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deportations
Outcry as White House Admits to Sending Maryland Man to El Salvador Prison 'In Error'
"If Trump can disappear Abrego Garcia, he can disappear you," warned one advocate. "This is why due process matters. Without it, America slides into dictatorship."
Apr 01, 2025
"This is the precedent Trump needs to send you to a concentration camp," said one advocate for due process rights as President Donald Trump's administration claimed it had made an "administrative error" in sending a Maryland father to a prison in his home country of El Salvador—leaving the federal government with no way of bringing him back to his children and wife, a U.S. citizen.
In a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, an acting field office director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Robert L. Cerna, told Judge Paula Xinis that the removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on March 15 "was in error." Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of people rounded up by the Trump administration and sent to a "Terrorism Confinement Center" in El Salvador, with the White House invoking the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II and claiming many were members of gangs including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
Cerna's filing reveals the result of a mass expulsion operation in which hundreds of people were afforded no due process rights in violation of the U.S. Constitution: At least one person with legal protected status in the United States who was not convicted of a crime is now imprisoned in a country where a U.S. federal court had previously found he could face persecution and torture.
As Joshua Eakle of Project Liberal warned, Abrego Garcia's detention and the administration's claim that it can do nothing to help him also creates precedent for Trump to do the same to anyone else it sees fit to target.
"This is how it starts. You must pay attention," said Eakle. "If Trump can disappear Abrego Garcia, he can disappear you. If Trump can strip his rights with no accountability, he can do it to anyone. This is why due process matters. Without it, America slides into dictatorship."
As the news spread of Abrego Garcia's mistaken expulsion, Vice President JD Vance "smeared him as a 'convicted gang member,'" claiming to cite the court filing from Monday, and accused podcast host Jon Favreau of having sympathy for "gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize."
Cerna's filing states that Abrego Garcia was denied bond in 2019 because "the evidence show[ed] that he is a verified member of [Mara Salvatrucha] ('MS-13')]" and therefore posed a danger to the community." As Kyle Cheney wrote at Politico, the accusation was "sharply contested" by Abrego Garcia and "credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant."
"That's not a conviction," said Cheney.
The 2019 court filing regarding the bond denial notes that Abrego Garcia "has no criminal conviction" and that the government erroneously stated at the time that Abrego Garcia was "detained in connection to a murder investigation."
Further, noted Cheney, the court at the time found that Abrego Garcia was likely a member of MS-13, but that he had a credible fear of persecution in his home country of El Salvador and should not be deported there—or expelled via an operation like Trump's mass expulsion campaign, in which those sent overseas have not been afforded due process.
Vance's claim that Abrego Garcia is a "convicted gang member" was "a lie," said Krystal Ball of the online news show "Breaking Points."
"But JD's comment reveals his deportation was not really a 'mistake,'" she said. "They put whoever they could round up on those planes without regard for guilt, innocence, immigration status, or court orders. If this man can be permanently disappeared into a foreign dungeon, anyone can."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council said it was "shocking that the vice president of the United States would so callously, and so falsely, accuse someone of being a convicted gang member. It's especially bad when his own administration just admitted to illegally deporting that person due to 'administrative error.'"
Trump's Justice Department is now urging Xinis to reject a petition filed by Abrego Garcia's attorneys to secure his return to the U.S., saying that since the Maryland resident is now in custody in his home country, the administration and the court system can't force El Salvador to return him.
"People should go to prison over this," said Paul Blest, a reporter for More Perfect Union.
Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for United Farm Workers, suggested the Trump administration is now refusing to push for Abrego Garcia or other potentially innocent people who have been expelled from the U.S. "because then they will be able to speak for themselves and the full extent of this atrocity will become clear."
Shannon Watts, founder of the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, called on the Democratic Party to ensure the administration can't ignore the demand for Abrego Garcia's release.
"I don't care what the polls say about immigration, this is a legal assault on the Constitution and humanity," said Watts. "Democratic leaders must publicly pressure the Trump administration to rescue Kilmar Abrego Garcia."
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Rutgers Senate Proposes Big Ten 'Mutual Defense Compact' to Block Trump's Campus Attacks
Universities "should be embodying the values of democracy," said one supporter. "And it really becomes clear in times like this how important that is."
