We need Nuremberg type trials
| DEAN OBEIDALLAH JUN 11, 2025 |
DHS Secty Kristi Noem in El Salvador Prison
After World War II, representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France signed an agreement that created an international tribunal to hold former Nazi officials accountable for their heinous crimes against humanity. These prosecutions became famously known as the Nuremberg Trials. In the end, almost all of the 24 Nazi officials accused of crimes against humanity were convicted–with sentences ranging from years in prison to death by hanging.
Image from Nuremberg Trials
The goal of the Nuremberg Trials was straightforward: To punish those who committed these horrific crimes and to deter others from engaging in the same conduct in the future. That is the very reason why Donald Trump along with Stephen Miller, Border czar Tom Homan and DHS secretary Kristi Noem–at the very least–need to be held accountable for their crimes in connection with their mass deportations that have repeatedly violated the law. If what they are doing is not a crime against humanity, then nothing is.
We all get that Trump has the power to pardon his regime officials—and potentially even himself. But that pardon only applies to federal crimes–not crimes that could be prosecuted by an international tribunal for crimes against humanity. That is why—as I detail below—we need to be calling for Trump, Miller and others to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Across the country, people suspected of being in the country illegally are “disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys.” Trump and Miller have intentionally gutted the typical vetting employed by past administrations before signing executive orders when comes to deportations. That means Trump signs orders knowing they may be illegal but believing he is untouchable.
The result has been a litany of wrongs that appear to rise to the level of crimes. As Time recently reported in an in-depth article on Trump’s deportations, “Constitutional scholars have alleged Trump’s team is not only abusing presidential power but also breaking laws.”
Examples include Trump regime wrongly deporting people to a prison in El Salvador notorious for human-rights violations. This was the prison that DHS Secretary Krist Noem despicably poised in front of prisoners housed in that facility.
Worse from a legal point of view, the Texas Tribune recently reported the Trump regime “knew that the vast majority of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants” it sent to that prison in El Salvador “had not been convicted of crimes in the United States before it labeled them as terrorists and deported them.” In other words, this was a mass kidnapping of people who were then sent to a “disease-ridden” prison where the Trump regime knew that people are held often for years with no charges and subjected to extreme physical abuse leading to hundreds of deaths.
Trump has also deported asylum seekers in the United States to South Sudan despite these people having no connection to the country and knowing that the nation is engulfed in increasing violence, murders, abductions and dire humanitarian conditions.
It will likely get worse from here. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, Stephen Miller has been yelling at ICE agents to pick up the pace of arrests of anyone even suspected of being undocumented. There is no longer a concern about arresting the “worst of the worst.” Rather, as the WSJ detailed, Miller in late May addressed a meeting at the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) where he told them Trump was not happy with the pace of deportations. Miller demanded that they “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens.” Miller directed ICE to target Home Depots, where day laborers typically gather for hire and 7-Eleven convenience stores. In fact, this speech is likely why ICE against began raiding Home Depots in the Los Angeles area that sparked the recent protests.
We can and should call for Democratic Attorneys General to investigate Trump and others to determine if any state crimes occurred in their respective states. However, the best chance to hold Trump and others accountable may be the International Criminal Court (ICC). It’s true that the United States is not one of the 123 countries that are currently members of the ICC. That means the ICC can’t prosecute international crimes that take place on U.S. soil.
But-–and this is big from a legal point of view—the ICC is empowered to prosecute a citizen of a non-member country who commits crimes against humanity on the territory of an ICC member country. That means if Trump and his fellow criminals commit crimes in nations that are part of the ICC, they can be prosecuted by the ICC. The most obvious place this could expose Trump and his other officials to criminal charges is the knowing deportation of people without any criminal records to the notorious prison in El Salvador—given that country is member of the ICC.
In addition, the Trump regime has deported more than 100 migrants from various nations—such as Iran, China and Afghanistan–to Panama, another ICC member nation. Some of the people Trump deported to Panama include children who were then sent a dangerous jungle camp as the NY Times reported.
In fact, during a recent visit to Panama, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants noted his grave concerns regarding the situation these migrants find themselves after Trump dumped there. His concerns included “the legal basis for their detention, their access to information about their rights, safeguards in place to ensure their right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention” and more. There is zero doubt the Trump regime knew the conditions in Panama before sending people there against their will—they simply didn’t care.
These mass deportations by Trump regime and the dumping of mass numbers of people in knowingly dangerous situations could constitute a “crime against humanity” under international law. The ICC defines “crimes against humanity” as those committed as part of “large-scale attack against any civilian population” and includes “imprisonment” and “enforced disappearances.”
To be clear, the ICC has been active in pursuing charges versus former leaders for such crimes. For example, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently marked his 80th birthday in detention at The Hague after the International Criminal Court ordered his arrest. Duterte—who sees him as strongman like Trump—is being prosecuted for alleged crime against humanity for his role in the nation’s war on drugs where he directed the killing of thousands of suspected drug dealers in the country.
Trump and his regime have already deported in the area of 150,000 people in just five months. Trump’s goal is to deport millions of people. Over the next few months or years how many thousands will be wrongly deported/kidnapped by Trump and sent to deadly penal colonies where Trump knows they will be tortured or killed? How many more foreign nationals will be whisked away to nation’s they have no connection to that are plagued by violence and a humanitarian crisis?
Trump and his top officials will continue to do this because they simply don’t view these migrants as human beings. That is why we should be calling for Trump, Miller, Noem and Homan to be prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. Just like with the Nazi leaders, these people need to be punished in the hopes of deterring other leaders from engaging in the same crimes in the future.
