Even the worst Americans are Americans; keep them in U.S. prisons

David Fields, Viet Vo, and I leave the Joliet Prison complex. Photo: Gerald Farinas.

News that the U.S. President is considering sending American citizens to offshore prisons like CECOT in El Salvador should set off alarm bells for everyone — not just bleeding hearts, but patriots too.

Some say, “They did the crime, they should do the time, no matter where that prison is.”

That sounds tough.

It’s also lazy — and dangerous.

Citizenship isn’t a prize you lose when you fall from grace.

It’s a bond — a promise that even when you’re at your worst, your country won’t stoop lower.

Throughout history, regimes that decided some people weren’t “worthy” of basic rights opened doors to horrors.

Nazi Germany ran prison camps outside its borders to avoid accountability.

Britain locked up colonial subjects offshore to silence them.

They all started with the same excuse: They don’t deserve protection.

Today, offshore prisons like CECOT brag about efficiency but operate with torture, mass detentions, and no real legal process.

Sending U.S. citizens there would be an abdication of everything the Constitution demands of us.

We don’t outsource justice.

We don’t export our citizens like garbage.

We deal with our own — because that’s what makes us better than the tyrants and the cowards.

If the government can decide that one group of citizens loses their rights after conviction, what’s to stop them from targeting the next?

Protesters?

Journalists?

Political opponents?

You?

We don’t defend the rights of prisoners because we like them.

We defend them because once rights become conditional, none of us are safe.

Even the worst Americans are still Americans. And we fight for their rights — or we lose our own.