ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Some things never change. Like the fact that Latinos -- whether they're immigrants or native-born -- always get stuck doing the dirty jobs that no one else wants to do.

We're the folks that everyone wants to get rid of - and no one can live without.

In just the last few weeks, President Donald Trump and administration officials have been engaged in some dirty business. Disappearing individuals off U.S. streets. Removing the undocumented without due process. Outsourcing immigration enforcement to a foreign government. Defying federal judges and risking a contempt citation. Even vowing to deport U.S. citizens, or who Trump calls "homegrowns."

Naturally, once the mess got made, it was always going to be Latinos who were told to grab a mop and some disinfectant. "Muchachos, clean up on aisle three!"

The head janitor is Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Whether the mess involves secret flights of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in defiance of a federal judge or the "administrative error" of deporting to El Salvador Kilmar Abrego Garcia despite a protective order from an immigration judge in 2019 that prohibited that very thing, it's Rubio's job to -- as my dad, the retired cop, would say -- "make chicken salad out of..." Well, you know.

Like Trump, Rubio has never let the truth get in the way of a good story. While serving as a U.S. senator from Florida, he spent years misrepresenting himself as a "son of exiles" and mischaracterizing his parents as "refugees" who fled Cuba "following Castro's takeover."

The problem was that Mario and Oriales Rubio arrived in the United States in 1956, and Fidel Castro didn't come to power in Cuba until 1959. So they were immigrants, not refugees. You had better believe that every Cuban American knows the difference, including Rubio.

Speaking of Cuban Americans, they're really the last people on Earth who should sanctimoniously lecture the rest of us about how people should come to the United States legally. Cuban refugees arrive in the United States on a magic carpet thanks to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which makes it a breeze for Cubans to obtain permanent legal residency if they reach "dry land." Not all migrants are so lucky. Given that, Cuban Americans -- including Rubio -- should strive to be humble when discussing U.S. immigration policy.

I won't hold my breath. The graduate of the University of Miami School of Law recently suggested that the Trump administration did not have to follow court orders to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador because "no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States."

That response was panned by various conservative legal commentators, including former federal prosecutor and National Review columnist Andy McCarthy, who called Rubio's argument "utter nonsense."

As Rubio's best bud, Nayib Bukele -- the 43-year-old president of El Salvador -- might say: "Oopsie."

In March, the Trump administration shipped at least three planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations and demanded that the flights return. In response, Bukele -- whose country is being paid $6 million to house hundreds of deportees -- posted on X: "Oopsie... Too late."

However, it is not too late for Trump administration officials to be held in contempt and even jailed for defying Boasberg's order. That could happen, the judge recently made clear.

Bukele likes to call himself "the world's coolest dictator."

That's cute. The millennial malcontent is really more like an assistant janitor who is now helping Rubio clean up the Trump administration's messes.

During a recent visit to the Oval Office, Bukele emphatically said that he would not return Abrego Garcia to the United States even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered it.

Upon returning to El Salvador, Bukele -- who Trump praised as "one hell of a president" -- gushed in a post on X: "I miss you already, President T." Trump calls Burkele: "President B."

Is there anything more creepy than a "bromance" between dictators? One brags that he belongs to that club, and the other clearly aspires to become a member.

Meanwhile, Rubio considers Bukele a "friend" and a good partner for Trump.

"Our hemisphere is lucky to have two leaders who are totally aligned in their commitment to law and order," Rubio recently wrote on X.

America, we're going to need more mops and a lot more disinfectant.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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