0:10

This is the Daily

0:12

Blast from the New

0:15

Republic produced and presented

0:17

by the DSR Network.

0:19

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

0:22

By now you may have

0:24

heard that the Trump administration

0:28

deported a Salvadoran man

0:30

in error. The

0:33

administration is refusing to bring

0:35

him back and this particular

0:37

case has extremely dark implications that

0:40

are going to continue reverberating.

0:42

JD Vance addressed this on Twitter

0:44

and he face planted in a

0:46

spectacular way that would have been

0:48

funny if it weren't so repulsive.

0:50

He claimed that the man was

0:52

a convicted MS-13 member even though

0:55

that's a severe distortion. And the broader

0:57

story here is that Vance

0:59

and Trump are perfectly fine

1:01

with quote unquote accidentally removing

1:03

people because they want immigrants to

1:05

be afraid that they're going to

1:08

be next. Today we're talking about

1:10

this with one of our favorite

1:12

observers of immigration issues, longtime

1:15

veteran advocate Douglas Rivelin.

1:17

Doug, it's great to have you on again,

1:19

man. Hey Greg, good to see you.

1:21

So the deported man, Kilmara Brago Garcia,

1:23

is a Salvadoran who was removed to

1:25

El Salvador along with dozens of others.

1:28

He was sent to that prison for

1:30

terrorists that was all over the news

1:32

recently. He's the father of an autistic

1:34

child who lives in Maryland and his

1:36

wife is a U.S. citizen. The government

1:39

had tried to remove him to El

1:41

Salvador in 2019, but he was actually

1:43

granted a form of status called withholding

1:45

from removal based on the fact that

1:47

he'd faced serious harm if you were

1:50

sent back. Doug, can you give us

1:52

the rundown here? So in 2019, the

1:54

judge, according to the reporting, said,

1:56

don't deport this guy back to

1:59

El Salvador. And according to

2:01

the reporting, that's what they

2:03

in fact did a week

2:05

or two ago. He

2:07

had protection from deportation.

2:10

He was going through

2:12

all of his check-ins.

2:15

He's got deep ties to his

2:17

community. And at

2:19

least according to all the

2:21

stories that I've seen, is

2:23

the ability to define him

2:26

as an MS-13 operative is

2:28

very suspect and has never

2:30

been something that was judged

2:32

on evidence in court. I

2:35

think they just decided that this guy

2:37

is an MS-13 guy and they

2:39

wanted to port him. Well, I

2:41

should add that Nick Mir off

2:43

of the Atlantic, who originally broke

2:45

the story, actually reported that the

2:47

police did not believe that he

2:49

was an MS-13 member and didn't

2:51

characterize him that way. Yeah, no,

2:53

I think this is an administration that

2:56

just does a word search or a

2:58

tattoo search, and they sort of, they're

3:00

looking to fill their quotas. They wanted

3:02

to fill up this plane

3:05

and send it to El Salvador

3:07

and they had somebody that

3:09

they thought they could reasonably

3:11

argue was a gang member and

3:14

they got caught. And now they're

3:16

spinning lies and webs to try

3:18

and spin their way out of

3:20

it. But it's part of the

3:22

bigger story, not just that the

3:25

due process rights of immigrants

3:27

are being violated, which

3:29

they are. and people are being railroaded

3:31

into a foreign prison for you know

3:34

a couple years hard labor because

3:36

they have tattoos from rail Madrid But

3:38

you're also seeing now that they're

3:40

really testing the waters right if they

3:42

can Arrest people without any due process

3:45

and without any good cause and put

3:47

them in jail somewhere and then say

3:49

hey we put them in jail. Sorry.

3:51

There's nothing we can do about it

3:53

Eventually they move beyond immigrants and they

3:56

start doing that to other people

3:58

this is a very slippery slope as anybody

4:00

at the ACLU or anybody who ever

4:02

went to law school would tell you.

4:04

Well, I want to bring in

4:07

shady Vance here, the vice president.

4:09

He responded to broadcaster John Favrow

4:11

on this topic. Favrow asked Vance

4:13

on Twitter for comment on this

4:16

erroneous deportation when the news broke. Vance

4:18

then said this, quote, my comment is

4:20

that according to the court document

4:22

you apparently didn't read. He was

4:24

a convicted MS-13 gang member with

4:26

no legal right to be here. Now

4:30

again, he wasn't actually

4:32

convicted in any criminal

4:34

sense. He was scheduled to be

4:36

deported in 2019, but the judge

4:38

as you point out reversed that.

