As bad as my day was yesterday (really bad) Albrego Garcia, SCOTUS and the rule of law and the United States overall had a far worse one. Trump doesn’t know much, but he knows how to use Television and put on a show. Yesterday, Trump gave us “Live From the White House.” The “Screw SCOTUS, I’ll Give Bukele The Greenlight To Execute Garcia” being the episode’s title. That is exactly what went down. Trump sat there with the cameras rolling, live and with his ‘supporting case’ speaking their lines on cue (LIES I should add) in effect told Bukele that as far as he was concerned our laws don’t mean jack, he’ll just ignore them and if when the attention finally dies down a bit or gets diverted to go ahead and execute Garcia. He might as well have said ‘Give our buddy in Saudi Arabia a call for tips on use of a bone-saw!’
It was ghastly to watch. This article from USA Today offers details of the meeting but doesn’t come close to attempting, much less capturing the outright HORROR of what we saw. Trump and his team sat there yukking it up with a brutal dictator. Like everyone else in this tragic farce of a Reality TV show Bukele knew his lines. Trump played ‘oopsie, we made a mistake sending him to you’ (wink wink, nod nod Har Har) so what are YOU going to do? Bukele responded just the way they’d planned it, that Garcia was HIS now, and questioned whether the U.S. would even take him back! (more wink wink, nod nod Har Har) Then it was time for the ‘supporting characters’ to speak their lines.
AG Pam Bondi (watch out Ingraham – Bondi is out for your MAGA Aryan Queen Crown and millions of dollars time slot on Fox) and Stephen Miller spouted their LIES about Garcia being not just some ordinary member of MS-13 but an outright terrorist. Both made a point of claiming (LIES of course) that Garcia had been deemed TWICE by the courts as such. The term “Illegal Alien” was of course used, implying being so makes one a major criminal. Reality itself is different.
First of all, like most who came here without using the immigration system or who overstayed a Visa Garcia is only guilty of the the U.S. Code states is “Improper Entry” (Title 8, Section 1325 of the U.S. Code (U.S.C.)) which is a MISDEMEANOR and not treated as a criminal matter. Those caught crossing into the U.S. are subject to a fine and deportation unless other factors, like drug smuggling, a criminal record in their home country etc. come into play. In those cases their case can be treated as a criminal one with a fine of up to $250, up to six months in prison or both. There is nothing to suggest Garcia came in with drugs, nor did he have gang or criminal history back in El Salvador. In fact he fled his country because the gangs kept harassing him and his family and he wanted nothing to do with them!
So in Garcia we have a man who did NOT want to be involved with gangs (and become a criminal) who snuck into the United States. As this article from FindLaw explains his case would ordinarily be treated like I already said – as a Misdemeanor. (punishable by a fine of up to $250). ‘BUT HE STAYED!’ conservatives howl. The thing is, once here staying isn’t in an of itself a crime under U.S. law:
But mere unlawful presence in the country is not a crime. It is a violation of federal immigration law to remain in the country without legal authorization, but this violation is punishable by civil penalties, not criminal. Chief among these civil penalties is deportation or removal, where an unlawful resident may be detained and removed from the country. Unlawful presence can also have negative consequences for a resident who may seek to gain re-entry into the United States, or permanent residency.
Garcia quickly settled in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC where he worked, started a family and tried to live a quiet life. He was never arrested for or charged with crimes except for running into issues with Immigration goons. That’s when things went bad. A Confidential Informant claimed Garcia was in a gang. However LE investigated (this was during Trump’s first administration) and found nothing. So the matter was dropped. Then another CI claimed Garcia was active in MS-13 up in New York. A state Garcia never lived in! Between working, family and dealing with local ICE people just how the hell was he supposed to be active in a notorious gang hundreds of miles away?
Still, given this second CI had (according to ICE) proved “reliable” in the past judges twice denied Garcia bail. These were NOT criminal charges, much less convictions of gang related crimes/activity. Simply denial of bail. However listening to Bondi and Miller yesterday someone who was unwilling to do some basic checking would hear Garcia was a dangerous CRIMINAL, a TERRORIST in fact since the gang he was allegedly part of had been designated as such by Trump. Nothing could be further from the TRUTH.
In fact, the DOJ hasn’t produced a scrap of evidence in court to support claims Garcia was a gang member. Only an unsourced (because it came from a Confidential Informant years ago) allegation that a guy who’d been living and working in Maryland (well documented) was simultaneously up in New York and active with MS-13 up there. NO evidence Garcia had ever even visited New York! All of that is why in 2019, which I again remind you Trump was President a judge not only freed Garcia but also issued a specific order that he not be deported to El Salvador.
