Donald Trump’s boundary-pushing campaign to summarily deport suspected Venezuelan gang members to a notorious Salvadorian prison has alarmed even Joe Rogan, despite the hugely popular podcaster being a usual backer of the president.
“You’ve gotta get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons,” Rogan said during an episode that aired over the weekend.
The podcaster called that possibility “horrific” and admitted sending non-criminals out of the country as part of the Trump administration’s attempts to crack down on the Tren de Aragua gang was “bad for the cause.”
During the conversation, alongside fellow podcaster Konstantin Kisin, Rogan appeared to reference the case of Andry Jose Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist who sought asylum in the U.S. after facing persecution for his sexuality and political views in Venezuela.
Hernandez Romero has denied any association with the Venezuelan gang, and was part of the way through getting his asylum claim accepted when he was deported without notice, according to his attorneys, as part of the Trump administration’s use of the emergency Alien Enemies Act to fast-track removals.
Multiple individuals who were among the hundreds removed from the country this month as part of the operation appear to have been deported over tattoos with relatively common motifs, including the Air Jordan logo, a crown, a star, and a rainbow autism awareness symbol.
The administration has acknowledged that “many” of the over 200 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador did not have a prior criminal record.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday conceded that the Venezuelans were not all necessarily members of Tren de Aragua, either. He called the group a “combination of people” whose presence is “not productive to the United States” and who were “removable” by law.
Further adding to the controversy over the deportations, the Trump administration carried out the flights on March 15 despite a court order telling the administration to turn the planes around, amid an ongoing lawsuit over the White House’s use of the wartime deportation law.
On Friday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to weigh in and allow them to resume such flights, arguing the president’s national security powers are being wrongly infringed.
