Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a good person? I don't know.
In 2021, his wife asked and received a protective order against him after alleging domestic violence; She said last week The fact that their marriage went stronger after working on this low point and that Garcia “has always been a partner and a loving father”.
The government said he was a really heinous criminal gang, MS-13. If this was true, given that it was in the United States illegally, I would have no problem to expel it, but perhaps not to a prison that our own State Department sentenced. We will come back to this.
The Trump administration, by its own admission, wrongly expelled Abego Garcia in defiance of a court order to a Salvadoral prison. A judge had already granted Abrego Garcia's request not to be expelled to his native Salvador because he feared for his security. No one said he couldn't be expelled elsewhere.
On the other hand, is Abrego Garcia a vicious terrorist or criminal, as the administration claims? I don't know it either. Is he even a member of MS-13? When the president sought to support this assertion, he Published a tank image Abrego Garcia hand tattoos to which the “MS13” characters had been added digitally.
The Trump administration did not propose any evidence, in court or outside, that Greo Garcia is guilty of violent crimes (except for the allegations according to which he abused his wife and that he has never faced accusations on these complaints). He was originally apprehended to “stroll”. Andrew McCarthy, former federal prosecutor and eminent conservative legal analyst, wrote For a national examination that “the procedure before the lower courts has shown that, to date, the evidence of the government linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 are thin.”
As for the accusation of being a terrorist, it is … deceptive. Trump has argued for war powers to thwart what he constantly calls an “invasion”. His administration invoked the law on extraterrestrial enemies of 1798 as a means of bypassing what it considers as expensive legal and constitutional subtleties in the pursuit of the expulsion of illegal immigrants which he judges the “terrorists”. Thus, the administration can now apply this label without too much, if necessary, a factual rigor.
MS-13 and Tren of Aragua, another gang that the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, are terrible. But the argument that they encounter something other than a politically practical definition of terrorist organizations is weak.
A large part of the political argument on Abrego Garcia is what legal researchers could call “stupid”. The Trump administration and its supporters become full to paint Abrego Garcia as a vile and dangerous terrorist. Many Democrats, indignant by Trump's methods, prefer benign descriptions like “Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an innocent man and the father of three children”, as Senator Bernie Sanders said (I-VT.).
This framing – “Abrego Garcia innocent and good” against “Abrego Garcia guilty and bad” – is what is so stupid. None of the relevant legal and constitutional questions has something to do with the fact that this person is good (or a father). By insisting that he is an innocent man, the Democrats imply that if he was not innocent, which the Trump administration did to him would be impeccable.
The relevant questions are whether the administration has the power to bypass the regular procedure – a right conferred on immigrants even illegal – and if he has to try to remedy the error it made by sending Abrego Garcia to a foreign prison.
The administration has contracted with the authoritarian Salvadoran government to withdraw “terrorists”, but Trump officials also claim that they are powerless to recover anyone wrong. The judges, including the nine of the Supreme Court, think that it is problematic, because it is problematic.
The idea that the government can simply say that people on American soil, perhaps including American citizens or legal residents, are criminals or terrorists have completely contrary to our legal system. The government has great authority to expel illegal immigrants. He also has the power to put sentenced criminals in any prison he deems appropriate. He has no authority to put people in prison without first proving – In court – Let them charge the right person, then condemn them with a crime.
If you were snatched by the ice by mistake, you would like a chance to prove that they had the bad person. This right goes through Habeas Corpus, which has been a key to Anglo-American law and the heart of the regular procedure for centuries. The administration does not seem know this – Or care.
The Constitution is designed to limit abusive government power. This is the only relevant problem here. Consider Ernesto Arturo Miranda. She was a really horrible person. But then what? His case gave us the “Miranda rights” which are read to the suspects at arrest. The only way to make sure that innocent people get such protections is to make sure everyone gets them.
