If You Deprive One Person of Their Constitutional Rights, ‘You Threaten the Constitutional Rights of Everybody’
"My mission and my purpose is to make sure that we uphold the rule of law," Van Hollen said after meeting Abrego García, "because if we take it away from him, we do jeopardize it for everybody else.”
The ongoing fight to return Kilmar Abrego García back home to the United States isn’t just about one man, it’s about protecting the freedoms of all Americans, say a number of Congressional members who have been seeking the Maryland dad and union brother’s release.
“I am not defending the man, I'm defending the rights of this man to due process,” his senator, Chris Van Hollen, said on “This Week” last Sunday. “And the Trump administration has admitted in court that he was wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported. My mission and my purpose is to make sure that we uphold the rule of law, because if we take it away from him, we do jeopardize it for everybody else.” Watch below:
Abrego García, the husband of a U.S. citizen and disabled U.S. citizen child, has been imprisoned in Central America for more than a month now after being abducted by the Trump administration despite having received protections under a Trump-appointed judge during the first Trump administration.
One report has found that as many as 90% of the men abducted to El Salvador without any due process have no criminal record, a fact that should send a chill down the spine of all Americans who cherish rule of law and our freedoms. Because if you deprive one person of their constitutional rights, “you threaten the constitutional rights of everybody,” as Senator Van Hollen told FOX News host Shannon Bream. “I would hope that all of us would understand that principle – you’re a lawyer … I’m not vouching for the individual, I’m vouching for his rights.”
During an appearance on CNN that same weekend, Senator Van Hollen said that when the administration despicably attempts to frame the Maryland dad as a threat, it is trying to “change the subject.” As journalist Michelangelo Signorile previously reported, the Trump-appointed judge found no such threats – and the first Trump administration did not dispute his ruling.
“The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights,” Sen. Van Hollen continued. “They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts.”
While Senator Van Hollen has so far been the only member of Congress who has been permitted to meet with Abrego García, others who have visited the nation are also speaking out in defense of the detained men and due process.
"This is about due process that every person in the United States deserves due process under the Constitution, regardless of whether they are a citizen, a temporary resident, a student on a visa,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (CA-42), who traveled to El Salvador earlier this week with Reps. Maxwell Frost (FL-10), Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03), and Maxine Dexter (OR-3). “Everyone deserves that right, and that is being right now taken apart. And so, we were there to advocate for Kilmar and for others as well.” Rep. Garcia has also expressed deep worry about Andry Hernandez Romero, an openly gay man and makeup artist who fled Venezuela only to be disappeared to El Salvador over an innocuous set of tattoos. His family and advocates had no idea where he’d been sent to until he appeared in photos taken by Time magazine photographer Philip Holsinger in El Salvador.
“Holsinger told us he heard a young man say: ‘I'm not a gang member. I'm gay. I'm a stylist,’” 60 Minutes reported. “And that he cried for his mother as he was slapped and had his head shaved.”
“It is terrifying,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, his attorney and executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “Because we have no idea what is happening to him.” She added that if it can happen to him, “it can happen to a green card holder. It can happen to a U.S. citizen. That should chill us all.”
“You have an individual, a Maryland resident, a union member whose union leadership has been calling for his relief, married to a U.S. citizen here with legal status, who was kidnapped, arrested, wrongly deported to El Salvador,” Rep. Ansari said about Abrego García. “That is a terrifying prospect if it is allowed to be continued and let it go, because it opens the door for this to happen again. It emboldens the Trump administration to continue to disappear people.”
In another interview, Rep. Ansari called the Trump administration’s defiance of court orders a “constitutional crisis.” Like Sen. Van Hollen, Rep. Frost also pulled no punches on FOX News. Watch two clips below:
The Trump administration’s attempts to quietly disappear dozens of innocent contributors in violation of their due process rights is not just an immigration fight, it is one of the most important civil rights fights of our time. Just days ago, Trump casually stated that he would seek to purge “home growns” – translation: U.S. citizens – to El Salvador. If it can happen to one of us – such as Kilmar Abrego García, Andry Hernandez Romero, or any of the other men disappeared to foreign prisons – it can happen to all of us.
“Due process is the language of a constitutional democracy, and so we have to speak that language so people can understand other people’s situations,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-08). “And I do believe that if we don’t stand up for the due process rights of non-citizens, they will quickly trample the due process rights of citizens.”