‘This Is Not About The Man. It’s About His Constitutional Rights’
Maryland lawmakers hail due process in the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
The Maryland lawmakers who advocated for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a brutal prison in El Salvador are hailing his surprise homecoming as a victory for due process and the rule of law.
The Trump administration will have to prove the criminal case its now pushing against him, these Democrats add.
Abrego Garcia landed back on US soil Friday after months in which Donald Trump and top administration officials insisted that they would never return him to the United States.
Abrego Garcia is a native Salvadoran who was living with his family in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC when federal agents snatched him and sent him with other migrants they rounded up to a brutal prison in El Salvador.
Administration lawyers admitted in court papers that Abrego Garcia was deported wrongly, and ultimately the US Supreme Court ordered him returned to the United States.
Both Sen Chris Van Hollen and Rep Glenn Ivey, both Maryland Democrats who represent Abrego Garcia in Congress, traveled to El Salvador to push for his release.
Although police in Abrego Garcia’s home county have said that he was not under suspicion of any crime, with his return the Trump administration is saying that they are charging him with participating in a years-long conspiracy to traffic migrants into the United States.
Abrego Garcia's attorney, in an online press briefing, called the charges against his client “an abuse of power.”
But Van Hollen and Ivey each are hailing Abrego Garcia’s release from El Salvador as a victory for the rule of law.
“For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution. Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”
Ivey sounded a similar theme.
“President Trump and his Administration defied the Supreme Court and misled the American people for months, saying they could not bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States under any circumstances, knowing that they had the power to do so all along,” he said in a statement of his own. “I went to El Salvador and advocated for Kilmar’s return because he was entitled to due process under our constitution. Kilmar will now get his day in court. I hope he receives the fair trial that he is guaranteed.”
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