Nike’s Michael Jordan “Jump man” logo is among the tattoos and symbols on clothing that can flag people for federal government kidnapping, indefinite incarceration and deportation to a foreign prison without due process, in violation of the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, even if they are legally present in the U.S.
Convicted felon and President Trump has been using masked federal agents wearing plain clothes to kidnap people off of U.S. streets, even people who are in the country legally, and “disappear” them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers around the country, and in some cases, deporting them to a Salvadoran prison where they apparently have no hope of getting out. Trump is carrying out the kidnappings and incarcerations without giving victims any warning or the constitutionally-required due process of law.
Trump is using a fake “emergency” to kidnap & imprison people
On January 20 Trump declared a “national emergency” at the southern border saying an “invasion” exists, even though illegal border crossings have been trending down for months and reached their lowest point since 2020 in March, 2025. In his rhetoric, Trump repeatedly refers to immigration as
T-shirt for sale on Amazon. Amazon and its owner, Jeff Bezos, have given $1 million to Trump
“an invasion.” Trump is using this kind of rhetoric is not just to drum up fear among Americans. It’s part of a strategy to allow him to invoke the little-used Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law that confers powers upon the President that allow him to grab people at will and incarcerate them without due process. It’s the same law that President Franklin Roosevelt invoked during WWII to wrongly round up people of Japanese descent and imprison them in concentration camps on American soil. But the Alien Enemies Act can only be invoked after Congress declares war, and Congress has not declared war. There is no ongoing “invasion” as defined the Alien Enemies Act, either, so Trump is using the Act improperly.
Trump has also either willfully misinterpreted the Act or is mistaken about what an “invasion” actually is. The Alien Enemies Act refers only to actual acts of hostility by a foreign power, or an “invasion or predatory incursion” by a “foreign nation or government.“
No foreign nation or government has declared war on the U.S. No foreign nation has invaded the U.S. or carried out a “predatory incursion” on U.S. territory. The expanded Presidential powers the Alien Enemies Act confers are only available in the event of a literal armed attack on the United States accompanied by a congressional declaration of war. These powers are not to be used for a rhetorical or figurative “invasion,” the way Trump uses the word.
Despite this, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to evade Congressional oversight and enable him kidnap people off the street, disappear and imprison them in foreign prisons at his own whim, in violation of their Constitutional rights and without any legally-required due process.
The above video shows federal agents wearing plain clothes and face masks surrounding and kidnapping 30 year old Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish-born Ph.D. student and former Fulbright scholar who studies children’s media and childhood development. Ozturk is in the country legally. The government agents quickly whisked her away to a detention center 1,000 miles away, which made it hard for attorneys to find her and help her. Ozturk’s purported “crime” was co-authoring an op-ed that pled for “equal dignity and humanity of all people,” including Palestinians.
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says “no person shall be… deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” The law applies to all levels of government.
“Due process” means a person must be given notice or served with an arrest warrant prior to being detained, given a court hearing and the ability to see the evidence against them and present evidence in their own defense before they are deported and/or imprisoned. This is a core tenet of American law and it pertains to every person who is present in the U.S., not just American-born citizens.
All people on American soil are now subject to being kidnapped, detained and imprisoned
Lest you think you are safe because you were born in the U.S., Trump recently told the President of El Salvador that his administration is actively exploring ways to send American citizens to foreign prisons as well.
In fact, U.S.-born citizens are starting to be snatched and detained, too, not just immigrants.
U.S.-born citizen, Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, age 20, was recently pulled over, arrested and held by state authorities while driving from Georgia to Florida after he crossed the border into Florida. He was arrested under a new Florida law that makes it a crime for people who are in the country illegally to enter the state. Authorities misjudged Lopez Gomez from his appearance, stopped him, arrested and detained him and continued his detention even after his mother showed a judge her son’s birth certificate and the judge dismissed charges. He was only recently released.
An American couple returning to the U.S. from a trip to Canada reports they were stopped and detained by ICE agents and “treated like criminals” as they were crossing the border back into the United States.
The Trump regime has also been grabbing and detaining university students and others present in the U.S. legally because of social media posts, text messages they’ve sent, op-eds they’ve written or protests they’ve participated in, which are all speech protected under the First Amendment.
