll just go mow the lawn.

Some man was raped in a prison across the sea, nothing I can do.

Some women and children were burned to death, well, I have to get to work.

Take a moment to let that sink in. Because I can almost guarantee most citizens have made those comments (or similar) in their heads without giving it a second thought.

This is what Normalization has created. And those activities are not “normal”.

Due to this type of shirking of any personal responsibility for foreign affairs, most citizens have allowed for these behaviors, almost unknowingly. Without taking actions against or speaking out against them, citizens willingly give their consent for atrocious behaviors to be Normalized. Now, the imperial boomerang has come home to roost.

Now, the U.S. government is shipping individuals to an El Salvador Concentration Camp and good ol’ Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay), while the sitting President was caught on a ‘hot mic’ telling the President of El Salvador:

“Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”

Citizens, on both sides of the aisle, need to wake up. “Home-growns are next”. Does that mean you? Does that mean me?

And if so, how long and when until you or I are: Kidnapped, Disappeared, and it’s completely Normalized?

This is not about what side of the aisle you sit on, how you feel about immigration, or how you feel about the atrocities being committed in West Asia by both Israel and the U.S. in Occupied Palestine and Yemen. This is about being informed. This is about being aware.

This is about stopping our own personal complacency and complicity in Human Rights violations — at-home and abroad.

This is about stopping the Normalization of severely abnormal behaviors before everyday citizens become the victims of the very behaviors we are unwittingly allowing to become normal.