It's Not about Immigration Anymore
The rule of law in a deteriorating republic
I find myself thinking a lot these days about Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia—not the case, but the man. He was born in San Salvador, capital of the tiny Central American nation of San Salvador, in 1996. His parents (his father was a former police officer) ran a grocery business out of their home. A local gang extorted protection payments from the Garcias, and demanded that Kilmar’s older brother join it. He escaped to the United States (and is now a citizen). Then it was Kilmar’s turn, when he was about sixteen years old. Two years later he met the woman who became his wife, who already had two children; together they had a third. That child, a son, has autism, is deaf in one ear and unable to verbally communicate, the couple reports. They’re also raising a 9-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.
Kilmar joined his brother and got a job in construction. But in 2018 he was arrested in the parking lot of a Home Depot and turned over to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) as a possible gang member in New York, where he had never lived. He was ultimately released in 2019, and while he was not granted asylum, a judge ruled he could remain in the United States because there was a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution. He was released, and ICE did not appeal.
There are two reasons I’ve been thinking about Abrego Garcia. The first is the crushingly difficult life he had long before he was whisked out of the country, and what kind of resources he had to have had to make it this far. I admire his spirit, which can only be finite. I think about never wanting anyone to be tested in anything remotely resembling that, and it’s humbling to consider how much adversity is borne in so many lives.
Which brings me to the other reason: I worry about the potential slide this case represents into unabashed despotism: the president mused aloud last week about sending U.S. citizens to prisons abroad. Anxious fears about the state of democracy have been a feature of our politics as long as I’ve been alive. Most of those fears have not come to pass. It’s getting harder to believe they’re not misplaced.