Trump is revoking Social Security cards, denying some immigrants the right to exist

FACE OUR FEARS: People are disappearing.

The Trump administration is taking back the Social Security numbers of some immigrants and others who have legal status here in the United States. Social Security numbers that were given to them lawfully.

People with legal status are having those cards revoked, which means they can’t apply for jobs, open a bank account, get a credit card or even rent an apartment. Without access to a social security card, it’s as if you don’t exist.

And isn’t that just what Trump and his Christian white nationalist regime want? To other people out of existence?

Let’s break this down:

So far, the Trump administration has shipped immigrants out to some of the most brutal detention camps in the world. Remember, just three weeks ago, 238 Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

CBS obtained a list of their identities and found that an overwhelming majority have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges.

Among them: a makeup artist, a soccer player and a food delivery driver, being held in a place so harsh that El Salvador's justice minister once said the only way out is in a coffin.

We also have legal immigrants – students – being held here in the US against their will in detention camps without due process – which is supposed to be afforded to ANYONE (documented or not) for exercising their right to free speech and writing op-eds in student newspapers:

1. NPR: A Louisiana immigration judge ruled Friday that activist Mahmoud Khalil can be deported.

   1. Reuters: Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested in New York City last month. Khalil, a prominent figure in the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that has roiled Columbia's New York City campus, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, holds Algerian citizenship and became a U.S. lawful permanent resident last year. Khalil's wife, Noor Abdalla, is a U.S. citizen. Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined last month that Khalil should be removed because his presence in the United States has "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences," citing a 1952 law called the Immigration and Nationality Act. Khalil and his lawyers have said the Trump administration was targeting him for speech that is protected under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment including the right to criticize American foreign policy.

2. From The Guardian: Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student who was detained by US immigration authorities last month, says she has had multiple asthma attacks since she was arrested and detained and has had difficulty getting medical attention. Öztürk, 30, was detained by masked, plainclothes officers as she walked in a Boston-area suburb on 25 March. A judge ordered that the Turkish national and doctoral student who was in the US on an F-1 student visa cannot be deported without a court order. But she remains detained at the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile. On Thursday, Öztürk’s attorneys asked the federal court in Vermont to release her – or to move her from Louisiana to Vermont – while her case is heard.

Reality Check: We cannot ignore what is happening.