A picture from inside CECOT in El Salvador. There are many dozen men crammed into a single lifeless cell. Most of the men are standing, while some are sitting on the communal beds. The men are in their underwear and some are wearing surgical masks

This is, and Isn’t, About Kilmar Abrego Garcia

By now, we have all seen the pictures from CECOT, the El Salvadoran concentration camp notorious for its human rights abuses. Violence, disease, and starvation are common practices for those detained within its walls. They say that no one has ever left this prison. It is to this literal Hell on Earth that the Trump administration has arrograted to itself the power to disappear people without due process. This shocking crime against decency, morality, and the law endangers every American citizen.

The face of this struggle has become Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man disappeared to CECOT on the orders of the Trump administration. This fight is also not really about Abrego Garcia at all. The rights that we cherish as Americans, however inconsistently applied throughout our history and however biased in favor of the wealthy and powerful, are guaranteed by due process; quite literally, if we do not have due process, we do not have any other rights.

The Trump administration insists Garcia is a member of MS-13, and therefore they have the right to lock him away in El Salvador. We reject the idea on humanitarian grounds that America has the right to send anyone to a torture dungeon like CECOT. However, Trump refuses to even attempt to prove Garcia’s membership in the infamous gang, and that is the overarching danger to us all.

Donald Trump and his minions must prove their case in front of a judge. If Trump can disappear anyone he wants by calling them a gang member, with no requirement that he prove it, then he can remove anyone from this country for any reason. Innocence will be no protection. Citizenship will be no protection. What is to stop him from denying that a citizen is a citizen if there is no requirement to prove it? The answer is nothing at all. If Trump can get away with imprisoning Kilmar Abrego Garcia in CECOT, he can get away with sending you there, too. And he will come for all of us eventually.

Come out to our protest on April 26th in Cherry Hill to show the administration you will not tolerate such behavior. More details on the protest are found here.

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