Mar 31, 2025
A resolution passed by the Rutgers University Senate in response to the Trump administration's crackdown on First Amendment rights is "exactly the kind of model" needed in higher education, said one professor on Sunday as word spread of the document—which was approved amid outcry over other universities' capitulation to the White House's attacks.
"The public is crying out for leadership from somewhere," said Michael Yarbrough, a professor of law and society at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "Higher ed can provide that and catalyze something bigger. And in the process, we can remind everyone of our true value, something we desperately need to do."
The step toward leadership came in the form of a resolution to form a "mutual defense compact" with other schools that, along with Rutgers, make up the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Under the compact, the schools would "commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund" that would provide "immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement."
The Rutgers Senate, which includes faculty, students, staff, and alumni, called on the New Jersey institution's president to "take a leading role in convening a summit of Big Ten academic and legal leadership to initiate the implementation of this compact."
The resolution, passed on March 28, was agreed to days after the Rutgers faculty union filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration to block its efforts to abduct, detain, and deport international students for expressing support for Palestinian rights, criticism of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza and the West Bank, and taking part in pro-Palestinian campus protests over the past year.
Under Trump's executive orders to stop what it classifies as "antisemitism" and to deport foreign nationals who "espouse hateful ideology," immigration agents in recent weeks have detained people including Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who led negotiations last year calling on the school to divest from companies that profit from Israel's policies; Tufts University Ph.D. candidate Rumeysa Ozturk, who co-wrote an op-ed calling for her school's divestment; and Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri, who was detained because "the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel," according to his lawyers.
"We've all been trying to figure out how to solve this collective action problem. This seems like a very positive big step in the right direction."
"The First Amendment means the government can't arrest, detain, or deport people for lawful political expression—it's as simple as that," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which is representing the Rutgers union and other faculty organizations in the lawsuit. "This practice is one we'd ordinarily associate with the most repressive political regimes, and it should have no place in our democracy."
Under the Rutgers resolution, members of the senate called on participating institutions to "make available, at the request of the
institution under direct political infringement, the services of their legal counsel, governance experts, and public affairs offices to coordinate a unified and vigorous response."
The response could include legal representation, countersuit actions, amicus briefs, legislative advocacy, and "coalition-building," according to the resolution.
"We've all been trying to figure out how to solve this collective action problem," said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a professor at University of Minnesota—another member of the Big Ten alliance. "This seems like a very positive big step in the right direction."
A Rutgers Senate member who asked to remain anonymous told Common Dreams on Tuesday that members of the university community have expressed "relief" and "joy" at the news that the body is taking a leadership role in fighting the Trump administration's attacks on higher education.
"People are just feeling like there's something they can hang their hats on that's hopeful," said the member, who was involved in pushing the resolution forward. "Individuals who are concerned about higher education, who are involved in it or connected to it—we're looking to something like this from a big university who can step out and say, 'Let's get something going here to blockade against these attacks.'"
Trump's assault on First Amendment rights are understood to be "existential" by many on university campuses like Rutgers, said the member.
"Proud to be a Rutgers faculty member today," said Michal Raucher, a professor of Jewish studies at Rutgers University—New Brunswick, regarding the passage of the resolution.
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, chair of the joint program in English and education at University of Michigan—another member of the Big Ten alliance—expressed support for the Rutgers Senate's leadership.
"I greatly admired our Rutgers colleagues' actions of solidarity during the recent waves of campus strikes," said Thomas. "My admiration has increased tenfold."
Last May, about 100 Rutgers faculty members prepared to form a protective circle around students' Palestinian solidarity encampment at the school's New Brunswick, New Jersey campus as a deadline set by administrators approached and officials threatened the students with arrest.
"We are an extremely diverse community," said the Rutgers Senate member. "And I think that we prize that about our community and about our state, because we know that we are elevated by it from the standpoint of having so many different perspectives, weighing on different kinds of issues."
"As the largest public university in the state, as the major land grant university, we take our commitment to the people of New Jersey and to the enterprise of public higher education very seriously," they added. "And we see these kinds of attacks for what they are."
In contrast to the resolution, Columbia administrators have faced harsh rebukes from First Amendment rights advocates for agreeing to the Trump administration's demands when the White House said it was canceling $400 million in government grants and contracts over the school's alleged "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."
In response, Columbia—which allowed New York City police to drag students out of a school building and arrest more than 100 people last year during the pro-Palestinian protests—suspended, expelled, and revoked the degrees of some students who had participated in the demonstrations and increased law enforcement presence on campus, among other steps.