4:41

And he did have the right

4:43

to be here. And it's just

4:45

a very dark thing that Vance

4:48

did here, which is to just

4:50

declare him convicted and therefore subject

4:52

to deportation on that basis. But

4:55

that's what they've been doing with

4:57

immigrants, right? I mean, even if

4:59

you're here with permission of the

5:02

government, even if you're here

5:04

and protected from deportation because

5:07

you have a pending asylum case,

5:09

which our law requires, and even

5:11

if you are in the process

5:13

of adjusting your status, you can get

5:15

deported by this administration because they

5:17

don't care about the rule of

5:20

law. I mean, remember DeSantis, when

5:22

you put people on a plane

5:24

to... Martha's Vineyard a couple

5:26

years ago, he said, I'm putting

5:28

illegals on a plane, and those

5:31

are people who had permission to

5:33

be in the country from the

5:35

federal government, which is not what

5:37

he would define normally as someone

5:40

in the country illegally. So, I

5:42

mean, they're trying to push the

5:44

envelope. The main thing that they're

5:46

concerned with, they wanted to have

5:49

pictures of brown men being treated

5:51

badly, having their heads shaved being

5:53

frogmarked through a... maximum security

5:56

prison by you know

5:58

tough-looking guys And that's

6:00

what they were hoping for, and

6:02

that's what they got. But the details,

6:04

once you pick it apart, are

6:06

just a whole lot different than

6:08

the sales pitch that Trump was

6:10

giving us, which is not unusual

6:12

for Trump, right? And now you've

6:14

had Stephen Miller and others sort

6:16

of trying to jump out there

6:18

and JD Vance, all trying to

6:21

explain away. The reality, which is

6:23

that they rounded up a bunch

6:25

of usual suspects and put them

6:27

on a plane and sent them for hard

6:29

labor to another dictator's prison

6:32

and exchanged for millions

6:34

of dollars to that dictator. And

6:36

that's the state of American

6:38

jurisprudence at the moment. Spring

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dsrnetwork.com/by. Thank you

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and enjoy the show.

7:24

I want to pick up

7:26

on the story again.

7:29

The government is

7:31

actually admitting that

7:34

this guy, Abrago

7:36

Garcia, was deported

7:39

in error to El

7:41

Salvador. But the administration is now

7:43

arguing that there is nothing it

7:45

can do to compel its return,

7:47

that he shouldn't be returned, and

7:50

that the court lacks jurisdiction to

7:52

order it, meaning to order the

7:54

government to return this guy, because he's

7:56

no longer in the United States. It's

7:58

a circular argument. We've removed

8:00

him in error, the Trump

8:02

administration says, but precisely because

8:05

he was removed, U.S. courts

8:07

no longer have jurisdiction to

8:09

ensure him due process in

8:11

the situation. So let him

8:13

rot in the Salvadoran

8:15

prison, right? And let him

8:17

be in photo ops with the

8:20

Secretary of Homeland Security or whoever

8:22

else was in the backdrop, right?

8:24

This is an ongoing... public

8:26

relations effort by the Trump

8:29

administration to sell what they're

8:31

doing as being tough and protecting

8:33

us from crime and gangs, but

8:35

this was never about crime and

8:37

gangs. This was never about public

8:39

safety. This was always about trying

8:41

to scare immigrants into leaving the

8:43

country and keeping their heads down,

8:46

and I was trying to, you

8:48

know, convince their magga base that

8:50

they're getting tough on brown and

8:52

black people. Whether there's evidence to

8:55

do that or not, they're making

8:57

up their own rules. They're defining

8:59

people who come from Latin

9:01

America and the Caribbean

9:03

as here illegally, regardless

9:06

of the circumstances of

9:08

them being here. And they want

9:10

them rounded up and sent to

9:12

another country, any other country

9:14

in Bukali in El Salvador

9:17

was willing to do it

9:19

for bargain prices. It's disgusting.

