# Who Is Really Being Disappeared? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 3, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515 "2025-11-03T02:08:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/1 "2025-11-03T02:08:32Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Trump won't rule out 3rd term](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/559): > [@Trump won't rule out 3rd term](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wont-rule-out-3rd-term/1016371/559): > > Apologies for the hijack, but this reminded me of an exchange I had on FB a day or so ago, re: Trump’s video of him dropping excrement on protestors. A Hispanic guy posted an image of George Takei in a straitjacket in a padded cell with ‘Trump’ written all over the place. > > > **Me:** Yeah, you’ll be laughing when your Messiah’s goons disappear you to Uganda. > > > > **Him:** I’m an American citizen. 🇺🇸 ❤ 😉 > > > > **Me:** So are a LOT of people who are being disappeared. It’s important for Democrats to be credible, and I do not find it credible that U.S. citizens are being disappeared. Detained? Yes: [We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.](https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will) Detained is not disappeared. Perhaps relevant is something I heard at a local (Kennett Square PA) mayoral debate last week. It is a progressive town, and both the Democratic and Republican candidates are immigrant-friendly. The Democratic candidate said that his being a Democrat meant that he could get quicker and more help from county and state politicians who are, almost all, also Democratic. His example was that he can call Senator Fetterman’s local office, which he said was physically right near ICE, and the Fetterman people will identify who ICE arrested (as already happened in the one Kennett Square raid so far). Even Obama-Trump-Trump sort of voters think your family should be told when you are arrested. So I do want to know – for sure – what people are being disappeared. Another reason I want to know is that we have a lot of immigrants around where I live and people are scared, and I’ve been asked whether there really is something to be frightened about. I don’t want to spread panicky false rumors, not do I want to refute true ones. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/2 "2025-11-03T02:47:56Z")
This is a very slippery hill. I ought not post, but I’m going to anyway. Detained is disappeared if no one in your life knows where you are. No one is answering questions, no one is manning the phone. Gone is Gone. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/3 "2025-11-03T03:29:01Z")
In addition to what @Beckdawrek says, there is also the issue of American citizens who were actually deported . I wouldn’t say it’s lots - but there is at least one case where a US citizen child was deported with her non-citizen mother although her father and a [were in touch with ICE](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/25/us-citizen-deportation-donald-trump-00311631) trying to get her released. I do not believe for one moment that her mother wanted the child deported with her when the father was not being deported. ( which suggests to me that he is either a citizen or has a green card, since ICE didn’t take him as well). There’s another [case](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/28/ice-deportation-alabama-laos) where they deported someone who claims he is a citizen. This was in violation of a court order putting the deportation off for 14 days issued by a judge who says he has a “substantial claim of US citizenship”. Of course, ICE claims they [were served](https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judges-order-blocking-removal-man-us-received-after-126999377) with the court order after he was deported - I might have believed it if they hadn’t been caught in so many misleading statements and if they hadn’t used the phrase [“was not served”](https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1983550041496117532) by which I mean of course, that they were trying to give the impression that they were unaware of the order without actually saying that. There have been Americans mistakenly deported long before Trump , at least back to 1999. There are certainly going to be more with the unrealistic quotas that have been set- I recall Miller stating that the White House expected 3000 arrests per day. And these people don’t like to admit to mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/4 "2025-11-03T04:02:07Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Gone is Gone. Yes. > [@doreen](#): > > there is at least one case where a US citizen child was deported Yes, there are some of these. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/5 "2025-11-03T04:29:46Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Detained is disappeared if no one in your life knows where you are. No one is answering questions, no one is manning the phone. > > Gone is Gone. Article confirming your point. Difficulties a lawyer experienced in trying to contact his client held by ICE. > **[How ICE Hides Detainees From Their Lawyers - The American Prospect](https://prospect.org/2025/10/06/2025-10-06-how-ice-hides-detainees-from-their-lawyers/)** > > CHICAGO – On September 12, attorney Kevin Herrera walked up to Chicagoland’s main Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Broadview, Illinois, passed a crowd of protesters who didn’t know what to make of him, and knocked on... ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/6 "2025-11-03T04:38:37Z")
Note to @PhillyGuy: If this doesn’t qualify as “disappeared”, would you mind telling us what does? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/7 "2025-11-03T05:14:55Z")
The percentages and numbers don’t matter. What matters is the systemic racism that certain politicians seem to think is ok. Dramatic explanations, and very precise counting will never be anything but bigoted. The best racists spout facts and figures. The Nazis did it. IMO ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/8 "2025-11-03T05:20:33Z")
So do many other groups. Did you know that Nazis drank beer and/or wine, and does that mean that drinking beer and/or wine is a strong indicator that you are a Nazi? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/9 "2025-11-03T05:28:40Z")
I didn’t say anything near that. Explaining or attempting to explain away what racism looks like and why, with cites and facts and figure is what true racists always do. Remember the percentage laws in the deep south during the early 1900s? Extreme ‘splainin’. (One drop rule) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/10 "2025-11-03T07:30:40Z")
American race laws were looked at when the Nazis were formulating the [Nuremberg laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws). > As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler’s _Mein Kampf_, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh. > **[Hitler's American Model](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model)** > > How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany ---
