A Father From Maryland
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, was illegally deported to El Salvador back on 15 March.
That’s sarcasm if you weren’t aware.
I haven’t written about the current deportations much, as it’s been a pretty fast moving situation. The news is coming pretty fast and furious. Today I’ll try to provide a precis of what is going down. Let’s start with the ‘Maryland man’ in the title.
Abrego Garcia entered the US illegally in 2011, at age 16. He was supposedly fleeing gang violence in his native El Salvador. In 2019 the first of two deportation orders for him was entered after his asylum claim was denied. The judge in that case determined it was more likely than not that Abrego Garcia was a member of Mara Salvatrucha also known as MS-13.
A second order was issued the next year with a similar finding of gang affiliation but included a withholding. That order prevented his removal to El Salvador. Garcia claimed he would be subject to ‘gang violence’ if he was returned to his home country.
Fast forward to this March, Abrego Garcia was arrested and deported to El Salvador despite the withholding order. He has since been the subject of much legal and political wrangling.
In the courts, a district judge in Maryland took it upon herself to take over the conduct of foreign policy from the Trump Administration, ordering the return of Abrego Garcia from his homeland. SCOTUS stepped in and ordered the judge to clarify her order, yet she refused to do so stating ‘my words mean what they mean’.
The judge is also demanding daily updates about the whereabouts of Abrego Garcia and the administration efforts to get him back. So far the admin has stonewalled her on the efforts portion of her blatantly unconstitutional order.
She is also threatening contempt charges against the administration.
Before I go any further I feel the need to point something out. Kilmar Abrego Garcia will never reside in the US again. Despite the US government’s mistake in sending him to El Salvador without having the withholding voided – and that would have been a relatively simple process – he had a valid removal order. Several officials have made it clear that if somehow he did manage to show up at a port of entry, he would be arrested, held and re-deported as quickly as they could make it happen.
On the political side, it gets a bit humorous. Last week, Maryland’s senior senator Chris Van Hollen took a trip to San Salvador to see Abrego Garcia. After having to cool his heels for a couple of days, Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele set up a photo op between the senator and the gangbanger.
Prior to and during his trip, the senator repeatedly and emphatically called Abrego Garcia a ‘Maryland man’ or ‘Maryland Father’ and a constituent. This must not have been polling well, because that ended when he returned.
Emboldened by the ‘success’ of the senator, several House members took the trip to El Salvador. Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), Maxine Dexter (D-OR), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), and Robert Garcia (D-CA) arrived in the country on Sunday. They did not receive the same welcome however, they have been emphatically denied permission to see the MS 13 member.
Maxine Dexter said that she will not be leaving El Salvador without Abrego Garcia. Good luck with that. President Bukele has said on multiple occasions that he would not release Abrego Garcia. I wonder if she realizes there is no proxy voting in the House or not.
Now that the facts are on the table so to speak, here are my thoughts on the matter.
This was an unforced error on the part of the Trump administration. As I said, the rescission of the withholding is a relatively quick and easy thing to do. Keep in mind, immigration courts are not Article 3 (federal judiciary) courts, they are Article 2 entities and directly under the control of the President.
They should have done that first and then shipped his wife-beating gangbanger ass back to El Salvador.
Everything you’re seeing now as related to deportations is because of this mistake. Am I siding with the courts, specifically Boasberg in DC and Xinis in Maryland, no I am not. The district courts and those two in particular have caused a crisis by trying to abrogate the rights to the sole province of the Executive, foreign policy and immigration.
What I am saying is that the deportations could be going a lot more smoothly than they are. And it’s the fault of the administration that they are not.