The Rutgers Senate member said the body's chair is planning to meet with the university president, Jonathan Holloway, who is set to step down in June, to ask him to sign on to the resolution.
"I think he can make the choice to essentially become legendary in the field and take a strong stand like this and organize his colleagues," said the senate member.
Yarbrough said that Trump's crackdown on protesters, and the capitulation of some institutions, illustrates how education "is really crucial to democracy and to a healthy democracy."
"We should be embodying the values of democracy," said Yarbrough. "And it really becomes clear in times like this how important that is."
While some university administrators are "caving to the Trump administration," he said, "what I think of as the real university of faculty, staff, and students are actually pushing back. And I think that mirrors what we're seeing in the United States more broadly, where most elected leaders and officials are not pushing back the way we would like. But all kinds of people on the ground really are."
"That's what it takes to push back [against] these kinds of authorities and threats," said Yarbrough. "It comes back to the people."
Editor's note: This piece has been updated with additional comments from Michael Yarbrough and a Rutgers Senate member.
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Trump Plays Very Dangerous Game by Saying 'F You' to Judicial Orders
If this deportation case goes to the Supreme Court and the president ignores its ruling, every American should take to the street to secure his ouster.
Mar 18, 2025
After a federal judge pressed the Trump administration to provide evidence by 5 pm Monday about whether the White House had violated the court’s order in deporting migrants with little to no due process, so-called border czar Tom Homan said that the flights would continue regardless. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “I don’t care what the judges think.”
In our system, judges don’t just “think.” They have the final say, unless their rulings are appealed to the Supreme Court, in which case the high court’s majority has the final final say.
On Monday afternoon, it became apparent that Trump’s Justice Department shares Homan’s odd view of our judicial system. DOJ lawyers filed papers telling the judge that the administration would not provide any further information about the deportation flights, and that the court should vacate the hearing.
Later, speaking Monday evening on Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized the judge, saying “What he’s done is an intrusion on the president’s authority.”
What’s going on here?
A very dangerous game.
On Sunday night, Trump told reporters that a federal judge in California who ordered the administration to rehire thousands of fired probationary workers was “putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes.”
Excuse me? In our system of government, courts pass judgment on actions of a president and the executive branch. Courts don’t put themselves in the “position” of a president. They act as the Constitution empowers them to act — as a co-equal branch of government.
If the executive branch doesn’t agree with what a lower-court judge decides, it can appeal to a higher court and ultimately to the Supreme Court.
Trump isn’t the only one to make this unconstitutional claim. In early February, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” It was an odd statement coming from someone who has studied at one of America’s preeminent law schools — and it was logically absurd, since it’s up to judges (and eventually the Supreme Court’s justices) to determine a president’s “legitimate power.”
Let’s be clear. Trump has openly violated numerous laws and constitutional provisions — such as ending birthright citizenship; giving associates of Elon Musk’s government-slashing effort access to a sensitive Treasury Department system; transferring transgender female inmates to male prisons; placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on leave; and effectively dismantling USAID and folding it into the State Department.
In response, federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump orders from taking effect.
But not until now has Trump or his regime blatantly refused to follow a judge’s order.
What happens when this or another lower-court ruling goes to the Supreme Court, and the high court rules against Trump?
Vance has said that if this occurs, Trump should “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
Never mind that the quote attributed to Jackson is, as one scholar has noted, “probably apocryphal.” It’s heard more and more from Trump appointees these days, as exemplified by Homan’s remark this morning and this afternoon’s Justice Department filing.
Trump’s appointments in his second term are having the opposite effect of his first-term appointees. In his first term, they restrained him somewhat. Recall that the Justice Department’s top brass threatened to resign en masse if he appointed as attorney general the one assistant attorney general who was prepared to sell his soul to Trump and say the 2020 election was stolen from him.
This time, his appointees are magnifying his worst instincts. Rather than act as guardrails, they are egging Trump on.
Many people wonder if we’re in a “constitutional crisis.” Definitions of that phrase vary considerably, as do opinions about whether we’re in one now.
My worry is that Trump is surrounded by extremist anti-democracy nihilists, including his vice president, who are encouraging him to defy the Supreme Court.
If and when he does, we’ll be in a constitutional crisis that should cause every American to take to the streets.
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