Joe Rogan has broken away from Trump regarding a crucial mass migration policy, criticizing the potential situation where innocent individuals might end up in a prison akin to a ‘hell on earth’ due to an error from the government.
The Trump administration’s move to utilize the wartime Alien Enemies Act to transfer numerous suspected gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador has led to legal actions and demonstrations.
Rogan’s disapproval of this action, particularly in light of allegations that innocent civilians were mistakenly treated as criminals, could represent a significant setback for the administration.
‘It’s horrific,’ he said.
‘You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons.
‘This is kind of crazy that that could be possible. That’s horrific. And that’s, again, that’s bad for the cause.
‘The cause is: Let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not, innocent gay hairdressers, get lumped up with the gangs.’
Rogan’s wildly successful podcast is credited with attracting young male voters to the MAGA movement, after Trump appeared in an episode during his presidential election campaign.
As such, his opinion on the administration’s policies has huge sway with his fanbase.
He has largely supported Trump’s sweeping acts in his first two months back in the White House, but Rogan drew the line during his Saturday episode with Konstantin Kisin.
There have been reports that some of the 238 immigrants who were swept up in the mass raids were wrongly identified.
One such case allegedly involves a gay man working as a barber, who arrived in the United States legally.
A Time Magazine report from the prison noted: ‘One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.”
The reporter said: ‘I believed him. But maybe it’s only because he didn’t look like what I had expected – he wasn’t a tattooed monster.’
Referencing the article, Rogan said: ‘How long before that guy can get out? Can we figure out how to get them out? Is there any plan in place to alert the authorities that they’ve made a horrible mistake and correct it?’
Rogan said he was disappointed in the current political climate, which appeared to be a case of: ‘never admit your fault. Never admit you’re wrong.’
‘And this is the thing we’re seeing with the Signal thing, and this is the thing we’re seeing with this,’ Rogan said, referring to the now infamous debacle involving senior US officials adding a journalist to a group chat discussing sensitive plans to attack Yemen.
In that case, Trump and senior officials refused to admit fault, lashing out instead at the journalist and accusing him of exaggerating what he was exposed to in the chat.
‘What is his life like in there man, what the f**k?’ Rogan said of the allegedly innocent barber.
A makeup artist seeking asylum in the US after fleeing Venezuela claims he was also wrongly identified as a gang member and sent to the hellhole prison.
Andrys Hernandez, 31, crossed the border into California from Tijuana last year to escape persecution for his homosexuality, his lawyers said.
He waited months in detention for an immigration court hearing on March 13, but instead was put one of three planes with 237 other migrants and deported.
Rogan said in situations like this mistakes are ‘100 percent’ going to be made, but there has to be an avenue to correct them, ‘and it can’t be bury your head in the sand.’
‘If you want reasonable people to be on board with you… compassionate people to be on board with you, you can’t deport gay hairdressers seeking asylum. That’s f**king crazy. That’s nuts.’
The Trump administration is also in a back-and-forth with the courts over the deportation.
Trump claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is invading the United States and invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows the president broader leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.
But Judge James Boasberg barred further deportations under the act’s authority and ordered flights in the air to return to the United States, which the administration failed to comply with.
The administration is now asking the Supreme Court to allow it to resume those deportations.
On Monday, the administration revealed it has deported 17 more ‘violent criminals’ from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs to El Salvador.
The State Department said the immigrants were removed Sunday night. The statement said murderers and rapists were among them but didn’t give details of the nationalities or alleged crimes of those removed.
The office of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, however, said Salvadorans and Venezuelans were among the prisoners.
‘These criminals will no longer terrorize our communities and citizens,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the statement.
‘Once again, we extend our gratitude to President Bukele and the government of El Salvador for their unparalleled partnership.’
The men were flown to El Salvador by the U.S. military, the State Department said.
As seen in video from the Salvadoran government, they were transported by bus to El Salvador’s maximum security prison, changed into the prison’s standard white T-shirts and shorts and had their heads shaven.
They were walked by guards into a cell block, the video shows, and some were made to kneel upon the floor with their wrists cuffed behind their backs and ankles shackled.
At the prison, the suspected gang members spend 23 and a half hours locked in overcrowded cells, with just 30 minutes to stretch – chained in the middle of the hallway.
Jail cells with steel bars are split among the eight cell blocks and can hold up to 100 detainees.
Each cell comes equipped with 80 bare iron bunks – mattresses are not included – along with two toilets and two sinks.
Within the cells, the temperature can reach a staggering 95 degree during the day, and there is no other source of ventilation.
Dubbed a ‘black hole of human rights’ and a ‘hellhole’ by critics, the facility has drawn widespread condemnation for allegedly ignoring international prisoner rights.
