An illegal deportation is not a matter of left or right, but right or wrong.
When I started my website, I promised myself I wouldn’t write about politics. I wanted my site to be an inclusive space open to everyone regardless of who they are or who they voted for. No sense scaring off any potential readers with political diatribes.
Well, looks like I’m breaking that promise. I don’t normally write about politics. But then again, these are not normal times.
Chances are you’ve heard about Abrego Garcia. He is a Maryland man with a wife and three kids. Originally, he lived in El Salvador before threats from local gangs forced him and his family to immigrate to America.
Despite arriving to the country “illegally”, he had been granted “withholding of removal” status (similar to asylum), which allowed him to continue residing in America due to the threats of violence he and his family faces from gangs in his home country.
On March 15, 2025, Garcia was deported from America and sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. He was imprisoned without trial and without being charged with or convicted of a crime in either country. It was later revealed that he was “mistakenly” deported due to an “an administrative error.”
Nearly one month later, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Garcia had been deported illegally and that the current administration should “facilitate” his return. However, earlier this week, President Donald Trump explicitly stated he had no intentions of bringing Garcia back to America.
As I said earlier, I normally do not blog about politics. But then, to me, this is not a matter of mere politics. This is not a matter of left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. This is a matter of right and wrong. And our President is clearly in the wrong.
I’m sure most of you have heard of this one document. It’s called the Constitution. It lays out the law of the land. And it has amendments. They’re laws our government is supposed to follow. Ten of them consist of what we call the Bill of Rights. They define rights we as Americans have, rights that our government is forbidden from violating.
One of those amendments—the Fifth, specifically!—states: ” No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime…or be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
In other words, the government can’t simply sweep you off the street and throw you in jail (especially a jail in another country) unless you’ve been charged or convicted of a crime, and that you can’t be punished for a crime without being put on trial to determine if you are guilty of the crime you’re accused of.
Garcia committed no crime. He was neither charged nor convicted of one. He was not put on trial. He did not undergo due process. He was forced to go directly to jail. And not only was he deported illegally, but mistakenly. (Due to an “administrative error”, no less!)
Garcia’s deportation was unconstitutional. It violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process. In other words, it was wrong. And not only was President Trump wrong to allow this innocent man to be deported, but he’s wrong to refuse returning this man home, even after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court.
Again, to me, this is not a matter of political differences. This is not a matter of left or right, conservative or liberal, or Democrat or Republican. This is a matter of right and wrong, and the President is wrong.
President Trump was wrong to allow these illegal deportations to happen under his administration. He is wrong to violate the Constitution, the law of our land—the Constitution he had promised to uphold when he was sworn into office. And he is wrong to circumvent our government’s systems of checks and balances by ignoring the Supreme Court, the highest court in our land.
Regardless of your political affiliation, we, as Americans, should all be united by our commitment to our laws and the institutions that have been created to uphold them. That means no president, Democrat or Republican, has a right to violate the Constitutional rights of our fellow citizens, and he most certainly does not have a right to flagrantly defy the institutions that prevent them from violating the Constitution.
Believe me, there are plenty of things I have to complain about our current president and his administration. But deporting a man illegally and refusing to bring him back despite a court order crosses a line that should never be crossed.
Because any leader who refuses to follow the law of the land, who places themselves as above the law, is no longer a president, but a dictator. And dictators are not to be followed, but resisted.
Justice for Kilmar Abrego Garcia!
J.C. Alexandre 