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Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Maybe He's Everything Trump Says He Is, So What? [1]
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Date: 2025-04-22
Kilmar Abrego Garcia sits in a cell in El Salvador’s notorious Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a mega-prison known for its brutal conditions. The Trump administration labels him a member of MS-13, a “terrorist” and a “human trafficker.” They claim he’s a danger to society, a gang leader who deserves his fate. Let’s assume, for a moment, that every accusation is true. Let’s say that besides there being very little evidence of it, Garcia is everything they say he is. So what? Politically, Democrats would be smart to leave open that possibility but the question isn’t about his guilt or innocence—it’s about the complete absence of due process that landed him in a foreign prison, beyond the reach of U.S. courts, in a move that spits in the face of American principles and the rule of law.
Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran who lived legally in Maryland for 14 years, was arrested on March 12, 2025, and deported three days later to CECOT. This wasn’t a routine deportation to an airport drop-off. The U.S. government paid El Salvador $6 million to detain him and others in a facility it helped fund, a prison where human rights groups report widespread abuse. His deportation violated a 2019 court order that protected him from removal to El Salvador due to fears of persecution. The Trump administration itself admitted this was an “administrative error.” Yet, despite a unanimous Supreme Court ruling on April 10, 2025, ordering the government to “facilitate” his return, Garcia remains locked away, with the administration digging in its heels, claiming courts can’t dictate its foreign policy.
This isn’t how the United States treats even its worst enemies. Consider the terrorists held at Guantánamo Bay. Detainees there, accused of plotting atrocities like the September 11 attacks, have been granted habeas corpus petitions to challenge their detention in federal courts. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed their right to judicial review, even as non-citizens held outside U.S. soil. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11, was captured abroad, brought to the U.S., and faced charges in a military tribunal. Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted for his role in the same attacks, received a full trial in federal court. Even foreign terrorists like Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, were afforded due process—lawyers, trials, appeals. Garcia? He got none of that. No charges, no trial, no chance to defend himself. Just a plane ride to a prison the U.S. helps bankroll.
The administration’s actions don’t just deny Garcia his rights; they trample the separation of powers, a cornerstone of the Constitution. By deporting him in defiance of a court order and refusing to comply with judicial mandates to facilitate his return, the executive branch has crowned itself judge, jury, and executioner. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a scathing April 17, 2025, ruling, called this “shocking to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans hold dear.” The court warned that allowing the executive to “stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process” threatens the constitutional order itself. The Trump administration’s defiance risks a constitutional crisis, asserting that once someone is removed from U.S. soil, the judiciary is powerless. This isn’t just about Garcia—it’s about the precedent it sets. If the executive can bypass courts to exile one man, what stops it from doing the same to anyone else, citizen or not?
This isn’t a hypothetical fear. Legal scholars like Laurence Tribe have warned that Garcia’s case could embolden the government to send anyone—immigrant or citizen—to foreign jails without recourse, citing “foreign affairs” as a shield. The administration’s own rhetoric fuels this concern. President Trump has mused about sending American-born criminals to El Salvador’s prisons, suggesting the power to exile extends beyond borders or citizenship. If unchecked, this could erode the due process protections that have defined American justice since the Magna Carta.
The United States was forged in a rebellion against tyranny, a fight for the principle that no one—not a king, not a president—stands above the law. That struggle is etched into the graveyards of American soldiers scattered across Europe, Asia, and beyond, men and women who died to defend the ideals of liberty and justice. Garcia’s plight is an affront to their memory. To allow the executive to strip a man of his rights, ship him to a foreign prison, and shrug off court orders isn’t just a betrayal of one individual—it’s a betrayal of the story America tells itself, the story of a nation that holds due process sacred, even for the accused, even for the guilty.
Garcia may be everything the administration claims. But without due process, those claims are just words. The rule of law demands evidence, a hearing, a chance to answer. Anything less is not justice—it’s tyranny. And that’s a fight this country has been waging, from Bunker Hill to today, with the blood of its soldiers as testament. To forget that now, in the case of one man, is to risk forgetting who we are.
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