This is entirely as it is supposed to operate. See Archibald Tuttle
[0]. Cowardly, weak little men who would never have the nerve to look
another in the eye, are depicted in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" in a
different way to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. Whereas the "Thought
Police" of the latter are happy to use violence, the grey bureaucrats
of Gilliam's world hide behind malfunctioning machinery which is their
unpredictable attack dog. As with weapon dogs it is a vicarious
instrument which they claim to have "no control over".
There's no honesty in the current administration, legal arguments or otherwise.
It's all big talk and false macho garbage and then the next moment victim card when the president complains that people say bad things about him and he needs the legal system to come down on critics ...
You’re complaining about lack of honesty, but you’re talking about an article that fails to mention that this guy was ordered deported in 2019 for gang ties after an administrative appeal. Or that this man immigrated illegally in 2011 but didn’t file an asylum claim until 2018. Or that the immigration judge denied his asylum claim.
The information omitted by the AP article completely changes the understanding of what actually happened.
He was ordered deported because he wore a bulls hat and an anonymous informant claimed he was a member of a gang in a city he never lived in? Is that the basis we're talking about?
If a determination by an immigration judge followed by a BIA appeal isn’t sufficient to deport suspected gang members, how can we enforce our immigration laws at all? Do we need a jury trial with proof beyond a reasonable doubt?
> If a determination by an immigration judge followed by a BIA appeal isn’t sufficient to deport suspected gang members
Kind of a weird question to ask, given that the deportations to El Salvador pretext on the Alien Enemies Act involve none of that, and this specific individual was granted protection from deportation to El Salvador at his immigration hearing in 2019, and the government chose not to appeal.
Note that as well as being in violation of the only decision made by an immigration judge in his individual case, his removal under the Administrations invocation of the Alien Enemies Act also is outside of the authority of invocation of that Act even if one assumes the invocation is valid, as, being invoked on the pretext of an existing war with Venezuela initiated by a Venezuelan invasion of the US (which is preposterous on its face, and the Administration is doing nothing to prosecute the war initiated by this invasion beyond deporting people without due process, demonstrating the lack of seriousness of the claim), it applies only to Venezuelan nationals, and he is Salvadoran.
That said, before being enslaved—and those sent to CECOT are both enslaved and trafficked in the international slave trade—under the 13th Amendment, yes, anyone is entitled to criminal trial.
This specific alien was not deported under the AEA. And the immigration judge and BIA both found him deportable on the basis of ties to MS13. And they denied his asylum claim.
So the scope of what’s at issue here is compliance with whatever “protection from deportation” might exist where someone has been found to be deportable due to gang ties, and found to lack a valid asylum claim. What possible justification could there be, and are we going to let all the 22 million illegal aliens in the country invoke such third-string justifications?
Why on earth should people facing extreme legal sanction (deportation) not be entitled to a trial to dispute the claims against them? This is basic rule of law stuff. Currently the admin is trying to deny these people the right to plea their case in front of judges at all.
Let’s say I apply for a tourist visa to US, and I get denied. Am I entitled to a jury trial in US to decide whether I get the visa or not?
Let’s say I do get a tourist visa, get admitted at the border, and the second I cross it, I begin openly violating the terms of the tourist visa. Can the government deport me right there and then, or am I entitled to a full jury trial that decides my deportation?
Finally, let’s say that I violate my tourist visa covertly instead of overtly, so that the government finds out only 3 years later. You seem to be claiming in your comment that at that point, I am certainly entitled to a jury trial. If you answered “no, you’re not entitled to trial” in the previous scenarios, what exactly do you think has changed that makes me entitled to it now?
Because the law isn't based on justice, morality, or ethics. It is merely a system by which power is wielded. You are basing your judgement on a fictional caricature that is not reality. What 'should' happen has zero bearing there. The immigration judges are merely delegates of the AG, and only empowered to the extent the AG allows. It is an administrative action without protection criminal defendants get.
People facing deportation have never been entitled to a trial. What you’re describing would be a vast expansion of the procedural requirements for deportation.
Deportation is not an “extreme sanction” if it’s proven that someone is not a U.S. citizen. Non-citizens have no right to remain on U.S. soil except what the government chooses to extend.
Seems like probably yes! The rest of our legal system overwhelmingly favors errors that let the guilty go free over ones that punish the nonguilty. Due process is not just for citizens.
Due process here is administrative, not criminal, so the non-citizen isn't entitled to the kind of trial you're thinking he would get were he criminally charged. Due process for an administrative action just means the prescribed process under the law must be followed, which in US immigration means being seen by an executive branch (fake) judge in the immigration kangaroo courts.
Removal of an illegal alien is not about “guilt” or “non-guilt.” And being expelled from the U.S. when you have no right to be here isn’t a “punishment.”
It’s like civil trespass. You don’t need a trial to kick someone off your property. And when the police remove them, they’re not being punished.