9:21

And it matters for people who

9:23

are not immigrants, because we're the

9:26

canaries in the coal mine in

9:28

the immigration world, we like to

9:30

say. And a lot of the

9:33

experimentation that they do with taking

9:35

away people's rights and due process

9:37

starts in the immigration arena,

9:40

and they see how far they can

9:42

go. The rights of people who are

9:44

in detention, people who are at the border,

9:46

they are lower than the average

9:49

citizen. But they're still, you know,

9:51

they're still violating even that

9:53

level. So it just seems

9:55

like they are really trying

9:57

to push the envelope

9:59

in how They can treat people cruelly

10:01

for the show of it without

10:03

paying any consequences. And this is

10:06

getting the attention of Democrats. People

10:08

have been complaining a lot about

10:10

the Democrats, and you've had Corey

10:12

Booker go to the floor, and

10:14

you've had Murphy and a bunch

10:16

of other members. This is getting

10:19

under their skin more than anything else

10:21

so far, and you're hearing a lot

10:23

of people speaking out about it, which

10:25

is great. We need to have more

10:28

people jumping up and down and saying,

10:30

hey, you're violating the laws of

10:32

the United States, and you should be

10:34

able to go get this guy out

10:36

of the prison hellhole that you sent

10:39

him and make things right. But we

10:41

also need action from Democrats, and

10:43

we need action that's going to

10:45

put some pressure on the Republicans,

10:47

and that's a much. uh... tougher

10:50

scenario to figure out i mean

10:52

people said let's you know drag our

10:54

feet on everything that goes through the

10:56

senate which is not hard to do

10:59

as the Republicans have always showed us

11:01

uh... or you know let's stop everything

11:03

in the house let's try and bring

11:05

the government to a screeching halt until

11:08

we force the president to address the

11:10

fact that he's in violation of the

11:12

law well i have long thought that

11:15

democr should adopt that approach as well

11:17

i want to bring in what Abreo

11:19

Garcia's lawyer told me. The lawyer's name

11:21

is Simon Sandoval, Motionberg. He said the

11:24

following, quote, if nobody can do

11:26

anything to bring him back once

11:28

he's been deported, then the order

11:31

preventing his deportation in the first

11:33

place is meaningless. In other words,

11:35

if a judge ordered him not

11:38

deported and the government

11:40

goes ahead and deports him,

11:42

and the government won't. or

11:44

can't according to itself do

11:46

anything to bring him back

11:48

then what's the point of

11:50

the judge's order in the

11:52

first place? That's exactly the

11:55

right diagnosis that the they

11:57

just there's some laws they

11:59

don't like and they're not going

12:01

to follow them and they're going

12:03

to stick their fingers in their

12:05

ears and go on Fox News

12:08

and say whatever they have to

12:10

say to try and obfuscate or you

12:12

know turn the attention away from their

12:14

point of view they just they're

12:17

trying to do symbolic politics

12:19

and be tough on people but the

12:21

reality underneath it has always been

12:24

very shaky. We're not at war

12:26

with Venezuela, we're not at war

12:28

with El Salvador. So deporting people

12:31

under a wartime act from 1798

12:33

on its face is just silly, but

12:35

that's just the start of the lies

12:37

that they have been telling and spinning,

12:40

which are starting to blow up in

12:42

their face. In their angry little faces,

12:44

this is getting much more difficult

12:46

for them. I mean, the press secretary

12:49

at the White House briefing. It's

12:51

not easy to tell these lies.

12:53

She was obviously uncomfortable with it.

12:55

But they're making up stuff until

12:58

they run out of stuff to

13:00

make up. I want to clarify

13:02

for listeners that you were referring

13:05

to the Alien Enemies Act of

13:07

1798. That's the statute that the

13:09

administration invoked to deport. dozens of

13:12

people to this prison in El

13:14

Salvador. Most of the Venezuelans,

13:16

this guy was swept up

13:19

in that. Apparently, he's Salvadoran.

13:21

But the whole thing is completely

13:23

ridiculous because we're not at

13:26

war with or under invasion

13:28

from a hostile foreign power,

13:30

and that's what's needed for

13:32

the statute to be invoked in

13:34

the first place. And

13:36

even if we were concentration camps and

13:39

sending people to foreign prisons is a

13:41

bad idea, and we've tried it before,

13:43

and it's been a bad idea. Trump

13:46

likes those kinds of bad ideas. Part

13:48

of the diagnosis here is that

13:50

you talk about this stuff is a

13:52

lot less time you're spending talking about

13:54

egg prices, or the stock market tanking,

13:57

or Medicare and Social Security cuts.

