Critics say President Trump’s aggressive deportations and tightening of immigration law are a precursor to a wider attack on civil rights that could go beyond the targeting of migrants to U.S. citizens.

Trump in recent weeks has used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to send Venezuelan migrants to a prison in El Salvador, denying them a chance to challenge assertions they have gang ties.

The administration also has stripped student visas from those involved in protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza — something attorneys for the students say is designed to quash their First Amendment rights.

Democratic lawmakers argue the actions represent a chipping away of fundamental rights and a stepping stone toward authoritarianism.

“I think it is really important that we understand what's going on — the most vulnerable — they target a population that they think that maybe they can win the sympathy of the American people, or of any people, in targeting that particular population,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said during a hearing last week to review a reconciliation package to back Trump's immigration priorities.

“And the idea here is to show that if you can do it to that group of people — and nobody says anything — then you can go further and do it to anybody else,” she said.

“And I think it is very important to recognize that in this moment, they are trying to say that due process does not apply to you if you're an immigrant,” she added before going on to cite Fifth Amendment protections for any action depriving any person of their liberty.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called it part of the “authoritarian playbook.”

“Every day, the administration uses immigration enforcement as a template to violate and erode our rights and liberties. They round up people in the street and disappear them to the torture prison of a foreign dictator without one iota of due process, sweeping up completely innocent people who have no criminal record and no criminal charges. They strip college and graduate students at American universities of their student visas for writing op-eds the administration disagrees with,” he said during the same hearing.

“If Donald Trump can sweep noncitizens off the street and fly them to a torturer’s prison in El Salvador with no due process, he can do it to citizens too, because if there is no due........

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