News that President Donald Trump’s administration completed a prisoner swap with Venezuela didn’t sit well with one lawyer.
Michael Popok, a lawyer and co-founder of the “Legal AF” podcast, responded to the news in a YouTube video on Saturday. In the video, Popok said the methods the Trump administration used to conduct the swap should be alarming to average Americans.
“The United States just committed human trafficking, in violation of a federal judge’s orders,” Popok said. “This big announcement that we got 10 Americans out of Venezuela, but when you peel back the onion, you see how they did it.”
Last week, reports indicated that the Trump administration exchanged 250 Venezuelan migrants for 10 Americans who were jailed by the Venezuelan government. The Trump administration has focused on the top-line figures, but the methods they used to put the deal together are even more concerning, Popok argued.
“They took 250 people off the streets without due process, in the middle of the night, and they sent them all to El Salvador,” Popok said. “Then, claimed they didn’t have control over the El Salvadoran prison, which was a lie. Then, used their influence and their power over the 250 [Venezuelans] in El Salvador to broker a deal with Venezuela to get out 10 Americans.”
“We call that human trafficking,” Popok continued. “And, no. The ends don’t justify the means.”
Popok is not the only analyst who saw the event as scurrilous. The editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer said the deal was a “chilling reminder of Trump’s scorn for the rule of law.”
“Unless the administration is held accountable for the blatantly illegal way it upended these immigrants’ lives, the episode will mark a new low in America’s slide toward illiberal democracy under President Trump,” reads an editorial from Friday.