When is it appropriate to commit someone to life in prison without trial and without recourse?

Never.

Indeed, the conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2004 legal decision that “the very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive.”

So far this year, however, under the express direction of our President, more than 200 people have been arrested and sent without trial, sentence or recourse to a concentration-camp prison in El Salvador. Where is the loud and continuous roar of disapproval from Congress and the Judiciary against this illegal imprisonment without trial?

Let us be clear, these are not “deportations” in which people are simply sent back from where they came. The Trump administration is using taxpayer dollars to pay a dictator in El Salvador to lock people up in prison — without trial — and throw away the key. We have been told by the president that these are violent criminals and gang members, although investigations by news organizations have found that most do not have any significant criminal record.

If an undocumented person has committed a violent crime in our country, we can use our legal system to convict them and imprison them for a defined sentence in our own country, and then deport them. We are told by President Trump that they are illegally in our country and “undeserving of a trial.” Very well, then we can deport them under previously existing procedures that do not require a trial. But we cannot simply send them to a foreign prison without trial or conviction.

That is illegal, and the order of a president cannot make it legal.

We must demand the release of all these individuals, not because they are necessarily innocent, but because they have not been proven guilty. We should demand their return to the United States not because we necessarily want them in our country, but because we violated our own laws when we sent them to a foreign prison. Our president is obligated to follow the law, not make the law.

The president’s words are that “we need to get these people out of our country,” but his action is sending them to prison without trial. Is this illegal foreign imprisonment really all about making the country safer, or is it to create a culture of fear, and normalize imprisonment without trial?

Regardless of our political opinions on immigration, we the people must loudly say no — this will not be allowed! We must call and write our elected representatives, and we must take to the streets in unarmed, non-violent, but determined and unyielding protest.

Contact your representatives. Make a sign and join the protests. The next nationwide protest is on May 1. You don’t have to be a liberal. You just have to believe in Liberty and Justice for All.

Bryan Long is a Maury Island resident and active member of Vashon Indivisible.