I think the thing that has made me the angriest and most frustrated since January 20th is how this administration does something outrageous, and then everyone seems to take the big picture item as a fait accompli and focuses in on the resulting injustices instead of decrying the original, abhorrent action.
Examples that come to mind are oh, just about everything that the so-called DOGE has done, from firing swathes of government workers to inserting themselves into classified databases to threatening our Social Security checks and cancelling food shipments to needy countries, when the bigger picture is that there is no department called DOGE (since Congress is the only body legally permitted to create new departments and they didn’t), and Elon Musk does not work for the government (although he may work for the Chief Felon), nor do he and his little boy-band have sufficient security clearances to do any of this. But instead of focusing on these issues and attempting a court order to stop all of it, Congress litigates against individual actions and gets some of them temporarily frozen, after the horse has been out of the barn for weeks. Instead of calling authority into question, everyone is focusing on what these criminals have already done despite their not having the right to do so. Why?
Take the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, mistakenly swept up as a supposed Venezuelan gang member (and criminal?) and deported, without due process or a by-your-leave, to a prison in El Salvador. Is this disgraceful? Yes. Is it even more disgraceful the way the administration is refusing to do anything about it, in the face of orders from a high court and then from the highest court? Absolutely. But let’s pan back a little on the scene, shall we?
The truth is, this one man unjustly deported has captured everyone’s imagination. But many of the rest of the deportees are equally innocent of any crime but having some tattoos that someone decided were suspect. (“Someone” most likely being the Texas Border Patrol, which has been compiling a list of tattoos trying to identify members of the Tren de Aragua gang. But that gang doesn’t require tattoos signifying membership.)
We wouldn’t know this for certain, however, because none of them was given their legal right to a day in court, before a judge at least and maybe before a jury, to determine if they are guilty of any wrongdoing. Having tattoos, even if they are gang tattoos, doesn’t mean you are guilty of a crime. Committing a crime also doesn’t justify your being sent to prison without due process. And although we know the name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, we don’t even know the names of the rest of the people who were deported to a hellhole prison in another country by our government. There are more than 240 of them. And we don’t know their names.
I also find it interesting that this man, who is a family man with children, is so agonized over, while Andry Hernandez Romero, the gay Venezuelan man who is a makeup artist from San Francisco and who is apparently equally innocent of the charges against him (he was also arrested because of “suspicious” tattoos—like a crown on his wrist that he got to celebrate Three Kings Day, an Epiphany commemoration), is no longer in the news, except in San Francisco.
Neri Alvarado Borges, who has an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his brother, said an ICE agent told him, “We’re finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos.” If we are going to arrest people with suspicious tattoos, I nominate Pete Hegseth with his Christian Nationalist obsession. I’d love to see his reaction upon being sent to prison in El Salvador. Or hey, any one of a number of MAGA red-hats sporting Nazi symbols. Aren’t they considered gang members?
We should be lobbying to get EVERY SINGLE PERSON back from El Salvador, whether they are criminals or not, so that they can receive due process under the law. For those who are hazy about what this means: “The government must act according to established legal rules and principles, providing notice and an opportunity to be heard before depriving someone of their rights. Due process ensures fundamental fairness and protects individuals from government overreach. “ If this isn’t government overreach, I don’t know what is.
And while we are panning back out to that wider field of view, does anyone other than the Chief Felon and the now-wealthier president of another country think that America should be deporting its criminals (or anyone else) to an EL SALVADORAN PRISON?
You can read about many of them (and their tattoos) here:
And while we’re talking about deportation to El Salvador, one thing you can do is to contact Avelo Airlines, a Connecticut company (based in Texas? it’s confusing) that has taken a long-term contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation flights out of Mesa, Arizona, for the Department of Homeland Security. Their media consultant is Madison Jones, whose email is
madison.jones@aveloair.com. Or you can call their Customer Support Center at (346) 616-9500. Note: The airline also flies out of Burbank, CA, in case anyone is looking for a new protest venue…
MEdoubleLL 
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