Speaking of the important legal principle that is "because I said so," Trump's Border Czar and noted Fury Road villain Tom Homan recently responded to questions about who determines if a person targeted for deportation is in a gang and how do they do so, with almost literally - "just trust us bro."

https://truthout.org/articles/trump-border-czar-ices-word-is-enough-to-prove-someones-a-gang-member/

Trump Border Czar: ICE’s Word Is Enough to Prove Someone’s a Gang Member

"Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s so-called “border czar,” has said that nothing more than the word of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent is needed to prove that a noncitizen living in the U.S. is a gang member, and thus subject to deportation.

Trump signed an executive order earlier this year asserting his right to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport immigrants living in the U.S. if they are deemed by the administration to be violent gang members. Hundreds of migrants have been deported on that basis, even though an analysis by CBS News found that nearly three-quarters of the people sent to a prison in El Salvador had no criminal record at all.

Those who have been deported have largely been denied their due process rights, which would have allowed them to argue against being indiscriminately labeled as a gang member by the administration.

In an interview with Axios that was published on Tuesday, Homan appeared to dismiss those concerns, claiming, without evidence, that even those with no criminal history are members of violent gangs."

My favorite Trump regime stories are the ones where you can tell the government is lying, but even if they weren't their excuses wouldn't matter anyway.

Homan wants us to believe that ICE is doing "deep dive" investigative work into whether or not migrants targeted as part of a human trafficking scheme to ship people to a slave labor prison in El Salvador, are members of a gang; which would be pretty implausible if you looked at how fast they're finding and deporting people, but becomes almost laughable when the regime is openly admitting it just deported an innocent man who had a judge's order protecting him from deportation a little over a week ago. I'm sure there were a crack squads of Gestapo investigators working around the clock on making sure these were gang members when they deported *checks notes* the soccer player with a Real Madrid tattoo, and the guy with an autistic brother and an autism acceptance movement tattoo as well; gimme a break. The entire line of argument was also rendered irrelevant however when Homan admitted, in the same interview, that it's just vibes:

"But ultimately, he said, if an ICE agent suspected someone of being in a gang, that was all the evidence needed.

“ICE is the principal arbiter” in making these determinations, Homan said."

Of course, all of this ignores that no matter how objectionable we may find gangs in our society, it's not actually illegal to be in a gang - which will be news to racist police officers all over the country, but isn't to the District Attorneys who prosecute actual crimes. Furthermore, let us remember that these human trafficking flights (people are being kidnapped, transported to a slave labor prison, and money is changing hands) are themselves being justified by a wholly made up invasion, by a gang with reportedly less than a thousand people in the United States, that is sekretly a terrorist arm of the Venezuelan government pretty much entirely because Trump said so in an executive order; nothing about this fascist shitshow is based on facts, evidence, or reality.