Tattoos and clothing are factors in the government’s judgment of who belongs foreign “terrorist” gangs
A Chicago Bulls hat flagged Kilmar Abrego Garcia for kidnapping and rendition to a foreign prison in El Salvador, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune, even though he was granted Protect Legal Status to be in the U.S. in 2019.
An April 16, 2025 article in the New York Times warns that Trump is relying heavily on people’s tattoos and clothing to identify them as gang members for deportation, even though tattoos are considered unreliable or weak evidence that someone has committed a crime. Wearing the wrong clothing can also get you in trouble. Clothing with the Michael Jordan “jump” logo on it, or a hat with a Chicago Bulls logo on it can flag you for unwanted attention by ICE agents and get you four points on the multi-point scale (pdf) ICE agents use to judge who is a foreign terrorist gang member.
Some of the tattoos flagging people for kidnapping include images of clocks, trains, crowns, stars, rifles and the Michael Jordan/Nike “jump man” logo seen at the top of this article.
Kidnappings, detention and rendition to foreign prisons are not just happening to illegal immigrants or people who have criminal records, either. People present in the U.S. legally and who have no criminal records in the U.S. or abroad are being kidnapped, detained and disappeared as well, for “offenses” like writing op-eds Trump doesn’t like, or for participating in protests against genocide in the middle east.
The physical display of any of the above tattoos or symbols, especially when combined with a hispanic surname, whether or not you have a criminal record, could flag you for possible kidnapping, detention and rendition to a foreign prison under the Trump regime.
The CBS News’ 60 Minutes program recently found that 75% of the 238 Venezuelan men that Trump had kidnapped and flown to the mega-prison in El Salvador have no criminal records, either in the U.S. or Venezuela:
(You can watch the full 13 minute long 60 Minutes episode here.)
Dozens of the 238 Venezuelan men recently kidnapped had active asylum cases and, according to Reuters News Service, 27 of them had pending immigration court dates. Ten of them were arrested as they showed up for their routine immigration check-ins, which means they were abiding by U.S. immigration laws.
After they were seized by federal agents, all 238 men were immediately labeled as Venezuelan gang members without any kind of hearing, and flown to the El Salvadoran prison within days of being snatched, all with no chance to contest the allegations against them in court. They remain unlawfully imprisoned in El Salvador and may have no way of getting out.
Trump can be stopped from violating people’s rights this way, but Congress must act
A Court ruled that Trump must turn around the planes that were taking the 238 men to the foreign prison, bring the men back to the U.S. and give them due process, but Trump ignored the court’s ruling and attacked the judge, calling him a “radial left lunatic of a judge, troublemaker and agitator” in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. Trump also then called for the judge’s impeachment, which elicited a rare public response from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said impeachment is not an appropriate response when one disagrees with a judicial decision. Rather, one must use the appellate process to appeal the decision.
The Court then found the Trump regime was likely in contempt of court for ignoring a Court order. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that anyone detained by the Trump regime must get due process, but Trump has been violating that order as well.
These illicit seizures aren’t the only dictatorial power Trump has seized improperly by declaring fake “emergencies.” He has similarly claimed an “economic emergency” exists and claims this allows him to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which lets him impose tariffs without conferring with Congress first. He is using that law to improperly impose massive tariffs that are roiling and upending the global economy. The tariffs will increase prices for U.S. consumers on everything from food to cars to building materials and more, and by doing this Trump has violated trade treaties and cost the United States trust and goodwill throughout the globe.
Under unified Republican Party rule, Congress has been ceding more and more power to Trump, thus eroding Congress’ own power to rein in Trump’s worst authoritarian excesses and leaving Americans open to losing their rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Congress can seize back power from the President by declaring that no actual emergencies exist, but so far Republicans haven’t had the backbone to take any action to save either democracy or the world economy.
A building on property in northwest G.J. displays a Nike “jump man” logo, which the Trump regime considers an indicator of belonging to a foreign terrorist gang. That, along with having a hispanic surname can draw the unwanted and dangerous attention of ICE agents.