We hear about Asylum and those of us who pay attention know it’s nowhere near as easy to be granted it as conservatives make it seem. Yet the order entered in Garcia’s case was a quite specific ruling under immigration law and a LOT heavier legal lift to obtain. Yet ICE says that only AFTER they’d put Garcia on a plane to El Salvador they’d discovered their ‘mistake.’ I for one don’t believe for ONE SECOND that ICE didn’t know goddamned well about that order. Nope, they just ignored it. I swear, there must be a mentality in that agency along the lines of ‘What NEW way can we prove to everyone we are even more heartless, that we are even MORE cruel that people already know we are?’
Sending a man, a father to two children who are U.S. citizens and husband of a U.S. citizen wife back to a country he’d fled because gangs wouldn’t leave him alone was a DEATH SENTENCE. And they KNEW it when they did it. The freaking Cruelty is the point.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Trumpty could have had Little Marco work out a surprise PR stunt for yesterday. One where the El Salvadorian dictator would have brought Garcia back, and he and Trump sat there and tried to do what dictators sometimes do – pretend they aren’t such bad guys after all. Announce that Garcia was back with his family across the river in suburban Maryland. But NOOOOOOOOO. Instead they chose to tell the country and the world Trump can in fact order the death of anyone he wants. Just like in those series of ‘hypotheticals’ that came up during the oral arguments at the Court of Appeals and SCOTUS.
I wonder how Chief Justice Roberts is feeling so far this week. Trump took the ‘I’ll make sure you don’t have J6 convictions that will cost you the election’ decision and Trump is rubbing his nose in that giant pile of legal feces. With the flourish of openly defying the SUPREME COURT and doing so live on TV! I’ve seen some news today, and at least in the aftermath it’s being pointed out that Trump and his new bestest pal had a merry old time talking about Bukele building a bunch more hellhole prisons in El Salvador and TRUMP shipping AMERICAN CITIZENS to them.
Oh, Trump WHO PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE said it would only be the worst “criminals” he’d ship off for prison time that would basically be torture prior to eventual death. However keep a few things in mind.
First, Trump has a list of political opponents he’s branded ‘criminals’, ‘terrorists’, ‘traitors’, none of whom have violated any actual law. No, they’ve only violated the First Trump Commandment of ‘Thou shalt venerate, worship and publicly PRAISE the Lord God Trump or suffer the consequences’ and for that Trump is saying he’s got the power (and SCOTUS pretty much gave it to him) to make summary judgements. To order the kidnapping and imprisonment, or even execution of anyone he wants, anytime he wants!
Second, Trump is mentally unstable. He wasn’t “all there” in the head his first term and he’s clearly gone downhill since. Worse, there are precious few people who might stop him if he tried to do something truly crazy like lobbing tactical nukes. His purging of the military command and replacing top people with sycophants is a terrifying thing to contemplate. People from his FIRST administration have said as much about Trump’s lack of intellect and downright mental instability. However when it might have made a difference they didn’t speak out, and more importantly invoke the 25th Amendment and hand things over to Pence. The current crowd does have people, Rubio immediately comes to mind who feel the same but none of them will grow a spine any more than more qualified, experienced people in Trump’s first administration did.
Third, Trump is vindictive and he wants payback. He knows damn well he made a mess of things in his first term and that why he got his butt whipped by Joe Biden. Well before Biden was officially a candidate Trump FEARED running against him. And only him. Trump knew the contract between him and steady old ‘boring’ but filled with more knowledge and experience than any other politician Biden would be his undoing. And it was. For far better people than Trump losing a Presidential election is a bitter pill that no one gets over. For someone with Trump’s ego, his level of narcissism, someone already “broken” it was crushing in a unique way. Trump doesn’t care who suffers, be they Democrats, Republicans or Independents. He wants EVERYONE to suffer the way he suffers. So he’s growing ever more crazed and bold.
Given all that it’s no surprise he sat there with a brutal dictator and told the Chief Justice without whom he’d be back in the WH that he and SCOTUS can go screw themselves. And, with the whole world watching lied about a hardworking man, a husband and father and even admitted ICE had ‘made a mistake’ (I call bullshit – they did what they did on purpose!) but that he wasn’t even going to ask his pal to help him right a wrong. And his pal, being in on the whole DEADLY “gag” playacted that his own hands were tied too. Abrego Garcia is a dead man walking. TRUMP has pronounced sentence so to speak and the only question is when the execution will be carried out.
