The Lawlessness Is the Point

The Trump administration just admitted that a Salvadoran man was deported in error. Shockingly, Trump and JD Vance don’t seem to want to fix their mistake—and the implications of that are dark.

https://newrepublic.com/article/193442/trump-deportation-mistake-el-salvador

https://archive.ph/Qa8r5



If JD Vance were capable of shame, he’d be embarrassed by what just happened. After the news broke that President Trump’s administration admitted to deporting a Maryland man in “error,” Vance lashed out at podcaster Jon Favreau, who had asked him to comment on what had transpired.



“My comment is that according to the court document you apparently didn’t read he was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here,” Vance sneered, in a reference to the deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who was removed to El Salvador along with dozens of others.



Except Abrego Garcia did have the legal right to be here, and he is not a “convicted MS-13 gang member.” As explained below, the government accused him of being in MS-13, but that charge was ultimately not settled as a criminal matter, and an immigration judge subsequently granted him protected legal status, as he’d face harm if returned home. He was here lawfully.

Let us gently suggest that these facts don’t matter to Vance in the least. This is not meant glibly: For Vance, that is the case as a matter of principle. He is nakedly asserting the power to decree Abrego Garcia a criminal subject to expulsion, even if—or especially if—the facts show the contrary. The administration is doing this on many fronts, from this case to the efforts to remove foreign students to the deportations of Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison.

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