A Good Caputo Thread

President Donald Trump is returning to the White House after a trip to Asia — and he's facing ridicule over the "kids' menu" choices his hosts offered him while visiting.

The president's culinary preferences – fast food, well-done steaks and spaghetti – are well known, and his Asian hosts attempted to strike a balance between regional specialties and his Americanized tastes, according to the New York Times.

"The lunch he shared with President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea and business leaders on Wednesday was summed up by Mr. Lee’s office as 'fusion Korean cuisine featuring regional specialties from across the nation and tailored to President Trump’s preferences,'" the Times reported.

"The White House picked up on the gesture, calling the Thousand Island dressing, tossed with South Korean shrimps, scallops and abalone, 'a nod to Trump’s New York roots,'" the report added. "It appeared to be his preferred dressing. He also had the condiment, which hails from near the border between New York and Ontario, the night before in Tokyo at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence."

The South Koreans also served braised short ribs made with U.S. beef, along with kimchi and other traditional sides, but also served beef patties with ketchup and brownies decorated with what Lee's office described as "the color of gold that President Trump favors.”

The president's tastes drew mockery online.

"Alito writes for the 6-3 majority, ruling that there’s nothing in the Constitution that says a 79-year-old can’t order off the kids’ menu," joked Seth Michaels, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"The ketchup banchan is destroying me," said Sarah Jeong, editor of The Verge.

"When 'Can we have a trade deal?' pivots on 'Do you have a kids menu?'" posted freelance writer Tabatha Southey.

"I am married to a Korean-American," added attorney Bradley Moss. "My kids have been raised eating standard American fare, Jewish deli food, and Korean delicacies. The absurdity of this menu to handhold Trump is something else."

"South Korea gave Trump a literal crown and mini beef patties with ketchup hahahaha," said freelance journalist Laura Bassett.

"How embarrassing for all involved," sighed journalist Sarah Posner.

A longtime former employee at one of President Donald Trump's golf clubs was mistakenly deported to Mexico, The New York Times reported — sending U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a mad scramble to correct the error and bring him home.

"Alejandro Juarez stepped off a plane in Texas and stood on a bridge over the Rio Grande, staring at the same border that he had crossed illegally from Mexico 22 years earlier," reported Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Hamed Aleaziz. "As U.S. immigration officials unshackled restraints bound to his arms and legs, Mr. Juarez, 39, pleaded with them. He told them he was never given a chance to contest his deportation in front of an immigration judge after being detained in New York City five days before."

As it turned out, the Department of Homeland Security had mistakenly put him on a deportation flight instead of sending him to a detention facility in Arizona ahead of his immigration hearing, to which he was entitled.

"Their actions probably violated federal immigration laws, which entitle most immigrants facing deportation to a hearing before a judge — a hearing Mr. Juarez never had," said the report. "ICE officials raced to decipher his whereabouts, exchanging bewildered emails and contacting detention facilities to pinpoint his location, according to internal ICE documents obtained by The New York Times. It is unclear how many other immigrants like Mr. Juarez have been erroneously removed, in part because ICE has not in the past tracked such cases."

Juarez "had worked for more than a decade at a Trump Organization golf club in New York," noted the report, and suddenly found himself expelled from the United States.

Similar administrative mistakes have happened on other occasions, most notably with Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported from his family in Maryland to the infamous CECOT megaprison in his home country, despite a court order prohibiting his removal there. After months of denying they had jurisdiction to repatriate him, the Trump administration finally did so, but then immediately hit him with flimsy gang charges, and started shopping around for any other country that would accept him, including several in Africa.