**Author:** ![betonbill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b782af/32.png) [@betonbill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betonbill)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/11 "2025-11-03T15:16:15Z")
During Trump’s first term he used the lack of record keeping to his advantage when it came to his (Miller’s) child separation policy. Nobody knew who a lot of the children were, or what happened to their parent(s) because there were inadequate records. They are now using this same tactic with the migrants that they have captured. Family can’t find them, lawyers find no records of them even existing in the system. Makes it really easy to “disappear” somebody if you don’t have any records that they were in custody–or if they ever existed at all. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/12 "2025-11-03T19:54:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Note to @PhillyGuy: If this doesn’t qualify as “disappeared”, would you mind telling us what does? When I hear the term, I think of, say, Pinochet having people thrown out of helicopters. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/13 "2025-11-03T20:01:48Z")
As god is my witness, I thought political prisoners could fly! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/14 "2025-11-03T20:40:07Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@Czarcasm](#): > > > > Note to @PhillyGuy: If this doesn’t qualify as “disappeared”, would you mind telling us what does? > > When I hear the term, I think of, say, Pinochet having people thrown out of helicopters. Yes. I was also thinking of Argentina: [PBS: Search for justice continues for Argentina’s disappeared, nearly 50 years later](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/search-for-justice-continues-for-argentinas-disappeared-nearly-50-years-later) Everyone who is arrested, out of sight of friends and family, will have disappeared for at least a short time. So I don’t expect a scientific definition of disappeared as a noun, but it is a strong word that doesn’t apply to a day or two, and usually means there was an extra-judicial execution. Czarcasm - As documented in your link, the U.S. government, by frequently moving detainees, is making it hard for them to be located by family and lawyers, The one mistreated migrant named in your link (Willian Giménez González) is not a U.S. citizen. And you did not claim otherwise! Good. As much as possible, I don’t want to be in a situation of having to admit that both sides exaggerate, ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/15 "2025-11-03T22:06:48Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > and usually means there was an extra-judicial execution. Not in this case. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > So I don’t expect a scientific definition of disappeared as a noun, but it is a strong word that doesn’t apply to a day or two Three days, then? A week? A month? If you can’t find your wallet, how long do you wait until you start calling your credit card issuers? If you can’t find it, it’s disappeared. If you can’t find people who have been abducted, then they have disappeared. And yes, it’s a strong word. Nice words to not apply to extra-legal goon squads. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/16 "2025-11-03T22:59:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Not in this case. Which is why I don’t think this case qualifies as the government “disappearing” someone. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Three days, then? A week? A month? If you can’t find your wallet, how long do you wait until you start calling your credit card issuers? If you can’t find it, it’s disappeared. That’s not the same meaning of the word “disappeared” that I use when I say “that dictator disappeared all his dissidents”. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > And yes, it’s a strong word. Nice words to not apply to extra-legal goon squads. Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? We get this very strange cycle with words. Person A will disagree with a thing that Politician Z is doing, so he will say that Politician Z is “disappearing” people. He will do this because he _really really really_ disapproves of the actions that Politician Z is taking so he wants to use the strongest, harshest, most emotionally charged term possible for this. Person B will point out that “disappearing” generally refers to extrajudicial killings and Politician Z is not actually ordering extrajudicial killings of political dissidents. What Person B is saying is that “disappeared” had a specific meaning in this context and that Politician Z’s actions don’t meet that definition, but of course, Person A doesn’t hear it like that. All Person A hears is “I don’t disapprove of Politician Z’s actions”, even though Person B never said that and may very well take _extreme_ issue with Politician Z’s actions. It’s an _incredibly_ tedious rut that seems to crop up again and again and again nowadays. The problem with “disappeared” isn’t that it’s _not nice_; it’s that what Trump is doing is _not the same_ as taking political opponents in an aircraft over the Amazon Rainforest or Atlantic Ocean and tossing them out the back without a parachute. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/17 "2025-11-03T23:08:13Z")
You are choosing a narrow definition of ‘disappeared’, based on the egregious actions of a South American government. ‘Disappeared’, as I used it and as others understand it, means these people have disappeared. Which they did. And since the government made them disappear, the government ‘disappeared’ them. 'Disappear’ ≠ ‘execute’. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/18 "2025-11-03T23:13:02Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > You are choosing a narrow definition of ‘disappeared’, From Wikipedia: > **[Enforced disappearance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforced_disappearance)** > > An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law. Often, forced disappearance implies murder whereby a victim is abducted, may be illegally detained, and is often tortured during interrogation, ultimately killed, and the body disposed of secretly. The pa Enfor... > [@](#): > > Often, forced disappearance implies murder whereby a victim is abducted, may be illegally detained, and is often tortured during interrogation, ultimately killed, and the body disposed of secretly. I agree that I am not used by the broadest possible definition of the term “disappeared”, but I’m hardly using an unreasonably narrow one. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > based on the egregious actions of a South American government. Two different South American governments, and they are hardly the only ones who “disappeared” people. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > And since the government made them disappear, the government ‘disappeared’ them. 'Disappear’ ≠ ‘execute’. Someone who was “Disappeared” did not “disappear” the same way a bunny does at a magic show. These people may have “disappeared”, but they weren’t “Disappeared” ie undergo Enforced Disappearance as linked above by the government. That’s a silly word game, not an actual argument. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/19 "2025-11-03T23:21:38Z")
In the spirit of compromise, let’s come up with a centrist-friendly term like “government assisted unlocatability”? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515/20 "2025-11-03T23:23:09Z")
What’s wrong with just describing it as it is? If Trump is illegally deporting someone, call it an unlawful deportation. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-really-being-disappeared/1024515.md?page=2)