The Abrego Garcia affair attracts democrats to the immigration debate that Trump wants

By Stephen Groves and Adriana Gomez Licon

Washington (AP) – For the Democrats, the Kilmar Abrego Garcia affair concerns fundamental American ideals – regular procedure, after judicial orders, preventing the government. For the Trump administration and the Republicans, these are foreigners and threats of gangs and danger in American cities.

And this argument is precisely that that Donald Trump wants to have.

This dichotomy is played out while the Democrats double their defense of Abrego Garcia, a salvadoran vividly expelled and imprisoned without communication. They supervise his case of threat to individual rights to challenge President Trump’s immigration policies.

The effort arises while the Trump administration repels stronger, transforming this expulsion in the event of a test for its crusade against illegal immigration despite an order from the Supreme Court claiming that Garcia must have been returned to the United States.

By trying to shape the public discourse against the Democrats, the managers of the White House accuse them of defending a foreigner who, according to them, is a member of a gang based on the testimony of an informant – and whose woman admitted that she had once deposited a protective order against him despite defending his return.

“The regular procedure and the separation of powers are questions of principle,” said Democrat representative Adriano Espailt, president of the Hispanic Caucus of Congress on Thursday. “Without regular procedure for everyone, we are all in danger.”

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife Maryland, who was wrongly expelled from El Salvador, speaks during a press conference at the Casa multicultural center in Hyattsville, Md., Friday April 4, 2025. (AP photo / Jose Luis Magana)

This undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC Watch Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (Murray Osorio PLLC via AP)

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Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife Maryland, who was wrongly expelled from El Salvador, speaks during a press conference at the Casa multicultural center in Hyattsville, Md., Friday April 4, 2025. (AP photo / Jose Luis Magana)

Develop

Democrats began the year without immigration unity

The opposition began the year which broke out on its immigration strategy, in particular after an electoral season where Trump led the Republicans to victories by harassing illegal border crossings and promising to carry out mass deportations.

But now, many Democrats are clinging to the Abrego Garcia affair, with a senator going to El Salvador and a certain number of chamber representatives working to organize official visits to the Salvadoral prison. Thursday evening, Maryland senator, Chris Van Hollen, published photos of himself in El Salvador with Abrego Garcia. The legislator did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia, whose lawyers are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate its return to the United States

Trump responded on Friday with an article on social networks saying that Van Hollen “looked like a fool yesterday standing in Salvador by asking me the attention.”

However, other high -level democrats such as Hillary Clinton, the governor of California Gavin Newsom and the senator of Vermont Bernie Sanders launch a public appeal by painting the case as an example of government surpassing.

But even Newsom, which has presidential aspirations, recognized Trump’s ability to arouse public favor.

“These are not normal times, so we must call it with clarity and conviction,” said Newsom in an interview with the commentator of Youtube, Brian Tyler Cohen. “But we have to stay focused on this so that the American people can stay focused on it. Because their success is their ability to win each damn new cycle and distract us and move in 25 different directions.”

Immigration was a relative force for Trump in a poll by March Ap-Noc, which found that around half of us adults approved our approach to immigration. And he came into office with a strong support for a component of his immigration program – expelling people with certain types of criminal stories. The vast majority of American adults have favored the expulsion of immigrants found guilty of violent crimes, according to an AP-Noc survey of January.

However, there was much less consensus on how to manage deportations.

The January survey revealed that the elimination of immigrants who are in the country illegally and did not commit a violent crime was a divider, with only 4 out of 10 American adults to support and just over 4 out of 10. In this sense, a survey of the Pew Research Center in late February revealed that even if about half of the Americans said that at least “some” immigrants living in the country should be expelled, very few people in this group supported immigrants who have a job or are married to an American citizen.

Trump firmly defends the position of his administration

The Trump administration recognized the expulsion of Abrego Garcia was the result of an “administrative error”, saying that immigration officials were aware of his protection against expulsion. But Trump officials described Abrego Garcia, who lived in Maryland, as a “terrorist” and said he was a member of the MS-13 gang, even if he was never charged in the United States of gangs involvement. “He does not come back to our country,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi.

By defending the position of his administration, Trump says that he was elected to do and justifies the need to deport millions, saying that a “large percentage” of migrants who arrived during the Biden administration are criminals – an assertion for which there is no evidence. Studies show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than Americans of authoritarian origin.

And although he was not clear when Abrego Garcia arrived in the United States, he began to fight the expulsion procedure in 2019 – before Democratic President Joe Biden took office.

“I was elected to get rid of these criminals – get them out of our country or put them away, but to get them out of our country. And I do not see how the judges can keep this authority from the president,” said Trump, a Republican.