MAGA's warlord scheme should shock the hell out of you

[dalton99a]

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/donald-trump-immigration-2671919911/

https://www.archive.ph/gMkJK

MAGA's warlord scheme should shock the hell out of you
Thom Hartmann
May 9, 2025 6:01AM ET

America stands at a moral precipice, and we’re about to tumble over the edge. The Trump administration is now planning to transport immigrants on U.S. military planes to detention centers in a warlord-controlled part of Libya, a decision that reveals how far we’ve strayed from our foundational values and basic human decency.

If this shocks you, it sure as hell should. The news broke this week that the administration is preparing to send migrants to Libya on military flights as early as Friday. And this isn’t just another policy announcement from the daily outrage factory; it’s the latest escalation in a deliberate strategy of cruelty that began during Donald Trump’s first term.

The timing is no coincidence. Just last week, Saddam Haftar — yes, that’s his actual name — the son of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, visited Washington and met with Trump advisors including Massad Boulos (Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law) at the State Department. The younger Haftar commands eastern Libya’s land forces and represents his father’s self-styled “Libyan National Army” militia.

This isn’t even the official government of Libya that the Trump family is doing business with; it’s the half of the country that’s run by a warlord who the UN doesn’t recognize!

But let’s back up and ask the most fundamental question: Why the hell are we sending immigrants to prison at all, instead of simply deporting them back to their countries of origin like Obama did?

Crossing the border without authorization is primarily a civil violation, not a criminal offense worthy of imprisonment. These aren’t violent criminals; they’re people seeking safety, work, or a better life. Many were literally fleeing for their lives. Yet instead of processing and returning them through established deportation channels and procedures, Trump is creating a shadow penal system outside of normal judicial oversight. But why?

The answer, as with so many things in this administration, appears to be a toxic blend of profit, politics, and purposeful cruelty.

....

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The migrants Trump wants to send to Libya are nationals of Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/07/trump-libya-deportation-flight-00333968


Saddam Haftar, chief of staff of the land forces of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces


Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman who is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany and Trump's senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs

[SheltieLover]

1. Wait until all these folks start suing for wrongful imprisonment

Another was tsf's plans will continue to bankrupt the US for decades.

Just surreal that he is using these people to grift even more!

[Ocelot II]

4. If you're stuck in a Libyan prison you're not going to be suing anyone, ever.

Those people are completely without any remedy or recourse, which is exactly the point.

[dalton99a]

5. +1. Most likely a slave camp in the Libyan desert

[SheltieLover]

7. No doubt.

[littlemissmartypants]

18. Or working in a Boulos factory quicker than two shakes of a donkey's tail. ...

Iirc, he's in the motorcycle industry.

[SheltieLover]

6. Right, but they might be released under a future admin, or families could bring action

[robbob]

14. I'm afraid at this point the plan is

that there will not be any “future administrations”. Or at least, no future non-MAGA administrations.

[SheltieLover]

15. I'm sure that is their plan, but will they get away with it?

[Irish_Dem]

2. Trump does this for profit, cruelty, and aligning with the nastiest world dictators.

[Ocelot II]

3. I have wanted an answer to this basic question: Why are they not just deporting these people?

Why are they sending them to foreign prisons instead of just returning them to their home countries, which is what deportation normally means? The answer, as it so often seems to be with Trump, is to make money and to do it in the worst and nastiest possible way.

[SheltieLover]

8. Prison for profit grift

[live love laugh]

13. Just like here ....

[markodochartaigh]

20. The Trump administration is

sending people out of the country without hearings. People who have not even been legally accused of a crime. People who have been granted in court the right to stay here. A child, who is a US citizen, under treatment for life-threatening illnesses. People are not being sent to their home countries. They are being sent to random countries headed by authoritarian Strong Leaders. They are being incarcerated in those countries. He is sending people out of the country IN VIOLATION OF COURT ORDERS, and not allowing their return IN VIOLATION OF COURT ORDERS.

But he is not sending huge numbers of people out of the country.

I don't think that our authoritarian Strong Leader's main point is to deport people, or to discourage people from coming here for asylum, work, etc.

I think that our authoritarian Strong Leader's main point is to prove that he can do whatever to whomever, and no one can stop him.

As bad as kidnapping people off the streets and sending them to foreign prisons without hearings is, I think that our authoritarian Strong Leader's main point is even worse.

[Ocelot II]

24. I'm afraid you're right.

[CrispyQ]

27. To open the door to doing it to citizens.

Oops. I see that door has already been tapped ajar.

[Solly Mack]

9. What to say that hasn't been said?

And what good would it do anyway?

[cayugafalls]

10. They want us afraid. F that.

Time to get busy, act locally.

Give our leaders in Washington something to inspire them.

Peace

[Layzeebeaver]

11. Cruelty is the point

I don't remember where I read that, but it stuck with me.

"cruelty is the point"

[1WorldHope]

12. This has to stop! These aren't even dangerous gang members.

They're mommies and daddies. They are our neighbors. This is such fucking bullshit! Somebody tell me what to do!

[CrispyQ]

28. "Somebody tell me what to do!"

I think we're all feeling that! Other than call my reps, boycott the system as much as possible, & show up at protests, IDK what more to do.

[1WorldHope]

29. It's so frustrating.

[littlemissmartypants]

16. Despicable!

[William Seger]

17. Stephen Miller is the force behind using cruelty as a deterrent to immigration

That pathetic little fascist micropenis is also the one responsible for the child separation policy in the 45 administration.

[orangecrush]

19. The opportunity was there to convict and jail them

At the end of his last term.


Apparently they bought their way out of that, and now we are paying the bill.

[markodochartaigh]

23. There was about a month

after the failed coup attempt when Trump's approval among Republicans dropped by half. Corporations said that they would not donate to any politician who supported the coup.

I think that during this window a vigorous prosecution would have yielded results.

But that old fool Merrick convinced the powers that be that the rule of law was strong in the US and that the guilty would be punished. For a while Republicans politicians and voters were fearful, Democratic politicians and voters were confident. Many of the criminal rabble were put away, but very few of the higher ups. Within a month the Republican voters sensed that Trump would not be held accountable and his approval returned to what it had been before his failed coup attempt. But most of the elite in the Democratic party kept their faith in the rule of law. Their faith was strong, never having personally experienced the law from the perspective of a poor person.

In the end the law is only as strong as those enforcing the law.

[dalton99a]

32. +1.

[orangecrush]

21. They are selling them into slavery

Human trafficking.

Fairly obvious.

[dalton99a]

22. +1

[58Sunliner]

25. Horrific.

[wendyb-NC]

26. What an odious plan

[msfiddlestix]

30. Actually, how can anyone who are remotely informed or witnessed firsthand U.S. torture chambers Iraq and G'tmo?

who here doesn't remember Abhu Graib? Of course there were, maybe still are many more not revealed to the public, but these two alone left a huge mark I had hoped would have been adjudicated and abolished henceforth but not the case. So no, not shocked.

[uponit7771]

31. Good thing MAGA are so fuckin stupid