The White House meeting between Donald Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele on Monday should be a five-alarm fire for all individuals living in America who cherish the rule of law and the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States..
Just ahead of a press gaggle in the Oval Office, a hot mic caught Trump casually informing fellow authoritarian Bukele that he’ll seek to purge “home growns” – translation: U.S. citizens – to the mega-prison where Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego García and many other immigrants without criminal records are being unjustly detained.
“Home-growns are next. The home-growns,” Trump was heard telling Bukele. “You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.” The response from others in the room was not shock over the likely illegal idea of extraditing Americans to a foreign gulag, but instead villainous laughter. Watch the moment below:
Trump to Bukele: "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough."
During subsequent questioning from reporters, Trump made clear he has no plans to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling and return a man that his own Justice Department acknowledged shouldn’t have been deported in the first place. Bukele also claimed that he doesn’t “have the power” to release him. But if Trump told Bukele to jump, he’d ask how high. After all, he’s getting a reported $6 million in U.S. taxpayer funds out of this arrangement. “Let us speak plainly: Nayib Bukele is a minor strongman who will do whatever Donald Trump demands of him,” as The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last noted. Now we’re all supposed to believe that Trump can’t return the man he sent there? Weak.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials aided Trump in running roughshod over the Supreme Court and rule of law by unflinchingly backing his tyrannical belief that he doesn’t have to follow the court orders regarding the Maryland father.
Miller in particular “defended Abrego Garcia’s unlawful detention,” Rolling Stone reported, “practically yelling at reporters gathered in the room that returning him to the United States would be akin to ‘kidnapping’ a citizen of El Salvador.” During an earlier interview with FOX News, Miller refused to acknowledge the fact that the father had been erroneously purged to El Salvador, going so far as to publicly contradict Trump’s Justice Department.
We already knew that Kristi Noem is DHS secretary in name only and that Miller runs the immigration show. But while both Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were in the Oval Office and offered remarks, it’s clear that Miller, who has been bullying non-white people since his youth, is in charge.
“I have a feeling that Miller is single-handedly stopping the admin from just getting this guy back,” legal and national security expert Asha Rangappa wrote at Bluesky. “From a legal POV it would be better for the government’s case if they can show the ability to correct error. But Miller is pathological about getting brown people out and not letting them in.”
Rubio, Noem and Bondi dutifully listening to their boss. Miller. Not Trump
— Joe Sudbay (@joesudbay.bsky.social) 2025-04-14T16:07:13.021Z
Numerous lawmakers offered immediate responses to the Trump administration’s brazen defiance of the rule of law and this unprecedented executive overreach that now threatens the individual freedoms of each one of us. If it can happen to one of us, they warned, it can happen to all of us.
If President Trump can wrongly deport a Maryland father to a prison in El Salvador and then defy a 9-0 Supreme Court order to facilitate bringing him home, who’s next? This threatens the rights and freedoms of everyone in the United States.
— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) 2025-04-15T01:38:58.522Z
“If President Trump can wrongly deport a Maryland father to a prison in El Salvador and then defy a 9-0 Supreme Court order to facilitate bringing him home, who’s next?” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) asked. “This threatens the rights and freedoms of everyone in the United States.” One of the most high-profile kidnappings carried out by the Trump administration is of Massachusetts student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was taken in broad daylight by masked agents as she was walking to an interfaith center to break her Ramadan fast.
The two men responsible for sending and detaining an innocent man to a gulag both claim to be powerless? They are both wanna-be dictators in every way possible.How long before they do this to a U.S. citizen? This is an outrage.
— Rep. Veronica Escobar (@repescobar.bsky.social) 2025-04-14T17:08:33.351Z
“First, they said they’ll send undocumented immigrants with no due process to a foreign prison camp. Next, they said any immigrant — documented or not. Now, they say it’s citizens,” wrote Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX). “And that once they send you even on accident, they can’t bring you back.” In her post at Bluesky, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) asked how two heads of state that plotted the detention of a father and contributor to a foreign mega-prison are now claiming to be powerless and have their hands tied. “How long before they do this to a U.S. citizen?” Rep. Escobar wrote. “This is an outrage.”
