We interrupt your day to report that Trump’s border czar thinks tattoos are a criminal offense – We Received This Coated

It seems that below the Trump administration, your physique artwork would possibly simply get you deported. Sure, you heard that proper. Tattoos. Overlook violent legal information. Received a nasty tattoo? Effectively, welcome to the dystopian immigration enforcement playbook.

Throughout an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Tom Homan, the border czar for Trump,  defended utilizing tattoos as a key think about deporting folks, even when these people hadn’t been convicted of crimes. Wnder Homan’s logic, tattoos are apparently not artwork—they’re proof. Proof of what, precisely? Gang affiliation, in fact. As a result of, clearly, anybody with a tattoo is simply ready to hitch MS-13, proper?

‘You Can’t Ignore a Tattoo!’ Trump Border Czar Tom Homan Defends Tattoos as Grounds for Deportations in Testy Alternate With ABC’s Karl https://t.co/EozIDJ9UAe

— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) April 20, 2025

Homan defended this method by saying tattoos are “certainly one of many elements” immigration officers take into account when deciding if somebody is a part of a gang. However let’s be sincere—this can be a slippery slope that mainly greenlights racial profiling. In spite of everything, who decides which tattoos are “gang-related” and that are simply regrettable Saturday evening selections? Is there some form of federal tattoo decoder ring we’re not conscious of? Or are we simply winging it and hoping for the very best? The absurdity right here is staggering. What’s subsequent? Deporting folks for carrying the improper colour shirt or for listening to gangster rap? The logic is as skinny because the border czar’s persistence throughout that interview.

And the place, you would possibly ask, are these tattooed “threats to public security” being despatched? Oh, simply to a few of the most infamous prisons in El Salvador. These are overcrowded, violent hellscapes the place inmates typically languish indefinitely with out trial. For context (as a result of the Trump administration didn’t appear to care a lot for context), these prisons are notorious for his or her inhumane circumstances—assume mass jail cells the place inmates are crammed collectively like sardines, with little to no entry to primary requirements.

Lots of the folks deported to those prisons haven’t been convicted of any crimes within the U.S. They’re being despatched there based mostly on assumptions and circumstantial proof, just like the aforementioned tattoos. Primarily, the coverage boils all the way down to: “We assume you may be a gang member, so off you go to a spot the place you’ll in all probability by no means see the sunshine of day once more.” Deporting somebody to a harmful jail with out a correct listening to or stable proof is the sort of shortcut that sacrifices justice for the phantasm of safety.

All through the interview, Homan repeatedly deployed what I’ll name the “Private Expertise Defend,” a rhetorical machine the place one’s particular person experiences are introduced as trump playing cards that render all different concerns moot. “I’ve talked to younger ladies as younger as 9 who have been raped by members of those gang cartels,” Homan recounted. “I’ve held lifeless our bodies all through my profession.” These experiences are undoubtedly traumatic and actual. Gang violence is a real drawback deserving critical consideration. However right here’s the factor: traumatic private experiences, regardless of how real, don’t droop constitutional protections or worldwide human rights norms

I’d snort if folks’s lives weren’t actually hanging within the steadiness. The reality is, there’s a purpose we have now due course of. There’s a purpose we don’t enable authorities officers, regardless of how well-intentioned or skilled, to behave as choose, jury, and executioner based mostly on their intestine emotions about tattoos. These causes are referred to as “civilization” and “primary human rights.” And if that makes me a bleeding-heart liberal, then cross the Band-Aids. No less than my coronary heart’s nonetheless beating.