Does it matter? Both candidates promised to deport gang members. You think it’s possible to do what Harris promises to do by giving each one a jury trial?
If adhering to rule of law is inconvenient, the state doesn't get to ignore it. What if I were to anonymously report you as a gang member? Surely then we'd want to remove you from the country expeditiously, in fact so expeditiously that allowing you to make your case in court would harm public safety. Have fun in CECOT!
That's the strength of the evidence that this individual was a gang member. If it can happen to him it can happen to you or to me.
> In its court filing on Monday, the Trump administration said ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”
He was granted protection from deportation to El Salvador. You seem very concerned about the rule of law except when it's ignored or treated carelessly for immigrants.
He’s an El Salvadoran citizen! He’s in prison because El Salvador believes he’s an MS-13 gang member. If he believes he’s being held wrongfully in El Salvador he can avail himself of the legal procedures of his country. This has nothing to do with the U.S.
Got a source on El Salvador's position? The article states the MS-13 claims come from the US and are unsubstantiated:
> The allegations about his affiliation with MS-13 stem from a 2019 arrest outside a Maryland Home Depot store, where he and other young men were looking for work, according to the complaint.
They also claim he had legal protections from being deported specifically to El Salvador:
> An immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request in October 2019 but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador.
> In its court filing on Monday, the Trump administration said ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”
This is the part that concerns the US. Also the part where this is all being paid for by American tax dollars.
Yes, the “administrative error” relates to the narrow point about the supposed “protection from deportation.” He was ordered deported for gang ties, upheld after an administrative appeal. And his asylum claim was denied. The article omits the information about the immigration judge and Board of Immigration Appeals finding that he was deportable for being an MS13 member, making it seem like the “administrative error” was about that.
There is no legitimate reason for any El Salvadoran citizen to receive asylum in the U.S. The country is now safer than Canada. If this guy thinks he is being unlawfully detained, he can avail himself of the legal procedures of his own country.
> Yes, the “administrative error” relates to the narrow point about the supposed “protection from deportation.”
He was not granted protection from deportation, he was granted protection from being deported to El Salvador. The administrative error is that he was indeed deported to El Salvador. If he was deported elsewhere this wouldn't be an issue:
> Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said U.S. government lawyers had multiple opportunities to try legally to deport him, including appealing the judge’s 2019 decision or deporting him elsewhere.
> The article omits the information about the immigration judge and Board of Immigration Appeals finding that he was deportable for being an MS13 member, making it seem like the “administrative error” was about that.
It is my understanding that he had not been convicted of anything and that the administration immediately backpedaled on the claim. Do you have contradictory source?
> There is no legitimate reason for any El Salvadoran citizen to receive asylum in the U.S. The country is now safer than Canada. If this guy thinks he is being unlawfully detained, he can avail himself of the legal procedures of his own country.
I don't see how this is relevant at all, nobody was claiming he had asylum here. Again, the problem is not that he was deported, the problem is that the US government violated a US court order.
He went before an immigration judge (which is not a real judge, but rather an employee of the DOJ) who determined that he was deportable due to gang ties. He then appealed to the Board of Immigration appeals, which is not a real court but an agency within the DOJ. The BIA affirmed the immigration judge.
He wasn’t eligible for asylum, so the immigration judge said he could be deported anywhere but El Salvador. There was no violation of a “court order,” just a mix-up within the executive branch about where an illegal alien could be deported to.
He is not a citizen of El Salvador, he is Venezuelan. The sole reason he was classed as a member of that criminal organisation are his crown tattoos, and 'secret inside information'.
The Guardian article gives some more background, and explains these (catholic) tattoos:
Except the administration is paying for these people to be in the El Salvadoran prison. Also, since when is the administration that uses threats of giant tariffs to accomplish its goals powerless to right these wrongs?
In my opinion, this should be an 8th amendment violation. "We threw you in a pit forever but its not our pit so your legal protections are void" is not good.
This isn't just flying somebody to their country of origin and leaving them there. This is flying somebody to an unrelated country and the paying a foreign nation to throw them in an overcrowded prison with no oversight for the rest of their lives.
> This is flying somebody to an unrelated country and the paying a foreign nation to throw them in an overcrowded prison with no oversight for the rest of their lives.
That's true of most of the people the Trump administration are sending to CECOT in El Salvador, but not the guy the article is about:
> Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador around 2011, “fleeing gang violence,” according to his lawyers, and made his way to Maryland to join his older brother, a U.S. citizen.
Right, but if you've been following the situation since the current administration took office, you would know that if they want something, they're not shy to ask.
Nor it is reasonable to not have processes to get back someone if they're wrongfully deported. Moving fast and breaking things is not acceptable when you're dealing with people's lifes - and i somehow think if a rich white man were to be deported by mistake, he would be brought back quite fast
Backend thought exercise: Do you think they could get back someone they wanted to get back, such as a member of the administration? Do you think they could follow a process that made it easier to get people back?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)