by Salvador G. Sarmiento
This week, we stand vigil with the family of Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia. A court had given the Trump Administration until midnight this past Monday to bring him home from Bukele’s black site prison in El Salvador. On Monday afternoon the U.S. Supreme Court postponed that deadline indefinitely. On Thursday, SCOTUS again ruled, that the US government must “facilitate” his return, but nothing has happened yet.
We don’t know if Kilmar is safe. We don’t know if or when he’s coming back. We do know that he was illegally abducted by ICE as a part of Trump’s MAGA agenda.
Kilmar was snatched off the street by armed men. His constitutional rights were ignored. ICE could care less. He was one of over 200 people who were taken by ICE. Snatched off the streets or taken from their homes. No hearings, no trials, no convictions. That is the MAGA M.O.
As usual, Trump and ICE made wild accusations and provided zero evidence. 75% of those expelled to this prison had no criminal records (CBS poll). That only happens when there is a blatant disregard, a clear contempt for due process required by law. And to be clear, 100% of the people sent by Trump and ICE to Bukele’s torture camp had their basic due process rights violated.
The federal appeals court said on Monday: “The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process.” The U.S. Constitution is plenty clear – all persons have fundamental due process – but it is also clear that Trump could care less.
We stand with Kilmar and all Venezuelans fighting to keep families together. Along with the National TPS Alliance, we’re ready to organize and resist the MAGA mass deportation agenda.
The MAGA Administration doesn’t care about you or your safety. It certainly doesn’t care about the safety or well-being of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians and others whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is threatened. Or the safety of a mother and three elementary-school children who were abducted by ICE in rural New York. Or the visitors from South Sudan whose visas have been suddenly revoked.
For Trump, people are props. And he uses us to fabricate his narrative of hate, of exclusion and fear. This is how dehumanization works. And that it why we must speak out – we must expose these tactics and these attacks for what they are. This is why it is so powerful when immigrants speak out to challenge that MAGA narrative – to unmask it for what it is. When each of us, in communities across the U.S. shows up–to organize, to connect, and to build together – that is what will turn the tide from hate to human rights.
We saw that rising tide this last week and weekend, as people have started to mobilize, from coast to coast, from the midwest to the U.S. south. And immigrants too are organizing and taking a stand. From the protests to unmask hate in El Cajon, to the TPS Alliance’s lawsuit that blocked Trump’s attempt to terminate TPS, we’re also just warming up.
Make no mistake, the people are warming up. And it’s only April.
For now, what can we do?
Let’s keep organizing, together. First, Kilmar Abrego-Garcia and his family need our help. Please donate and share their GoFundMe. Then, if you can, make a donation to our TPS Justice Fund Campaign. There will be more to do, very soon.
Let’s get to it.