13:59

uh... they want to desperately change the

14:01

subject from those kinds of things which

14:04

they are not addressing and in fact

14:06

are making a lot worse uh... and would

14:08

rather be talking about uh... is this guy a

14:10

gang member or not a gang member

14:12

as he convicted of you know as

14:14

far as their concern that's the conversation

14:16

they'd love to be having because it

14:18

just kind of reinforces in their uh...

14:20

followers minds that uh... if you've got

14:23

a tattoo in your latino you're probably

14:25

here illegally and should have been ordered

14:27

long ago and it's just not true But

14:29

that's really what they're trying to

14:31

do is to change the topic

14:34

from the actual cost of all

14:36

of these policies. I mean, we know the

14:38

cost in terms of the rule of law. We

14:40

know the cost in terms of the money

14:42

that we're paying to El Salvador and

14:45

the money that it takes to detain

14:47

people and round them up. And

14:49

they're doing, they're taking, they're cutting

14:51

corners, they're going for the easy

14:53

folks who are coming in for

14:56

their check-ins, and just, you know,

14:58

putting them in the list of

15:00

people who are going to be

15:02

on the plane. But all of

15:04

this is costing us a great deal,

15:06

but the damage to the economy

15:09

of removing so many people, of

15:11

creating fear, of making children

15:13

scared to go to school, all

15:15

of this will add up. and

15:18

it's not what the American people

15:20

bargained for. They wanted someone to

15:22

be tough on immigration, okay, but

15:24

it's to the exclusion of actually

15:26

following the law and it's to

15:28

the exclusion of actually helping the

15:30

country and helping the economy, and

15:32

that doesn't make any sense. I

15:34

want to highlight a specific thing

15:36

about the administration's position that's really

15:38

ludicrous. It's essentially declaring the power

15:40

to remove people outside the law.

15:42

in error without

15:45

bearing subsequent responsibility

15:47

to rectify that error. Yeah,

15:50

they hate oversight because, you

15:52

know, the more scrutiny they

15:54

get on anything, the more

15:57

ridiculous their initial story sounds.

15:59

and you know they get caught in

16:02

these loops of saying hey we did

16:04

it but you know we can't fix

16:06

it. That's why they got rid of

16:08

the Inspectors General that's why

16:10

they're attacking law firms that's

16:12

why they are trying to

16:15

make any reign of oversight of

16:17

what they do much more difficult

16:19

in their attacking institutions like

16:21

the Atlantic and your institution

16:24

and the whole you know

16:26

press. They want to be able to

16:28

get away with what they want to

16:30

be able to get away with without

16:32

anybody questioning it And now that somebody has

16:34

been questioning it it turns out hey this

16:37

guy wasn't really a gang member and was

16:39

sent to El Salvador when a judge said

16:41

don't do that Exactly, I want to try

16:43

to step back and take stock of where

16:45

we are in a broader sense Where do

16:48

you think public opinion is right

16:50

now? I think for people like

16:52

you and me, the sobering truth

16:54

is that some polls show approval

16:56

of Trump on immigration. Now,

16:59

I don't take too much from that

17:01

because a lot of the questions

17:03

are worded in a way that

17:05

sort of stacks the deck. The

17:07

pollsters will say things like, do

17:09

you support the removal of illegal

17:12

immigrants? Yes or no, and they

17:14

don't offer... respondents

17:16

the choice of deportations

17:18

versus a path to

17:20

legalization. And when you

17:22

offer them that path

17:24

to legalization option, majorities

17:26

actually choose that instead.

17:28

Additionally, when the polls

17:30

get into some nuance and say

17:33

things like, do you support the

17:35

removal of people who haven't

17:37

been convicted of any other

17:40

crime aside from... uh... entering

17:42

the country illegally that all

17:44

of a sudden the numbers

17:46

shift dramatically against removing the

17:48

people who are long-time residents

17:51

uh... so it's complicated public opinion

17:53

is really in flux

17:55

it's really confused it's

17:58

really self-contradictory but i would like

18:00

to see more public disapproval of things

18:02

like what we're seeing now wouldn't you?

