Recent months have seen the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies clash with the judiciary, with judges ordering the return of those who were arrested and removed from the US outside of settled law. For Jim Rice the history of the handover of Hong Kong from the UK to administration by China should serve as a warning to the US. He writes that despite guarantees of civil liberties and basic freedoms, Hong Kong’s new authorities were able to use bias and bigotry to weaken the rule of law in favor of authoritarian rule.

There are a few ways to strip basic constitutional rights from people. One is to declare a state of emergency, impose martial law, suspend the constitution, lock up political opposition, silence the free press, bully the judicial and legislative branches of government and rule by executive order. But history shows that these actions often lead to a backlash, both at home and abroad. So, the question is, if one is a aspiring dictator who wants to amass near absolute power and wealth for you and your associates, what do you do apart from a full-on coup d’etat?  The alternative is to follow the example set by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong in the years following the handover to Chinese rule in 1997.

China, Hong Kong and fundamental rights

The 1984 treaty between the UK and China purported to guarantee basic rights and freedoms to the people of Hong Kong for 50 years. This was set out in the Basic Law, which came into effect on July 1, 1997. Article 24 of the law included the right of abode in Hong Kong, including for the children of Hong Kong Permanent Residents. Following the handover, thousands demanded this right, only to have their applications denied by the Hong Kong government. The children sued the government and in early 1999, Hong Kong’s highest court ruled that mainland-born children of Hong Kong permanent residents had a right of abode, regardless of whether the parent was a permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.

Disagreeing with the decision, ministers of the Hong Kong government used the media to criticise the applicants, referring to them as a potential drain on the public purse. The government’s media campaign worked, potentially helped by existing bias against Mainland migrants. In June 1999, at the government’s request, China’s national legislature, the National People’s Congress, “reinterpreted” Article 24 of the Basic Law, in full knowledge that if it could be interpreted one way or another by the Mainland authorities, then the entire document would be up for grabs. As Mainlanders were not favored, the public got the result that they had preferred all along. But the problem (which most Hong Kong people didn’t foresee) was that their own fundamental rights were being taken away.

Trump’s immigration policies and the judiciary

So, Hong Kong’s case brings me back to the second Trump administration and its immigration policy. Even before his reelection, it was clear to all that the most significant issue in Trump’s campaign rhetoric was immigration, likely feeding on and reinforcing the growing anti-immigrant sentiments among many Americans. In January 2024, Trump ordered Congressional Republicans to axe a bipartisan compromise bill that would have addressed the issue of undocumented immigration as well as other relevant issues. During the election campaign Trump repeatedly stated that he would deport up to 20 million people living in the US. Following his inauguration, Trump has lost little time in implementing his threats, however the reality of Trump’s policies look slightly different than his campaign promises.

Rather than the detention and deportation of hundreds of thousands of people, the Trump administration has chosen instead to embark on a policy specifically designed to take on the judicial branch of government, thereby consolidating power in the executive to a degree not seen previously in US history.

Photo by Joseph Chan on Unsplash

From March 2025, Trump’s agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security have rounded up individuals accused of being gang members, placing them heavily shackled on flights to CECOT, a maximum-security detention facility in El Salvador, beyond the reach of US law. The US government is paying the El Salvadoran government to detain and house them. One of these rendition flights included Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national who had entered the United States illegally in 2011, and subsequently obtained protected (or asylum) status in the US pending an asylum ruling. To be clear, Abrego Garcia had not committed a crime in the US and was in the country legally. And to be clear, he was not arrested based on the basis of a violation of the settled law.

Having been removed and then rendered to CECOT, without regard to his rights to due process under the 5^th Amendment, the US government later admitted that his removal had been based on an “administrative error“. Subsequently, the US Supreme Court followed the ruling of a District Court and ordered Abrego Garcia to be returned. In response the Trump administration has refused to comply with the order. In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States. In response to the failure of the administration to take steps to do so, Judge Boasberg, the Chief Judge of the Superior Court, District of Columbia, has ruled that there is “probable cause” to find that the Trump administration has acted in contempt of his previous orders in the Abrego Garcia case.

Subsequently, the Trump administration applied to the Federal Appeals Court seeking that the District Court’s order be stayed. In a brief and blunt decision Judge Wilkinson in part ruled:

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear… [Kilmar Abrego Garcia v. Kristi Noem, 25-1404, (4th Cir.)]

Remembering the lessons of Hong Kong for civil liberties in the US

The Trump administration’s actions (move fast and break things) prior to and following his reelection have mirrored the steps taken by the Chinese Communist Party and their Hong Kong government surrogates prior to and following the handover in 1997. Both spread and amplified existing prejudices against a minority group and then used this bigotry to persuade ordinary people to seek to renounce their existing rights and liberties under settled law. Put another way, both regimes sought (or are seeking) to make their citizens complicit in the negation of the rule of law in favor of autocratic rule.

Both the Chinese Communist Party and the Trump administration have sought to wrest power away from institutions rooted to a greater or lesser degree in the rule of law and clearly defined statutes, to an arbitrary one, based on the will of the strongman. In both cases, the authorities were able to use latent bias and bigotry to weaken the rule of law in favor of authoritarian rule.

In an April 15 Oval Office meeting, Trump spoke with El Salvadorean President Bukele, telling him publicly: “Homegrown criminals next, homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.” The Salvadorian president who has described himself as the “world’s coolest dictator responded at the same Oval Office press spray: “In fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate. You know, but to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.” 

The world now knows how the Hong Kong story ended. That was a story based on Beijing’s promise to give basic freedoms to the people of Hong Kong in exchange for rule by the People’s Republic of China. Following the final Democracy Movement in 2019-20, the PRC unilaterally imposed its draconian National Security Law. What followed were hundreds of arrests, show trials and long prison sentences, most of which were based on crimes involving nothing more than peaceful protest. The way the people of Hong Kong lost their civil liberties should serve as a warning to the world and especially to Americans at this critical time.

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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.