WASHINGTON (AP) — For Democrats, the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is about fundamental American ideals — due process, following court orders, preventing government overreach. For the Trump administration and Republicans, it’s about foreigners and gang threats and danger in American towns and cities.
And that argument is precisely the one that Donald Trump wants to have.
This dichotomy is playing out as Democrats double down on their defense of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man mistakenly deported and imprisoned without communication. They’re framing his case as a threat to individual rights to challenge President Trump’s immigration policies.
The effort comes as the Trump administration pushes back harder, turning this deportation into a test case for his crusade against illegal immigration despite a Supreme Court order saying Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States.
In trying to shape public discourse against Democrats, White House officials are accusing them of defending a foreigner who they’ve claimed is a gang member based on testimony of an informant — and whose wife admitted she once filed a protective order against him despite now advocating for his return.
“Due process and separation of powers are matters of principle,” Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Thursday. “Without due process for all, we are all in danger.”
Democrats began the year without unity on immigration
The opposition started the year splintered on its immigration strategy, especially after an election season where Trump led Republicans to victories by harping on illegal border crossings and vowing to conduct mass deportations.
But now many Democrats are latching onto the Abrego Garcia case, with a senator trekking down to El Salvador and a number of House representatives working to organize official visits to the Salvadoran prison. Other high-profile Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are making a public appeal by painting the case as an example of government overreach.
But even Newsom, who has presidential aspirations, recognized Trump’s ability to curry favor with the public.
“These are not normal times, so we have to call it out with clarity and conviction,” Newsom said in an interview with YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen. “But we’ve got to stay focused on it so the American people can stay focused on it. Because his success is his ability to win every damn news cycle and get us distracted and moving in 25 different directions.”
Immigration was a relative strength for Trump in a March AP-NORC poll, which found that about half of U.S. adults approved of his approach to immigration. And he came into office with strong support for one component of his immigration agenda — deporting people with certain kinds of criminal histories. The vast majority of U.S. adults favored deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, according to a January AP-NORC poll.
There was far less consensus about how to handle deportations more broadly, though.
The January poll found that removing immigrants who are in the country illegally and have not committed a violent crime was divisive, with only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in support and slightly more than 4 in 10 opposed. Along those lines, a Pew Research Center poll from late February found that while about half of Americans said at least “some” immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported, very few people in that group supported deporting immigrants who have a job or are married to a U.S. citizen.
Trump staunchly defends his administration’s position
The Trump administration has acknowledged Abrego Garcia’s deportation was a result of “an administrative error,” saying immigration officials were aware of his protection from deportation. But Trump officials have described Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, as a “terrorist” and claimed he is a member of the MS-13 gang, even though he was never criminally charged in the U.S. with gang involvement. “He is not coming back to our country,” Attorney General Pam Bondi has said.
In defending his administration’s position, Trump says he is doing what he was elected to do and justifying the need to deport millions, saying a “big percentage” of migrants who arrived during the Biden administration are criminals — an assertion for which there is no evidence. Studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
And while it is not clear when Abrego Garcia arrived in the U.S., he began fighting against deportation proceedings in 2019 — before Democratic President Joe Biden took office.
“I was elected to get rid of those criminals — get them out of our country or to put them away, but to get them out of our country. And I don’t see how judges can take that authority away from the president,” Trump, a Republican, said Thursday.
A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Trump’s government is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”
While immigration is a relative strength, defiance of court rulings could put his administration in a trickier situation. A Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted in February found that about 8 in 10 Americans think the Trump administration should follow a federal court’s ruling if it determines that the administration has done something illegal.
Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Democrat who represents the Maryland district where Abrego Garcia lived, told The Associated Press that no allegations brought up by Trump officials would change how he approaches the case. Ivey, who is more aligned with the party’s moderates, described the issue as about more than just immigration.
“On the one hand, it’s an immigration issue. On the other hand, it’s also a constitutional issue,” he said. “Yes, there’s an immigration component, but it’s rapidly growing into a separation of powers conflict that could actually end up taking on historic proportions.”
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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
