Source: substack.com 7/26/25
For anyone holding out hope that a second Trump administration might bring meaningful change to the nation’s sex offense policies, the July 24, 2025 executive order should clear up any confusion: the registry is here to stay—and it’s growing teeth.
President Donald J. Trump has made it unmistakably clear that he supports the continued enforcement, expansion, and surveillance of the sex offender registry. This isn’t a course correction or a fresh approach. It’s a doubling down.
The executive order, issued under the guise of addressing homelessness, public safety, and mental illness, lays out a sweeping policy framework that escalates civil commitment, increases registry enforcement—particularly for the unhoused—and offers federal incentives to states and localities that follow suit.
For those who believed America might be inching toward a more rational, evidence-based approach to sex offense policy, this document should serve as a wake-up call. The policy isn’t shifting. If anything, it’s becoming more entrenched.
Section 3 of the order zeroes in on registrants who are homeless, instructing the Department of Justice to “substantially implement and comply with” the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) for individuals with no fixed address. It calls for mapping and monitoring the locations of homeless sex offenders, effectively treating poverty as a risk factor warranting heightened surveillance.
The order goes even further. If a homeless individual is arrested for a federal crime, they may be evaluated under 18 U.S.C. § 4248, a statute that allows for indefinite civil commitment of individuals deemed “sexually dangerous”—even after they’ve completed their sentence. That’s not rehabilitation. That’s preemptive detention.
This isn’t about protecting the public or preventing new offenses. It’s about maintaining a narrative that portrays registrants as permanent threats, regardless of evidence. And it comes at the expense of people who are already marginalized—those struggling with mental illness, addiction, or simply trying to survive without stable housing in a system designed to push them out.
Supporters of the executive order may argue it’s a step toward restoring order. But safety rooted in fear and endless punishment is not justice—it’s containment. What this order reveals is not reform, but the further cementing of a system that punishes for life, with no offramp, no redemption, and no demonstrated public benefit.
We may soon witness the rise of newly branded civil commitment compounds under friendlier, government-approved names. So much for Alligator Alcatraz. We’re now staring down the possibility of a federally subsidized holding facility named something like SORNA Sanctuary—a place where due process is a memory and “treatment” is simply a longer leash on the same punishment.
But perhaps most disturbing is this: while it’s easy to politically point fingers at Trump for this executive action, the silence from the Democratic Party has been deafening. Not a single prominent Democrat has publicly or privately condemned the order—not in Congress, not on cable news, and not within the civil liberties circles that so often champion due process and second chances.
This isn’t just one man’s policy. It reflects a bipartisan reluctance—whether out of fear, convenience, or political calculation—to confront the failures of our nation’s sex offense laws. The lack of response speaks volumes: there is no meaningful opposition.
So for those who believed a shift was coming—some fresh thinking, some real policy evolution—this is the reality check. The architecture of permanent punishment isn’t being dismantled. It’s being reinforced with federal dollars, executive power, and, most notably, political silence.
We can’t reform what we continue to justify. And we can’t justify a system that never ends
The post Trump’s Executive Order Confirms the Registry Machine Isn’t Going Anywhere appeared first on ACSOL.
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