Who Are We?

Where is the outrage?

What is happening under the Trump Administration is happening to real people. This article is from my local community newspaper about Kilmar Abrego Garcia (I recommend saying his name out loud, it makes it more difficult to pretend it is not happening). Kilmar and his wife and three children live in my community. He was first arrested at the Home Depot next to my apartment. First the facts and then the outrage because that is how I roll.

Kilmar was first arrested in 2019 and brought before a judge. The judge found that he was not a threat to the community or a gang member. The judge also found that while Kilmar is undocumented he faced a very real threat of violence if he returned, or was deported, to El Salvador. The judge ruled that he could stay in the United States. Since 2019 Kilmar has lived and worked in Hyattsville, MD with his wife and three children. Kilmar is permitted to work in the U.S. and is a full-time apprentice sheet metal worker, seeking licensure though a program at the University of Maryland. He lives with his wife, who is a US citizen, and three children.

Last month Kilmar was arrested for second time and this time, without due process, was deported to El Salvador – the one country the judge ruled where he could not be deported. The Trump justice department admitted that there was an administrative error and Kilmar should not have been deported – the lawyer who made that determination was fired. The Trump administration said that there was nothing they could do to return Kilmar from El Salvador. A District Court and the Supreme court have both ruled that the Trump administration needs to make every effort to return Kilmar to the United States. The Trump Administration has done nothing.

Now for the outrage. I might need to use bullet points.

· No one is safe. Trump’s “legal rationale” is that they arrested someone by mistake, denied them due process, deported them to country a judge said he should not be deported to, and now there is nothing they can do. Even though Kilmar was not citizen, he was here legally based on a judge’s order that it was not safe for him to return home. By this rationale there is nothing stopping the Trump administration from arresting anyone, regardless of their citizenship status, denying them due process, deporting them, and then after the fact saying, “sorry, we made mistake and we cannot fix it.”

· Where is the outrage? There is outrage from liberal and progressive parts of society. But where is the moral outrage from people of faith and people who pound their chest about “family values”? This is a father taken from his wife and three children by the government with no legal rationale.

· Who are we? As a nation, what is our collective identity? What binds us together? I would hope that it could be our shared humanity. Regardless of your race, religion, or political affiliation, when something happens to another human being that is clearly wrong, we could all agree that we should try to make it right.

Kilmar’s wife should have her husband back. Kilmar’s children should have their father back. He did nothing wrong. He escaped violence from a country and came to the place that has been a safe harbor for victims of political and social violence for generations. And we sent him back because he had the wrong tattoo or looked like the kind of person that would be in a gang. It is disgraceful

.