Donald’s Dizzying Deportations: Abrego Garcia and the Right to Due Process

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion

At the light speed with which the United States is travelling down the path of authoritarianism, it is incredibly difficult to follow along with the raucousness and blatant disregard for constitutional law. With every passing day, the Trump administration continues to flex its executive power in the hopes that the public loses interest, and judiciaries lose their will to fight. Due process is a coveted, but rather contentious clause of the United States Constitution. Borrowing from the verbiage of the Magna Carta, Section One of the 14th Amendment stipulates that, “Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Back in March, a man under legal protection status, Abrego Garcia, was illegally deported by ICE under the directives of the Trump Administration due to his alleged membership in the El Salvadoran gang, MS-13. The basis on which the administration made its decision have come out to only be hearsay; namely a photoshopped knuckle tattoo on Garcia and the mere fact he fled the country. 

The reckless use of ICE had been a staple of the first Trump Administration, and once again as Trump has declared war on the constitution in favour of his boundless xenophobia. Using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act as rationale, Trump has pronounced Garcia an alien in the context of national security, which many judges have declared unlawful. The legal aerobics that the administration is willing to try to illegally remove people off the streets is shameful and quite un-American. Living with his family in Maryland at the time of his arrest, Garcia was protected under an immigration judge’s ruling in the Fall of 2019, granting him protection from removal to El Salvador. By prematurely classifying Garcia as a member of MS-13, ICE blatantly made an error in deporting Garcia to El Salvador’s infamous maximum-security facility, CECOT. Supposedly tough on crime, Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, made an appearance at the White House to discuss Garcia, but primarily to market his mega prisons.

Dubbed “the world’s coolest dictator,” Bukele ascended to the office of the presidency in 2019 with a promise of a war on crime. Bukele has used his industrial prison system and police state to indiscriminately arrest thousands of citizens without real convictions. We are at the crux of our dilemma here; Trump wants a mega prison where he can send “political elements” without having the national public’s attention focused on the legality of said imprisonments. We are witnessing an authoritarian’s repeated abuse of his executive power to do whatever he wants, rather than adhere to constitutional checks and balances. Garcia certainly should never have been deported because of his protection under the ruling of his 2019 immigration case. ICE representative, Evan Katz, has recently stated that this deportation was in fact an error. Much like the totalitarian disarray that was caused by mass deportations of the Soviet Union, the Trump Administration’s legal integrity is in shambles, and it would take some hefty blinders not to be aware of it. 

It should not be surprising that this is not the only recent case of illegal deportation from the oval office. Named only as “Cristian,” a young Venezuelan 20 year old awaiting asylum status, was deported by the administration and will have to be returned because of the same error by the federal government. Based solely on the colour of their skin and their countries of origin, it is egregious that the administration is getting away with any of this. The Supreme Court thankfully has ruled that the administration facilitate the returns of those they have incorrectly deported, but it will take some very real leg work by those with the integrity to respect the rule of law in the United States. What seems to be evolving into an Orwellian novel, Trump’s loyalists and immigrant watchdogs are hungrily eyeing anyone they deem potentially threatening to the government. Congress and judiciaries around the country must stand up to this tyrant. His abuses have gone beyond any American official has before, and it is our democracy at stake. From its original Greek, “demos” meaning people or of the people, followed by “kratos,” power or rule; it has become plain as day that Trump does not care about the people or their rights. It has become as the Greeks would say, “oligos” or the rule of a few in neglect of the many. 

Legal jurisdiction and the beautiful Greek language aside, it is incredibly frightening that the public hasn’t focused more on the real terror of using an offsite mega prison and how it affects those incarcerated there. According to an El Salvadoran humanitarian nonprofit, Cristosal, this prison has seen dangerously high numbers of human rights abuses including torture and mistaken incarceration. These prisoners don’t go outside, there are no real productive activities to be heard of, and there have even been deaths related to poor medical facilities. It does not bode well for Bukele and Trump, as they scheme to imprison people here en masse without any real sense of culpability. I am quite alarmed and disheartened at this new partnership, but I am not surprised. The United States has taken its new role alongside the others among Anne Applebaum’s “Autocracy Inc.” Unless Donald Trump is held accountable for his actions, there will be no coming back for rule of law. ‘Law and Order’, Trump has trumpeted publicly; more like Trump’s Order of Imbeciles.

Image: Flickr/U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Tia Dufour)

Licence: US Government Work (Public Domain)

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