Bring Abrego Garcia Home and Stop Trump’s Plan to Traffic Civilians to a Foreign Gulag

On April 14th, during an Oval Office meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, both Bukele and Trump made it clear that they will not make any attempt to return Kilmar Ábrego García, the innocent Maryland father Trump’s regime knowingly sent to an infamous Salvadoran prison by mistake, despite the Supreme Court’s unanimous order for the Trump administration to make a good faith effort to do so. Also during this meeting, Trump told Bukele that “homegrown criminals are next,” and encouraged him to build more prisons.

The idea of shipping US citizens to a Salvadoran gulag is not new for Trump; he and members of his administration have been discussing it openly. While they claim this would only happen to violent criminals,hundreds of Venezuelan migrants with zero criminal history have now been imprisoned indefinitely in El Salvador’s torture camp with no due process or opportunity for recourse. The administration has also been snatching students off the street, violating their constitutional rights, and unlawfully detaining and disappearing them.

The Trump administration’s criminalizing of these civilians regardless of nationality or immigration status, with no evidence or due process, and trafficking them to a foreign gulag is terrifying. And while legal experts assert that deporting US citizens to El Salvador is “obviously illegal”, the administration continues to ignore the law. If they succeed in defying the courts and permanently imprisoning an innocent man like Abrego Garcia, they can and will do it to others. Anyone Trump doesn’t like will be at risk.

Congress must fight against this dangerous escalation of Trump’s authoritarianism. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced his plans to travel to El Salvador to bring Abrego Garcia home. More legislators must join him in ensuring these violations of due process and other rights do not go unchallenged.