Our Authoritarian Atrocity

ABSTRACT: March 26, 2025: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stands in front of the prison bars of an overcrowded cell at El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center. The scene is staged: Noem wears a $50,000 Rolex and a tight-fitting white shirt, while the men behind her have been ordered to stand, their own shirts and masks removed to display their body and face tattoos. (In El Salvador today gang members are discouraged from having tattoos, so these men are from a previous generation, chosen not because of present menace but to look threatening.) "Do not come to our country illegally," Noem says. "This facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people." The purpose of her appearance is to reinforce a story that links migrants to criminality, and to demonstrate Trump's willingness to use cruelty in response.