When campaigning, President Donald Trump received much support for reducing crime and the deportation of illegal migrants.

Now in the White House, he is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. Some see this as politically refreshing, as for so long, politicians have talked a good game but are ineffective once in power.

President Trump has begun deporting migrants and will continue.

His policy of sending those deemed criminals to rancid jails in El Salvador, for which its President Nayib Bukele gets a fee, is causing concern.

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has made many Americans doubtful about the legality of carting people off the street and sending some to a Central American jail without any due process. This could apply to any American citizen deemed a criminal. The Supreme Court has already ruled against it.

The Trump administration claimed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13, which has now been designated a terrorist organisation, pointing to a tattoo he wears.

For his part, Garcia says he is not a member of any gang and is a law-abiding person wrongly sent to jail in El Salvador.

The problem for Trump is that this stance he has taken could galvanise the entire country against him.

Mistakes will be made, and those jailed will have no recourse to justice but rather will be left to rot in a foul jail where they will be subjected to vile treatment.

If Diddy is found guilty, will he be sent off to a jail in El Salvador to live out the remainder of his days? The president may see this as a way to send a message to those who engage in sexual crimes.

Trump is right to take steps to reduce criminality and deter heinous behaviour which undermines society. What is of concern, however, is his methods. 

He is blithely ignoring due process and the Supreme Court and is leaving no room for doubt. 

What the Trump administration has done is outsource part of the US prison system to El Salvador. 

“It’s obviously unconstitutional, obviously illegal. There’s no authority in any US law to deport US citizens and certainly not to imprison them in a foreign land,” said David Bier of the Cato Institute based in Washington DC.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is happy with the arrangement and takes a hard line on criminality. He has successfully reduced hard criminal activity in his country. He supports President Trump’s position and doesn’t think he should yield to constitutional lawyers on this.

Now President Trump says his administration is actively exploring a proposal to detain US citizens and send them to prisons in El Salvador.

He was heard telling Bukele, “The homegrown are next, the homegrown. You’ve got to build about five more places.” 

The way President Trump sees it, he is doing what the people elected him to do, and he will purge America of criminality and ‘bad hombres’. 

Controversial American podcaster Joe Rogan sees a problem here, and he is right.

“Due process exists for a reason and the reason is it is horrific for someone to be accused of something they didn’t do, to be imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit and then live in a cell, in a cage with a bunch of people who did commit s—.

“ Benjamin Franklin said: ‘It’s better that a hundred guilty people should escape than one innocent person should suffer’.

Rogan went on to say, “You talk to people about this El Salvador prison situation and you ask, what about due process? “They say No, f— that!

“People say round them all up and ship them to jail. That’s something you say when you are not thinking things through.

“What do you do about all the criminals?

“Take them all and send them to El Salvador.

“What about due process?”

“ F—that!

“Here’s the problem with f— that, we have to be careful that we don’t become monsters while we are fighting monsters.”

Next week will mark Trump’s first 100 days in office, and he has been busy fundamentally changing America. But people have their concerns. According to the New York Times, his approval rating has dropped to 45 per cent. It was 52 per cent one week after he took office.

In a Fox poll, 60 per cent disapproved of the President’s handling of tariffs and inflation issues.

Pew, Reuters and YouGov all show a downward trajectory in Trump’s approval rating. The patient is spitting out the bitter medicine.

Former Representative Matt Gaetz said, “A lot of us in the MAGA movement believe that the good ideas we’ve seen in El Salvador, we can learn from.”

El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and President Buckle has suspended civil liberties, including due process. Do Americans really want to see this in their country?

You could be a law-abiding citizen with a crazy tattoo, driving your cousin to the train station and get pulled over and hauled to a prison in El Salvador with no recourse to American justice.

It is disturbing and many Americans will have reservations about this approach by Trump.

But the president is adamant he will press on with this. He is determined to flush out migrant criminals and crack down on homegrown miscreants. It was a new era for America, and many will have to adjust.