By Matt Brown, Associated Press
Washington (AP) – Four Democratic legislators of the Chamber went to Salvador to draw attention to the fate of a man that the Trump administration expelled to a Salvadoran prison and refused to help come back – even after the Supreme Court judged that it was the government’s obligation to do so.
The Yassamin Ansari representatives of Arizona, Maxine Dexter de l’Oregon, Maxwell Frost from Florida and Robert Garcia de California arrived in the Nation of Central Central to investigate the state of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who lived in the United States for more than a decade. The Trump administration expelled it, a decision that administration officials declared in court documents were wrong.
But despite a supreme court ordering the Trump administration to help facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, the administration said that it did not have the power to bring it back, a choice being examined by the federal courts as potentially in violation of judicial decisions.
“Seeing the Trump administration of so obviously and obviously the Supreme Court and has no respect for regular procedures is extremely alarming for me,” said Ansari in an interview. “Even with all the illegal actions that we have seen in the past two months, I think it is the one that terrifies me the most with regard to the future of our democracy.”
The trip arrives after a last week
The quartet of the quartet comes after Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland went to Salvador last week and met Abrego Garcia and Salvadoral officials. Abrego Garcia had lived in Maryland with his wife and three children, who are American citizens, before being expelled on March 15.
Abrego Garcia’s protected legal status prohibited him from being expelled in Salvador. He was expelled on one of the three planes filled with alleged members of migrant gangs.
Garcia said he and Frost sent a letter last week to the Chairman’s Supervisory Committee of the James Comer, R-Ky., Asking that an official delegation goes to Salvador to investigate Abrego Garcia’s state and push for his return, but received no response. Ansari said more democrats would go to Salvador in the coming days and weeks.
“Those of us in the Chamber who admire and greatly support what Senator Van Hollen has done,” said Garcia. From Abrego Garcia, he said: “His family knew he was safe, but he is not at home, and we must therefore continue pressure, and we must ensure that the rule of law in the United States is authorized.”
Lawyers of the Ministry of Justice declared in court last week that they did not have the power to advance the return of Abrego Garcia because he was in the care of a foreign country. Administration officials also affirmed in the comments of the public that Grego Garcia was engaged in the trafficking of human beings and terrorism and therefore properly expelled. The white house’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that if Abrego Garcia was to return to the United States, “he would be immediately expelled.”
Van Hollen was very successful the Salvadoran government for the return of Abrego Garcia. He told NBC on Sunday “Meet the Press” that the United States faced a “constitutional crisis” if the Trump administration does not follow the ordinance of the Supreme Court to push to bring Abrego Garcia.
It is a warning that democrats are increasingly amplify. Rather than debating the hard -on -line immigration policy Donald Trump or the merits of the invocation of the national security administration to carry out evictions, democratic legislators focus on the issue of regular procedure, some noting that the Supreme Court and the federal judges of the lower court have noted that Grego Garcia had been expelled without an appropriate hearing.
“The government’s argument also implies that he could expel and incarcerate any person, including American citizens, without legal consequence, as long as he does before a court can intervene,” said judge Sonia Sotomayor in the court’s decision in the case of Abrego Garcia.
Garcia said: “They try to demonize him, and we are not there to defend him. He deserves regular procedure, and everyone deserves regular procedure. … What he has done or may have done, it must be decided by a judge.”
Republicans also leave there – for a different reason
Several Republicans of the Chamber visited the Center for the Confainment of Terrorism of El Salvador, the prison in which Abergo Garcia is, and praised the installation for what they consider as difficult policies of El Salvador. The Republican senators and governors defended the detention of Abrego Garcia in the context of a broader repression of illegal immigration. But at least one republican senator qualified the deportation of the administration of Abrego Garcia a mistake.
“The administration will not admit it. But it was a vision,” said senator John Kennedy, a republican from Louisiana, on “Meet the Press” by NBC.
During a meeting with President Salvadoran Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office, Trump pointed out that “local” legislators should be expelled to prisons in the country of Central America and exhorted Bukele to “build about five more places” as the famous penitentiary where Abrego Garcia is now held.
The Republicans of Congress have so far had little interest in negotiating the dispute between the president and the judiciary. The Democrats, who are in the minority in the two chambers of the congress, have little lever to put pressure on the White House. But the case of Abrego Garcia has both become an alarming and galvanizing case inside the party.
Democrats “have the power to draw attention to this problem, to maintain pressure,” said Ansari. “This is why you know that some of us go there, and so many members will go there. Because it is with regard to the future of our democracy and the future of the regular procedure as American citizens. “
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