18:04

Yeah I mean I think polls

18:06

can move a lot in a short

18:09

period of time and this is the

18:11

kind of story that's going to move

18:13

them but most people have a just

18:16

a fundamental misunderstanding

18:18

of our immigration system in that

18:20

they think people could have come

18:22

legally with a visa if they

18:24

had just waited till Thursday or

18:26

you know next Tuesday when in

18:28

fact Most people can't come legally,

18:30

ever. And if you can come

18:32

legally, it's a years and years

18:35

and years and years and years

18:37

process. And if the gang is

18:39

extorting you now, you may not

18:41

have years and years and years.

18:43

The asylum system is perfectly

18:45

legal. So those people that JD Vance

18:47

is divining as here illegally aren't. They're

18:50

here legally with our permission. They're going

18:52

through a court process in a US

18:54

court. I just, you know, I saw

18:56

a story about a couple that lived

18:59

in Orange County in California for 30

19:01

plus years and they were deported back

19:03

to Columbia and the comments on social

19:05

media was, well, if they were here

19:08

for 30 years, how come they didn't

19:10

get legal? Like, you know, that they

19:12

didn't go down to the post office

19:15

and fill out that form. And if

19:17

you think that you could be here

19:19

legally, but you're choosing not to, that

19:21

kind of changes your attitude towards. undocumented

19:24

immigrants. The reality is undocumented

19:26

immigrants are kind of locked

19:28

into their status and it's

19:30

a conscious decision. The Republicans

19:32

along the way made it

19:34

their decision that anybody who's

19:36

here illegally can never be here

19:38

legally so that they can be deported.

19:40

That's what the Republican Judiciary Committee

19:43

has been pushing for all along

19:45

and that's why blocking immigration reform

19:47

for 30 years. has worked as

19:49

a strategy, but the realities of

19:51

it. If someone has lived here

19:54

for 30 years and they've raised

19:56

two generations of American families, they

19:58

should have an opportunity to earn

20:00

legal status through a process. And

20:02

even for someone who's been here

20:04

since 2019, which is still six

20:07

years ago, that they should have

20:09

some sort of a way, a

20:11

process to go through where they could

20:13

either earn legal status or go through

20:15

the kind of process that Mr.

20:18

Abrigal Garcia did, which is

20:20

to determine that actually deporting

20:22

him to El Salvador would

20:24

be in contrary to the

20:27

interests of the United States.

20:29

Well look Doug, let's just let's

20:32

wrap this up. You've been fighting

20:34

on these issues for a very

20:36

long time I think listeners can

20:39

probably tell that how are

20:41

you feeling about things generally? We're

20:43

in a new era where It's

20:45

not just enough for the ACLU

20:47

to be in court suing on

20:49

our behalf on behalf of the

20:52

rule of law for all

20:54

Americans We have to take

20:56

some action. We have to

20:58

insist that Democrats not treat

21:00

this as business as

21:02

usual, and take

21:05

extraordinary measures peaceful

21:07

and nonviolent, of

21:10

course, but they've got

21:12

to make Trump pay a

21:14

price with his own voters

21:16

and with his own wallet

21:19

in order to stop

21:21

him from violating the law.

21:23

And he sees that as a

21:25

badge of honor. As we know, and

21:27

the American people see violating our laws,

21:30

especially when they catch up good people

21:32

in a bad system, as really something

21:34

to fight against, and I hope more

21:36

and more people do. I think in

21:39

the long run, there's an ability to

21:41

turn the tide on these issues,

21:43

but we've got to start standing

21:45

up now. We've got to be able

21:47

to fight for the rule of

21:49

law and for American justice system that

21:52

works for everyone. Otherwise, it's going

21:54

to work for no one, including whoever

21:56

is hearing my voice right now. Very well

21:58

said, Douglas River. I'm always a pleasure

22:01

to talk to you man. Thanks for

22:03

coming on. All right, Greg. You've

22:05

been listening to The Daily Blast

22:07

with me, your host, Greg Sargent.

22:09

The Daily Blast is a new

22:12

Republic podcast and is produced by

22:14

Riley Fessler on the DSR Network.