What came for Kilmar Abrego Garcia is coming for us all

April 16, 2025

Deception Pass, the gateway to the San Juan Islands National Monument

Bend the knee, or else

I will try to be short today, at least shorter than usual, because we’re all in this intensive care ward together and it’s not my job to provoke or inflame emotional distress. We have Trump’s mini-me Steven Miller (and others) doing that job, and I’d rather be the medic than the bazooka.

The rule of law is not apart from us, but an extension of common values distilled over time, in our evolution from tyranny to democracy. It’s not perfect. I’ve been a plaintiff who’s watched my lawyer storm out of a courtroom in disgust when we lost. But I’ve also sat between my then-young daughter and a nervous attorney (who was making her first appearance before the state supreme court) and realized, as the minutes passed, that we were going to prevail in the end. And we did, because the evidence mattered, and the law was reasonably clear.

When we get it right, the law should reflect our nature, and that’s what Lawrence Tribe (one of the great lawyers and law professors of our time, whose students include Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts) was voicing last night when he told an interviewer, with a quiver in his voice: “This is not who we are. We are a decent people.” It was not a boast. It was a lament.

He was talking about the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29 year-old illegal immigrant married to an American woman, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, with whom he has fathered a now five-year-old special-needs daughter. Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager out of fear of being harmed by one of the country’s violent gangs.

There is a general principle in U.S. tradition and law that we grant asylum to people who can reasonably show they face persecution in their countries of origin if they are deported. Garcia’s case is a bit different, in that he did enter the U.S. illegally. Still, he has applied for asylum and his deportation (back to El Salvador) was blocked by a federal immigration court who, in part, ruled the following in 2019: “[T]he Respondent provided credible responses to the questions asked. His testimony was internally consistent, externally consistent with his asylum application and other documents, and appeared free of embellishment. Further, he provided substantial documentation buttressing his claims. Included in this evidence were several affidavits from family members. ... The court finds the Respondent credible.”

ICE Order of Supervision for Kilmar Abrego Garcia (image courtesty Wikimedia images)

That remained the case until Garcia was re-arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on March 12 of this year and, three days later, flown with more than 100 other deportees to El Salvador for confinement at the notorious CECOT prison. Top Trump Administration officials continue to make false allegations about Garcia, including Vice President JD Vance’s allegation that Garcia has been convicted of being a member of a Salvadoran criminal organization, MS-13, that has operations in the U.S.

But for those interested in the rule of law, here’s the most pertinent fact:

“On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error. (emphasis added) Cerna. On March 16, a news article contained a photograph of individuals entering intake at CECOT. Abrego Garcia’s wife identified one of the detainees depicted as her husband based on his tattoos and head scars.”

The above passage comes not from “the fake news” but from a court document filed by the U.S. Department of Justice on March 31, 2025.

As a federal trial court has already ruled, none of the others that ICE packed onto airplanes and flew to El Salvador on March 15th had received due process of law either. That’s egregious by itself. What makes Garcia’s case all the more egregious is that a federal immigration judge had formally determined he faced imminent danger if he were returned to El Salvador. That’s why the judge had placed a hold on Garcia not to be deported to El Salvador. You can read other details about the background of Garcia’s case here.

The context of this combusting controversy is crucial.

The Trump administration’s purge of the Department of Justice and FBI is the most ominous signal that it fully intends to use (and is using) the government to harass, persecute and prosecute Trump’s political and cultural opponents. As I sought to underscore in Sunday’s dispatch, A gallery of thugs, the Roberts’ court opened this Pandora’s box with its ruling in Trump v. U.S. last summer—handing Trump 2.0 a seemingly boundless gift of presumptive immunity and executive branch obeisance to the presidency.

This, in turn has set the tone and context for Trump’s aggressive actions toward law firms, universities, cities, and state governments that resist his policies. Immigrants and foreign exchange students (i.e. Columbia’s Mohammad Khalil and Tufts’ Rumeysa Ozturk) who voice dissent from U.S. and Israeli foreign policy have been the low-lying fruit in the continuing crack down.

Trump & Company pursue “retribution” without fear of consequences in large part because the Roberts court is stacked with a majority of justices who were all-in last summer to give the presidency broad immunity from criminal prosecution in the conduct of his “official acts.”

The result is the sort of mayhem that unfolded at the White House on Monday, when the El Salvadoran president, Naybib Bukele (who describes himself as “the world’s coolest dictator” ) met with Trump and his team in the Oval Office.

The speed at which Trump 2.0 reached an agreement with Bukele (at a reported $6 million a year) to house deported illegal immigrants smacks of the covert “dark side” policy that led to the torture debacle at Abu Grahib in 2003. Part of what unfolded at the White House on Monday was the explanation that the U.S. was now powerless (even though it is paying a reported $6 million to house prisoners at the El Salvadoran compound) to retrieve the people it has sent to be confined there.

(As you may recall, the original plan was to house the deported prisoners at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo in Cuba—a plan that was scuttled in late February, ostensibly because they lacked sufficient air conditioning. But, as we’re now seeing, a sinister twist to the El Salvador prison is that—because it’s not tethered to U.S. property—the U.S. can disclaim responsibility and liability for the fate of the deportees at CECOT, the “Terrorism” prison notorious for its inhumane conditions.)

But the most chilling development was the insistence from Trump and his entourage that the Supreme Court’s ruling was basically the opposite of how legal authorities (and others who can read English) interpreted the court’s 9-0 decision—that the U.S. Government, having made the mistake of transporting Garcia to El Salvador, should take reasonable steps to return him.

To be sure, there was a Trump-friendly rebuke to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, saying, in essence, she should have used gentler language in directing Trump to take steps to assure Garcia’s safety and return to the U.S. Where Judge Xinis used the word “effectuate,” the Supreme Court found that was too harsh and/or disrespectful, and that the proper word was “facilitate.”

The subject came up at the meeting with Bukele on Monday. Following the script, Trump invited his most aggressive spokesperson—Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller—to expound on it. Not even Fox News was buying what Miller was selling, which led to Miller to thrash Fox News host Bill Hemmer who, in turn, grimaced and chided Miller for not letting him get a question in edgewise. But it is Miller —in his bullying manner, emulating his boss—that is true to the whole operation: the relentless imposition of Trump’s will in every niche of our politics and its cultural cocoon.

In the past 24 hours, the two federal judges who’ve had to adjudicate the stand-off—while absorbing the personal invective Trump has spewed—have replied with timelines that will bring us to the answer of whether our judicial branch of government is capable of reigning in a rogue presidency. (We already know the answer from the Republican-controlled Congress. That answer is a no.

But part of the script has already been written, and spoken, by Trump, Bondi, Steven Miller, JD Vance and others. These are people much more interested in power and personal advancement than they are in the rule of law. And there is no bound to their vice—it doesn’t stop at the people most easily demonized. It ultimately comes for anyone with a voice who won’t conform to their will. That’s what they’re communicating, and we should believe them.

To continue reading today’s post, please become a paying subscriber to The Daily Rhubarb at the link above, tx—tjc