Not A Nice Time: Day 34 Of Kilmar Abrego Garcia And 237 Others In No-Due-Process El Salvador Torture Jail
Our constitutional crisis / death of the soul of America lumbers on!
If you’re feeling like crap today, maybe just skip this one.
Six days ago, Chief Justice John Roberts and the men of the Supreme Court threw the chief judge of the United States District Court for DC James Boasberg under the bus, tossing out his orders after the Trump administration was already in contempt of them, and then handed the administration an infinity-mirror loophole with their ruling on the Abrego Garcia case that the government must somehow facilitate yet not effectuate his from El Salvador torture prison, where he was mistakenly sent 34 days ago.
And, in case the lower courts might miss the message in the doublespeak, Roberts drove home how judges must be very careful not to tread on Lord God Trump’s Holy Right to make foreign policy by Executive Decree, even if it is by oops. And so now all that Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt can really do is demand that the government explain itself in court.
Latest update, government lawyers are unwilling to do even that. Instead, surprise surprise, the fucking administration and its convicted felon president have ramped up the open defiance and lies. The rule of law is that Trump says what the laws, rules and facts are, and don’t you judicial peasants forget it!
In court yesterday for the daily update that Judge Xinis is now requiring, DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign tried to submit as evidence a transcript of that Oval Office press conference with greasy El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, Trump, Pam Bondi and a histrionic Stephen Miller, to show that El Salvador will not release Abrego Garcia, and there’s just nothing anybody can do about it, your honor.
But Judge Xinis did not accept that as evidence. “I’ve gotten nothing,” she fumed. “I’ve gotten no real response, and no real legal justification for not answering.” She said that if the administration is not going to answer her questions “then justify why. That’s what we do in this house.”
She ordered a two week expedited-discovery inquiry into WTF is going on, which includes by today the plaintiffs proposing 15 interrogatories and 15 requests for production, deposing four government people (Robert L. Cerna, Evan C. Katz, Michael G. Kozak, and Joseph N. Mazzara) by April 23, and then the plaintiffs can choose to depose two more people after that, with all of that wrapping up by the end of the month.
What will happen if the government won’t produce the production? Or the depositions are witnesses playing dumb/evasive/can’t say the way Drew Ensign has been playing at? Guess we shall find out.
Outside of court, the administration continues to harp on the lie that Abrego Garcia is a gang member, in Vice President Butthair’s lonely Xitter screed, and with Karoline Leavitt piling on “human trafficker” to Abrego Garcia’s resume, on top of “terrorist.”
The lies are BRAZEN. Abrego Garcia has lived in the US for the past 14 years, since he was 16 years old. In 2019 a judge found he would be in danger from gangs back in his birthplace of El Salvador, and granted him permission to stay. He has no criminal record in the US or El Salvador, and is a metalworker and union member of the Building Trades of North America. One police officer testified that he thought Abrego Garcia was a member of a gang that operates somewhere Abrego Garcia has never lived, based on some double-hearsay, and because he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. That’s the evidence.
Speaking of MS-13, Mother Jones has a story claiming it’s actually Trump’s new BFF Nayib Bukele who has the gang ties:
Bukele made that secret agreement with the gangs five years ago that helped his party win elections. In exchange, Mr. Bukele freed some of the gang bosses, including a few who were facing extradition to the U.S. After leaving El Salvador they were captured in Mexico and sent to the United States where they were indicted. Some of the indictments include allegations of the gang’s collusion with authorities in El Salvador. We also know that when Mr. Bukele offered Marco Rubio to receive deportees and criminals, he also requested that the gang bosses be sent back to El Salvador, and at least one of them was included in those first flights.
HMM! It’s almost like every single thing with gangster administration is projection.
So, what next? At some point after two weeks probably this gets back to the Supreme Court, where the administration will argue that all Trump’s foreign policy is Holy, even if that policy is ignoring the government’s promises of rights to green card holders and refugees. And that whatever oops the government has done (or might do to US citizens in the future), the Roberts Court has declared itself impotent to do anything about it.
Oh, and the administration has revoked Temporary Protected Status for Afghan refugees too, which includes people who risked their lives to help the US during the war we started, and will now face torture and death as traitors when they get sent back.
And let us not forget the 237 other people also sent to El Salvador with no due process, the vast majority of whom don’t have as much as a parking ticket. And students with revoked visas. This is the government turning from an instrument of fairness to one of terror, it’s very grim, no way to shine this turd for you.
People are standing up, though, there is that. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen is on his way to El Salvador today, where he hopes to visit Abrego Garcia in prison and wants to try to talk to Salvadoran officials about securing his release. Fucking brave, because what’s stopping Presidente Bukele from throwing Van Hollen in the cell right next to him, and throwing away the key? And what would Trump do then? Probably the same thing he did when a riotous mob was screaming to HANG MIKE PENCE.
Also protestors have been gathering outside of the courthouse in Greenbelt, and angry Iowans even raged and jeered at nonagenarian Chuck Grassley, as he repeated the party line of “El Salvador is an independent country” beside-the-point-ing.
It’s all stomach-churning, and, but, we will keep you posted.
[Anna Bower BlueSky / Lawfare Media / New York Times archive link / Mother Jones ]
Once you’ve accepted that they can legally disappear Garcia never to be heard from again then you’ve accepted that they can disappear YOU never to be heard from again.
Wake up, America.
Wait - Is this something new?
Asha Rangappa
@asharangappa.bsky.social
Criminals deserve due process because due process is literally how we determine whether someone is, *in fact*, a criminal
April 14, 2025 at 7:51 PM