Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
I don’t know him. You don’t know him. But his future will foretell the future of this country.
The case of a man none of us knows and the primacy of his right to due process under the law might prove to be as important as the words of our founding fathers to the future of the United States.
Who Is He?
Garcia is the 14-year resident of the United States who has been working, paying taxes, and raising a family of five in Maryland. He was swept up in the manic fervor of the Trump Administration to deport Latin American gang members. He was deported to El Salvador with a few hundred other alleged gang members, and while that move raised eyebrows across the United States for its intentional speed and brazen lack of transparency, the political and legal game that has been played out since should be terrifying.
Garcia was never proven to be a gang member. In fact, in 2019 he was shielded from deportation to El Salvador by a U.S. judge because of threats to him and his family from gangs in El Salvador.
The Battlefield
Trump has chosen this hill to plant his flag, publicly challenging our courts to stop him. Since the inauguration, the administration has taken a “stop me” approach to policy, issuing executive orders, taking unilateral action, waiting to see who will challenge the president.
If the courts do not rise to the challenge, Trump will know there is no limit to his power and no check on his authority.
This case is so much bigger than the deportation of one man. The fact that Garcia, a legal resident, is being held in a foreign prison should be enough in itself to turn our stomachs and generate outrage across our country. But the bigger challenge to our constitutional republic should have us all ready to act.
The Trump administration claimed that Garcia’s deportation was due to an “administrative error,” but made no move to bring him back home. The courts later ruled that Trump must bring Garcia back. He appealed that order to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ordered Trump to facilitate Garcia’s return. He responded that he couldn’t. Now we watch and wait.
Constitution or Not?
Trump is challenging a court with a 6-3 Republican majority, three of those members appointed by Trump himself. The table could not be more set in his favor. But in a unanimous decision, the court said he must reverse course.
Trump and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele are playing a legal game, seeking a way to circumvent the order. All the while, a human being is being wrongly held, and the two men who could easily and swiftly resolve the issue coldly refuse.
Do we have three independent branches of federal government to provide checks and balances as we all learned in school? The more accurate question is do we all continue to believe in that system of government? The founding principles and the words of the Constitution have no power if we do not empower them.
Trump is living out his authoritarian strategy through this case. It is a test of our courts, the last challenge to his complete freedom to do as he chooses without repercussion. Trump believes he can win control of this country in court. He is determined to circumvent and undermine the Supreme Court through creative manipulation of the legal system and now we simply watch and wait, wondering if this last line of defense will hold.
It’s Not About One Man
It should be enough. We should care enough about Garcia to do what is right. But we also can’t allow this story to fade because it is simply one man, shrugging it off eventually, quietly agreeing we can all swallow a little collateral damage and go on.
We can say, “It’s just Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a non-citizen from El Salvador that I don’t even know.”
But if due process and legal protections are not important for any one person legally living in this country, it is foolish to believe they are important for any of us.
Trump has boldly stated he’d like to send citizens who are violent criminals to El Salvador. The administration has made a point of arresting vocal protestors from foreign countries and stripping students of visas. Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said, “We should only have people in this country that love us.”
Maybe It Is About One Man
Let that comment sink in. It is a deeply divisive dismissal of differing views and opinions.
It is a vague call for unity, under the premise that unity exists as loyal followers. It is about who is welcome according to the judgment of a man and his followers, not on legal definitions in the law. It is a loyalty test rather than a right.
If you step back and look at the big picture, this story, like every story since Trump emerged as a candidate over a dozen years ago is actually about one man – Trump.
If you look how they want you to look, act how they want you to act, think how they want you to think, and accept what they want you to accept, then you will have earned the right to stay.
But What Can I Do?
Change the narrative.
When someone tells you Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegal, tell them they are wrong.
When someone tells you Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a criminal, tell they are wrong.
When they want to strip away his humanity, protect it and urge them to stand a moment into his shoes.
When they want to make it about one individual, make it about every individual.
Protect everyone with two feet on American soil because there is no guarantee of due process for anyone if there is no guarantee of due process for everyone.
He is a man who simply wanted the freedom to be. To be safe, to be protected, to be with his family. The United States, the self-declared lighthouse of freedom and liberty, is denying him those things in the name of an authoritarian dream playing itself out in front of us.
Our right to be is the most basic of all, and if we can’t feel safe in that right, there are no other rights.
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION: “Freedom” by Clearly Ambiguous is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.