I just saw Senator Grassley catching hell at a Town Hall in an Iowa classroom on this. We need to flood other Congress Critters including and especially GOP ones with the same kind of pointed, angry questioning. It did my heart good to see a room full of WHITE people, regular Iowa folks so worked up and openly criticizing Trump. Is it too much to hope that Congress will realize it is NOT powerless to rein in Trump?
****** Zoomers, we would happily accept a small donation to defray expenses as we trek through cyberspace. It’s going to get a lot crazier, that much we can guarantee you. Thanks. Ursula ******
Get them out! All of them!
Get them out anyway possible!
Trump loves the adulation, and the power.
And what greater power is there than that over life or death?
We already saw his last regime radically increased executions for imposed sentences.
Now he can do it all with just his orders, no courts involved.
His decision alone.
There is no greater, or more dangerous, power wielded.
He LOVES wielding it.
He needs it shoved down his throat.
Or up another orifice? Sideways perhaps?
Denis, I think the education we are all receiving on immigration law is vital in moving forward as we work to get back those already in the CECOT gulag and to prevent further disappearing. What you put into this lesson is vital.
I just don’t agree that what occurred yesterday was permission to execute Abrego Garcia. I believe it was more of the cover-up that he is already dead and “that other President is responsible, not me. I didn’t even have the jurisdiction when the murder happened! I don’t even have the power to ask for a viewing of the corpse!”
It’s amazing that two self-declared strongmen sat together to declare that they are completely powerless about this one insignificant “terrorist.” Stunning! 🤬
🤨 But their strength returned with the $12B a year handshake 🤝 Trump and Bukele got ovations for when Act 2 of that performance began!! Money is such a pick-me-up for these two addicts! At the current rate Bukele receives for storing “criminal” units (dehumanized people), at $1600/month, $12B would be the yearly fee for the 400K units that could be crammed into 5 more CECOT concentration camps for US “homegrowns.” All of it bypassing Congress’ Constitutional powers to make such contracts and appropriate the funds!!
This is a major piece of the crisis that is now so clear! DOGE never saved a dime; it is redirecting all the dimes! Off-the-books, illegal funding using every last bit of our Treasury, our taxes, our healthcare, and our carefully collected social safety net!! All of it under the control of our Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge of anti-science, anti-law, anti-education, anti-intellectual, anti-democracy, hand-picked freaks!! Welcome to the American killing fields!! ⚰️⚱️🪦
One quibble: Trump isn’t psychotic. Like most psychopaths,he will keep.pushing until he is stopped. He has made it clear he wants sections of the constitution which put a check kn his power, terminated. And I don’t think he means by the constitutional. methods provided.
Grassley is gonna live to regret his every county, every year pledge. He’ll be catching hell wherever he goes, and Iowa has 99 counties!
Today is the 80th anniversary of the British liberating Belsen concentration camp, one of 40,000 goddamn monuments to human cruelty. There were no gas chambers…they just starved and worked people to death…if they weren’t taken out into the forest and shot. Piles of bodies greeted the liberators. Someday…if this nazi killer isn’t stopped, we may face terrible choices concerning our resistance. By the way, the camp was liberated BY FORCE, not by rich attorneys wringing their goddamn hands. Anyone who believes this fascist pig isn’t capable of similar cruelty has their head up their ass. Wake me when the shooting starts. We’re well on our way if the Supreme Court caves like they’ve repeatedly done.
“we’re not on our way to a dictatorship…we’re already on the ship with tater dick.” Stephen Colbert
A CI is nothing more than a criminal looking to barter for a reduced sentence.
An ICE agent is just someone who is too big of an a$$hole to become a cop.
If/when Garcia is dead, then all the ICE people responsible for shipping him out and everyone above them in the pecking order, including [THE BUCK STOPS HERE – not], are accessories to his murder.
I’m starting to think we’ve gone past the point where simple resistance and protests are any more than a balm for what ails us. Court orders, laws, and that quaint old document known as our constitution mean nothing to this president and his lackeys. And those oaths they took upon entering office? Meaningless words. A diversion and a nuisance.
The only recent court decision Tangerine Jesus gives a damn about is the one granting him immunity for actions taken as part of his presidential duties. I’m still unsure if SCOTUS meant what he thinks it implies when it was handed it down. I suppose we’ll see.
The Mango Monster is now on the horns of a dilemma (or maybe a trilemma) of his own making. If he has Abrego Garcia killed, the victim will become a martyr. If he has him returned alive, his story will be damning and he will be a straight-out gift to anti-authoritarians. And if he just leaves him there, which appears to be what he is trying to do – he literally will never hear the end of it. I do not feel the least bit sorry for him. He broke it, he bought it.