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The Trump administration has stumbled into a needless mess in the Abrego Garcia case. If something bad happens while he is held in that notoriously tough prison, I predict that we will see his misfortune transformed into the illegal alien version of George Floyd for as long as this instance of martyrdom is politically and emotionally useful. I advocate a solution at the end of this post to obviate an unhappy, unjust and thoroughly undesirable outcome.
The photo circulating of Garcia is the most sympathetic image available (no dark clothes or gang-like imagery), so it is now de rigueur in social media among his supporters. It will be everywhere if something bad and undeserved were to happen. [note: A reader has informed me that the AP has copyrighted the photo, so in an abundance of caution, I removed it.]
Ironically, as a matter of law, he is deemed to be safer in that hideous prison than outside it, because outside of that prison there is a gang a judge believed is out to get him; a risk so substantial that he should not have been sent to that country despite his judicially certified illegal status and a deportation order. (That risk was the sole basis of the withholding order.) Presumably he is therefore safer in the warm embrace of the now-allied MS 13 and Tren de Aragua members held in CECOT. In reality, he is probably on the edge of political martyrdom at all times while there.
The farcical arrival of my senator (Chris Van Hollen) in El Salvador completes Abrego Garcia’s transformation from an illegal alien subject to deportation but for a delaying order into a “Maryland man,” and on MSNBC and CNN into an “asylum holder” and a “kidnapped American man.” Once the leftist adulation fades, for the rest of his career, whenever Van Hollen fails to act to help any of the 6 million Marylanders he represents, it will be said, “You can fly 3,000 miles to showboat for some illegal alien gang member but you can can’t lift a finger to…”
This travesty began with the fact that the administration accidentally deported an illegal to the only country on the planet a judge had barred as the destination. He was placed in prison under an arrangement originally intended for Venezuelan gang members because the gangster government of their home country refuses to take them back. The administration argues (rather implausibly) that the agreement only allows for one-way transport, and that the US is helpless to effect a release once someone is deposited there. This is reasoning that SCOTUS has rejected, a failed legal maneuver offered in a rather pointless, likely losing pissing contest with the whole judiciary, not just one activist judge.
There is a rather bizarre belief prevalent in social media that he is entitled to legal residence because there were never criminal charges related to his alleged gang membership. The determination of his illegal status never hinged on that (although it was noted in the record). The supposed burden of proof has taken some gargantuan shifts in this saga. On the one hand, the anecdotal testimony of being at risk for having offended an El Salvadoran gang (not MS-13) fifteen years ago is said to be beyond question. In stark contrast, the findings of the PG County Police anti-gang division that his choice of companions and clothing styles indicate gang affiliation do not meet suddenly elevated burdens of proof. Also, the fact that there were no criminal charges filed after his wife received a protective order as a result of his violent behavior means that incident must also be dismissed on the way to certifying his sanctified victim status (see, e.g., the officially invisible criminal, medical and drug use history of George Floyd).
My proposed solution: Take him out of that prison. Put him on a plane to the US. Video him getting off the plane in the US. Deliver that video evidence to the Maryland judge who demanded his return, thus satisfying the order. But immediately after the video is recorded, walk him across the tarmac to another plane headed for Guatemala or some other nation that accepts our deportees. That would satisfy the existing deportation order and still be in compliance with the “withholding” order because he is not going back to El Salvador. Bar his re-entry if he ever tries to come back. And then claim a win for the administration and the rule of law. Dare Chris Van Hollen to fly to Guatemala (or wherever) in the absolute certainty that the hivemind of the left will have already moved onto some other collective obsession in only a matter of hours or days, and leave Abrego Garcia in the same memory hole as egg prices or the formerly apocalyptic national secrets leak in the Signal text scandal. And end this dangerous farce.
Discussion (121)
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I don't understand why an American judge would or should care one iota whether or not an illegal alien member of a criminal gang fears for his safety if returned to his native country. It would be one thing if he was helping the U.S. find and arrest other criminals (alien or not) otherwise I see no reason to care. This is not to say that your proposed solution would not be a wise solution to the problem.
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I don't have a head for this, but, this is what I heard. The lawyer analyst on Fox News this morning said that he's embarrassed by some mistake he made. So she thinks he's going through all of this BS to kind of cover that up. I have no idea.
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It is not the same judge. The admin judge who bought the anecdotal gang-vengeance story is not the same as the MD federal judge who ordered his return. The latter judge was not asked to rule on whether the order was defective but merely on the fact that it existed.
ICE/DOJ could move to have the withholding order lifted with whatever evidence they can muster to dismiss this gang-threat theory: (a) Based on the actuarial risks of the gang life-style, most of those guys are probably dead 15 years later; (b) It is highly unlikely that gangs keep detailed records of rejected membership offers/applications from teen prospects from more than a decade ago; (c) the story was suspect from jump. But a judge would probably not allow a hearing on that motion while he was still already deported contrary to an order.
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I think the legal theory hardly matters to the radicals running this gig. The Left have created a cause out of whole cloth and will not let go, regardless of Administration action on legal matters. I believe that appeasement never works, and attempts to smooth things over will just make it worse. I think ICE/DOJ should just keep hammering the facts using explicit language (rejecting ever expansive and meaningless euphemisms) and stating principles in the simplest terms. And correct the notion that he was deported accidentally. The time for appeasement (if there ever was one) passed years ago.
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I'm mostly puzzled by why a US judge thinks he has any authority - or any credibility - to order another country to send one of their citizens to the US. And ordering Trump to do so doesn't have any more credibility.
Meanwhile, I've encountered arguments that the withholding was... "dissolved?"... due to the claim that the RIVAL gang he was in fear of, has been dissolved/locked up.
Now putting him in prison with that gang, is delicious irony.
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