Trump is claiming an absolute right to ignore the courts, even the Supreme court, to do whatever he wants.
It’s irrelevant whether or not Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia originally entered this country illegally. In 2019 Garcia and his lawyer fought, in court, allegations against him in deportation proceedings, applied for asylum, and was granted the right to stay. He is now married to an American, with whom he has a child, and also helps her to raise her two kids from a previous marriage, all of whom have special needs. He is a taxpaying immigrant, I repeat, legal, and Trump and his administration just continue to spew lies about it.
Almost in anticipation, Mr. Garcia’s 2019 court ruling specified that he cannot be deported to El Salvador. But ICE picked him up and sent him there anyway, and not just to El Salvador, but to prison, one of the world’s most notorious prisons. We are paying a sadistic El Salvadoran dictator to take him, and Trump pretends that he can’t even get him back, while President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador supports Trump’s agenda by refusing publicly to do so.
During a visit to the U.S., speaking from the White House, Bukele says, “of course I won’t return him.” He claims that would be returning a terrorist, echoing Trump’s lies.
Trump further asserts that Garcia is an El Salvadoran citizen, and so to force El Salvador to return him would be the “kidnapping.” He claims that when the court says he must “facilitate” Garcia’s return, it only requires him to supply the transportation if El Salvador wants to return him, which Bukele dutifully refuses to do.
His administration also argues that this is a matter of foreign policy now, and that the Supreme court has no jurisdiction over foreign policy. Mind you, he made, or had the opportunity to make, all of these arguments to the court, our highest, and the court UNANIMOUSLY ruled that Garcia, who was removed without due process, illegally, admittedly (by Trump’s own lawyers) due to an “administrative error” (more likely it was disregard for the law) must be returned, and that this wrong must be undone.
This from Trump’s stacked Supreme court, to every last justice.
It would also follow, that everyone he sent to El Salvador, all the Venezuelans he rounded up must also be innocent, not just because we in the U.S. assume innocence until proven guilty, and they haven’t been proven guilty, but because the Trump administration didn’t even try, because they have no real evidence. If they did, they wouldn’t be so scared of the process.
The only case they make and only in the court of public opinion, is that the prisoners have tattoos. Who the fuck doesn’t?
(I don’t, but only because I’m scared of commitment, and old).
And they were all here legally. If they weren’t we wouldn’t know where to find them. They had permission, at least temporarily, some on the condition that they check in with ICE, which they dutifully did. Many of them were taken into custody at their check ins, again, not just to be deported, but to be sent to prison.
So, to summarize, innocent people, authorized to be in the US, with jobs, some with families, who pay taxes, including social security for which they’ll never benefit, though the rest of us will, were removed from the U.S. and sent to a prison in another country where they don’t even have the protections we have in our prisons, which are bad enough.
All at taxpayer expense.
Talk about a waste. A waste of good lives, and a waste of our money.
Meanwhile, his Republican co—conspirators in congress do nothing to keep him in check, to enforce the rulings of the courts, or to assert their own check to his power.
And Trump is now suggesting that he would send American citizens to foreign prisons too, if he considers them dangerous, like for exercising their right of freedom of speech to criticize him, like I am, or, for, you know, being Democrats. He calls them enemies of the state. Domestic terrorists.
If you think he won’t, I have this to ask.
Who do you expect to stop him?
That’s the question.