If You're Brown, Get Out of Town

 

It started out – and least in campaign rhetoric – to be an energized response to those breaking our laws, be it failing to legally enter our country, or be those violations actual crimes committed in the United States.

But the reality under Donald Trump has become something different. In the most diplomatic of terms, it is gross overreach. In more direct terms, it is the actions of a police state who itself is ignoring laws and the US Constitution.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is, by a 2019 court order, legally residing in the United States. That year was the beginning of law enforcement’s efforts to deport Abrego Garcia who had in fact crossed into the US illegally to escape threats he received in El Salvador by the gang Barrio 18 who were attempting to muscle in on his mother’s business. However, the court ruled the El Salvadorian with an American wife and an American-born child should not be deported to El Salvador where he faced possible torture and death at the hands of Barrio 18 and gave Abrego Garcia protected status.

Despite this, while driving with his special needs son, ICE stopped and arrested him. He was accused of being a member of the gang MS 13 which ICE has been active in rounding up. There is no evidence of any kind that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS 13. The only argument presented by ICE is that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, a black hoodie and had a tattoo. In my opinion, they left out another factor they surely considered: he has brown skin. (the tattoo is a tattoo supporting autistic children).

Without due process, he was handcuffed, jailed and packed off to a El Salvadorian (CECOT) prison  that a US Judge has said is “notorious…for human rights violations”.

The Trump administration admits now that he should have never been deported. They refer to it as an administrative error. But, they claim, it is what it is, and they cannot remove him from a prison where his safety is in danger. Abrego Garcia just needs to get accustomed to his new home.

A judge disagrees with Team Trump’s claim, and ordered that Trump return him to the US. Trump refuses. They are appealing the ruling, even though their representative in court conceded they have no proof of his MS 13 affiliation and that they imprisoned him in error.

JD Vance has gone on the offensive, campaigning against Abrego Garcia with the lie that “he is a convicted MS 13 gang member and not legally in the United States.” Lies on both counts – he never was charged with being a gang member and the courts gave him protected status in the US. Vance knows the truth. It appears then that Team Trump is content that an innocent man rotting in an infamous prison is justified as long as another brown-skinned individual has been subtracted from the US population.

Judge Paula Xinis seems to acknowledge that when she concludes that Trump’s argument that it is impossible for them to have the means to return Abrigo Garcia is untrue and that instead, it is Trump’s administration’s “lack of desire” to see the victim returned to the US.

I would be the first to cheer the removal of dangerous gang members from our cities, but I have equal enthusiasm for the right of due process under our Constitution and a concern that in casting their net so wide and so indiscriminately, ICE is grabbing innocent people and condemning them to the same fate as the guilty.

Tren de Aragua is a violent Venezuelan gang operating in the US and rightfully targeted for deportation and incarceration. But of 238 tagged by ICE as being gang members and now sitting in CECOT, families of 27 of them claim they have no gang ties and records show that these 27 all have been working with immigration and have pending cases to determine their applications for legal asylum.

Detaining people in the country illegally is the main function of ICE and they have been active in this pursuit. However, even higher numbers of those who are following legal procedures to work in the US are being arrested by ICE than those innocents suspected of gang activity. The estimate is 8-10% with many detained when responsibly checking in with the immigration office as they are required to do. In the prior month, seven American citizens were arrested and detained. The red flag? Brown skin.

A nation’s laws and borders should be respected. Following a country’s procedures for immigration and asylum should be followed. But there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to enforce our laws, and the tactics used by Trump through ICE are those of a police state, not of a democratic government.