Forcing the question.

What opinions are we allowed to hold in Trump's America?

Hey y’all,

A gay makeup artist. A brother with an autism awareness tattoo. A father and husband caught in an “administrative error.” These are just a handful of the people Donald Trump has kidnapped and deported to an El Salvadorian prison camp without due process and in direct defiance of a federal court order.

According to CNN, the Trump administration “conceded in a court filing Monday that it mistakenly deported a Maryland father to El Salvador ‘because of an administrative error’ and argued it could not return him because he’s now in Salvadoran custody.” What this means is that the Trump administration has admitted in court to deporting a man who in 2019 was granted protected status by an immigration judge, prohibiting his removal to El Salvador. The Trump regime did exactly that and now refuses to undo it, even while acknowledging that this man should never have been taken in the first place.

That is chilling.

I have watched in abject horror as the Trump regime has begun disappearing dissidents and rounding up brown people by their own admission for no good reason. Why Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the legal resident from Maryland caught up in the “administrative error” and now indefinitely a prisoner in a country a United States judge found he would be in danger should he be returned, was targeted is anybody’s guess. Vice President JD Vance lied on Twitter/X, contradicting the administration’s own admission in court when he says that the man is a “convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here” and that “it’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize.”

I mean, sure, if that were happening it would be gross. It’s not though. Abrego Garcia is not a gang member, at least as far as the court is concerned. Just because the Vice President says so doesn’t make it true, no matter how many MAGA faithful claim otherwise. Reality is still reality. The Constitution is still the Constitution. Rights still exist.

One of those rights is due process, one in which the accused gets to face their accusers – in this case the government – and receive a fair hearing in a court of law. The Trump regime has abandoned due process, though, deporting people for as frivolous a reason as a tattoo or, in the case of Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, writing an op-ed which apparently according to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE was her engaging “in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation that relishes the killing of Americans.”

Please, read the op-ed itself and tell me if you truly believe this is a woman “supporting Hamas.” Because to me, this is simply a woman expressing solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Only a maliciously bad faith reading would infer support for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel is tantamount to support for a terrorist organisation – and I say that someone who is on the record as being against the BDS movement!

If criticizing Israel is now the same as materially supporting Hamas or other terrorist organizations, the Trump regime ought to come out and say it. The same is true if tattoos are all it takes to be deported as a gang member. I say this as an American citizen, but one whose passport expired in November and doesn’t have ready access to my birth certificate. It’s entirely plausible I could be detained for not having proof of citizenship. Given I make my living by writing my opinions for the internet – op-eds – and the fact that I’m considering getting a tattoo, I genuinely would like to know which opinions I’m allowed to have and what tattoo designs are permitted under this regime.

No, really. It’s time to force the question. What are the state-approved opinions we are allowed to hold? It isn’t fair to expect people to read this regime’s mind. There ought to be some clarity so well-meaning individuals do not run afoul of the MAGA party line and find themselves in a Salvadoran prison camp, by “administrative error” or not.

I’m asking the Trump regime on behalf of all journalists, all activists, all people who post on social media. What are we allowed to believe? What are we allowed to say? What are we allowed to put on our bodies? What are we allowed to wear? If we want to avoid being imprisoned or deported for exercising our First Amendment rights, what limits should be obey?

What is acceptable to say and believe in the United States of America?

If this sounds absurd to you, that is because it is absurd. Six months ago the thought that expressing an opinion online would lead to you being disappeared by federal agents was laughable. Today, it’s the reality for not just Rümeysa Öztürk but hundreds of people – if not thousands – already caught up in this regime’s mass deportation scheme and denial of Constitutional rights.

So far the regime has only come for legal residents. Be not mistaken, though: Trump will come for citizens once he’s certain he can get away with it. I’m not safe, but neither are you.

It’s time then that we ask these tough questions. If I get a tattoo of a burgundy and ivory ribbon for head and neck cancer awareness, will it be misconstrued as a gang symbol? What about a pigeon? A hammer and sickle? A Jerusalem cross? Asking that one for Pete Hegseth, of course.

And am I okay to write about my disagreements with the Trump regime on trade policy? Or could that be considered aiding and abetting the enemy? If I write favourably about Canada, am I seditious? Was Jeffrey Goldberg seditious for publishing the scoop of the century handed to him on a silver platter by this administration’s incompetence? If Childish Gambino released “This is America” today, would he be arrested?

These are not hyperbolic questions. If the rule of law is suspended, if due process is abandoned and people can be picked up on the streets simply because they have the wrong tattoo or wrote an op-ed the federal government doesn’t like, then they are urgent questions requiring answer. The American people deserve, at the bare minimum, to know what the state-approved opinions are so that they can ensure they do not incidentally run afoul of this executive branch which insists on being judge, jury, and executioner in defiance of our Constitution.

So I ask MAGA world. I ask Donald Trump. What are we, the people, allowed to believe and to say? What opinions are approved by the government? What is the official state line? And what is the punishment for not toeing it?

Y’all be blessed,

x. Skylar