If the circumstances of deportation are going to be used as plea bargain fodder, then removal is punitive with all the rights attached thereto. This is not just a removal subsequent to a conviction but removal (or a specific genus of removal) as the penalty for the conviction itself.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get what you mean. Weren't they going to deport him anyway?
It's not really about him, but the policy implicated. It's hypocritical to use removal as a negotiating point in a criminal trial while forever claiming it's not punitive. They're trying to coërce action here by threatening a "worse" removal, an admission that removal can be used punitively…
…at least when it's convenient for their goals in hurting people. But try to claim at 6th or 8th Amendment protections in immigration proceedings and they will take a completely different position. They're taking a hatchet to their own little fiction, and they shouldn't get to have it both ways.
I don't know if it matters legally -- I don't think it matters morally -- but I think if he had been brought back from El Salvador without the filing of a criminal case they would still be trying to send him to Uganda rather than Costa Rica. They hate him and they want to send a message.
The implications of this type of extrajudicial punishment combined with changes to birthright citizenship and denaturalization are chilling
They're so crooked it's shocking to see.
I hope his lawyers run to court for a stay of this travesty.