For those who don’t know ….

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads, in pertinent part:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury … nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads, in pertinent part:

…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution reads, in pertinent part:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution reads, in pertinent part:

No State shall … pass any ex post facto Law….

Pam Bondi (Attorney General) and Stephen Miller (White House Deputy Chief of Staff) maintain that since the gang to which Kilmar Abrego Garcia allegedly belonged to was declared a terrorist organization by President Trump, that since Mr. Garcia belonged to the gang back in 2019, he is now a terrorist and subject to immediate removal from the United States and return to his native land of El Salvador, at which point the United States is free to wash its hands of him and leave him to his fate at the hands of rival gangs in the CECOT Prison.

As Ms. Bondi, the US Attorney General robotically recited recently, “Mr. Garcia does not belong in this country.” Bondi and Miller must not have been paying attention during that part of constitutional law class. You can see where I’m going with this.

Even if it is absolutely true that Mr. Garcia is a bad guy, a gang member and all the rest of the allegations made against him by Bondi, Miller, and Trump, his kidnapping and removal from the United States after a federal judge ordered that he not to be removed cannot be justified because:

• Garcia did not receive an indictment for a crime committed in the United States,
• was not presented with the details of an alleged crimes,
• received no Miranda warnings,
• had no opportunity to retain and consult counsel and, therefore,
• no opportunity to contest the “findings” on which the government purported to act in arresting and deporting him.

In short, whatever else Mr. Garcia may be, he is a “person”, and he received nothing resembling “due process of law” to which the Constitution entitles every “person.” He was secretly snatched from the street and forcibly removed from the country. Just like what the Nazis and other totalitarian regimes have done in the past. The faux anger displayed by AG Bondi and Stephen Miller in the White House video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv4HjZmiueo] are no excuse for this outrageous behavior. By comparison, the student who killed two people and wounded six others at Florida State University will receive the full panoply of opportunities guaranteed by the law and the Constitution.

What is the main difference between Mr. Garcia and the Florida State shooter? You know it without my spelling it out. The Trump regime is a foul collection of racist idol worshippers committing daily crimes against humanity, among other offenses to our Constitution, laws, and culture. Performative yelling at a White House press event that Mr. Garcia is bad person is no excuse for depriving him of the rights every other person in this country is entitled to receive.

Trump’s followers had better realize that if the government can do this to Mr. Garcia, it can do it to anyone. And it is.

NBC News reported on Senator Van Hollen’s visit to Mr. Garcia in El Salvador this way:

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday to push for Abrego Garcia’s release after the Trump administration did not demonstrate any efforts to “facilitate” his return, despite a Supreme Court ruling last week requiring just that.

The legal battle continued Thursday, when a federal appeals court rejected an effort by the administration to put the requirement on hold. In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel said the administration was trying to assert “a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”

In a statement Thursday night, the White House called Van Hollen’s efforts in support of Abrego Garcia “disgusting” and said Trump will “continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans.”

In addition to its other offenses against the Constitution and laws of this country, the Trump administration has decided it’s perfectly acceptable to try and convict individuals in the press without even a semblance of due process. We insist that murderers get full due process, but the President of the United States is allowed to assert the guilt of individuals without any process whatever? Trump has obviously learned nothing from his multiple court defeats in defamation cases. Read any history book about totalitarian regimes, and you can see where this is headed. Americans better wake up and put a stop to this.