Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Will Bunch: Why Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the Jenga piece that could topple the American Experiment
Will Bunch - (archived: https://archive.ph/tPH8H ) Why Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the Jenga piece that could topple the American Experiment
The Trump regime lies about a Salvadoran laborer and dad because the truth of his humanity could unravel their dream of autocracy.
by Will Bunch | Columnist
Published April 17, 2025, 12:11 p.m. ET
There was a time in this country when the journey of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the violent streets of El Salvador to a happy if chaotic home in Maryland could have been a glossy brochure for the American Dream — a wonderful life that an old-time director like Frank Capra might have brought to a Hollywood screen.
It’s a tale packed with drama: The street gang in San Salvador that threatened 12-year-old Kilmar over the money from delivering his mom’s pupusas, leading to his 2011 migration to the United States. How Abrego Garcia and his American wife, Jennifer, were married after his detainment while seeking work in a Home Depot parking lot, with a guard passing the wedding rings through the glass barrier. Or the immigration judge who gave him the break to find a good union job.
But the sad reality is that we only know about this Salvadoran’s American Dream because of the nightmare plot twist when President Donald Trump and his regime of mass deportation arrived this January. Abrego Garcia was pulled over and arrested by federal agents, shackled and loaded onto a plane on the Ides of March, and thrown with a shaved head into El Salvador’s concentration camp, all because of what U.S. officials were later forced to admit was “an administrative error.”
There was also a time in this country when that mistake would have prompted a simple phone call from the so-called leader of the free world to the president of El Salvador that would bring Abrego Garcia back to American soil, to offer him constitutionally guaranteed due process to sort out his future. Instead, the top officials of the current U.S. government have unleashed a fire hose of over-the-top lies about this immigrant — anything to keep him locked up in a notorious Central American hellhole, where his family and attorney can’t even confirm if he’s dead or alive.
/snip
The Trump regime lies about a Salvadoran laborer and dad because the truth of his humanity could unravel their dream of autocracy.
by Will Bunch | Columnist
Published April 17, 2025, 12:11 p.m. ET
There was a time in this country when the journey of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the violent streets of El Salvador to a happy if chaotic home in Maryland could have been a glossy brochure for the American Dream — a wonderful life that an old-time director like Frank Capra might have brought to a Hollywood screen.
It’s a tale packed with drama: The street gang in San Salvador that threatened 12-year-old Kilmar over the money from delivering his mom’s pupusas, leading to his 2011 migration to the United States. How Abrego Garcia and his American wife, Jennifer, were married after his detainment while seeking work in a Home Depot parking lot, with a guard passing the wedding rings through the glass barrier. Or the immigration judge who gave him the break to find a good union job.
But the sad reality is that we only know about this Salvadoran’s American Dream because of the nightmare plot twist when President Donald Trump and his regime of mass deportation arrived this January. Abrego Garcia was pulled over and arrested by federal agents, shackled and loaded onto a plane on the Ides of March, and thrown with a shaved head into El Salvador’s concentration camp, all because of what U.S. officials were later forced to admit was “an administrative error.”
There was also a time in this country when that mistake would have prompted a simple phone call from the so-called leader of the free world to the president of El Salvador that would bring Abrego Garcia back to American soil, to offer him constitutionally guaranteed due process to sort out his future. Instead, the top officials of the current U.S. government have unleashed a fire hose of over-the-top lies about this immigrant — anything to keep him locked up in a notorious Central American hellhole, where his family and attorney can’t even confirm if he’s dead or alive.
/snip
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