In his statement, Maryland U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen announced he would be traveling to El Salvador himself if the Trump administration did not return Abrego García as instructed by the courts.
“Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia never should have been abducted and illegally deported, and the courts have made clear: the Administration must bring him home, now,” he said. “However, since the Trump Administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we need to take additional action. That’s why I’ve requested to meet with President Bukele during his trip to the United States, and – if Kilmar is not home by midweek – I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release.” On Wednesday, he boarded his flight:
I’m about to board my flight to El Salvador, where I hope to meet with senior government officials to discuss the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.I also hope to see Kilmar and check on his condition — and remind him that we won’t stop fighting until he’s home.
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@vanhollen.senate.gov) 2025-04-16T10:13:08.825Z
Several House Democrats have also said they will join in the fight to bring Kilmar home, including Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari, California Rep. Robert Garcia, and Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost:
We must all stand as a united front against the kidnapping and illegal detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. Senator, I am willing to join you and help Organize other members of the House to do the same. @vanhollen.senate.gov
— Maxwell Frost (@maxwellfrost.bsky.social) 2025-04-15T01:17:00.551Z
Legal and political observers and experts did not mince words when it came to Trump and Bukele’s sham theatrics regarding Abrego García and the dire risks facing Americans of all political persuasions.
“This rhetorical game the administration is playing, where it pretends it lacks the power to ask for Abrego Garcia to be returned while Bukele pretends he doesn’t have the power to return him, is an expression of obvious contempt for the Supreme Court—and for the rule of law,” Adam Serwer wrote in The Atlantic. “Calling this a constitutional crisis undersells the catastrophic implications of the emergency,” Mark Joseph Stern wrote at Slate. “This administration is rapidly constructing a legal framework that would allow it to abruptly disappear anyone, including natural-born U.S. citizens, to a foreign prison forever, for any reason it chooses, or no reason at all. Indeed, Trump teased this possibility on Monday, floating the deportation of ‘homegrown criminals’ to El Salvador next.”
And disappear with little to no evidence, as American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick shows in the case of Abrego García:
Since the Trump admin continues to claim Mr. Abrego Garcia is a gang member, I thought I'd take the time to put together a timeline, based on all the documents filed in court, which lays out all the "evidence" the government has ever offered.As you'll find out, there's very little "there" there!
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-04-14T22:55:47.235Z
“The stakes of the battle over Abrego Garcia’s fate could not be more evident: If the government succeeds in thwarting judicial repudiation of his deportation, it will mark the end of constitutional freedoms as we know them,” Stern continued in his piece. In his latest piece at The New Republic, Greg Sargent wrote the police officer “who initially attested to Abrego García’s alleged MS-13 membership was subsequently suspended and indicted for serious professional misconduct.”
JFC. Remember what happened to Andry too:Gay Venezuelan stylist sent to Salvadoran prison after a disgraced cop's reportwww.usatoday.com/story/news/i…
— Joe Sudbay (@joesudbay.bsky.social) 2025-04-15T18:08:36.341Z
Last week, Abrego García’s heartbroken wife, U.S. citizen Jennifer Vasquez Sura, made an impassioned plea for his release. Flanked by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and CASA leaders, Vasquez Sura wanted her husband to know that she would not stop until he was back home. “If you can hear me, I’m still fighting for you — your brother, your mother, your children,” she said. “We’re still fighting for you, and we’re not gonna give up hope.”
Maryland advocates, faith leaders, and the state’s attorney general continued pushing for his freedom during a press event ahead of the White House meeting, local outlet 7News reported:
“Why are we here today? Why are we, a community of faith, here today? We are here as faith leaders in this community, as communities of faith, to say one very clear message, bring Kilmar home,” said Reverend Michael Vanacore of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Maryland. “We join our hearts in prayer for Kilmar. God, we ask that you bring him home,e that you move the hearts of those with the power to do so that they do so now.”
“I’m here today, both as the state’s attorney and as a woman of faith. And to Kilmar’s family, I want to let you know that no matter where he is in the world, he is still a resident of Prince George’s County,” said Maryland Attorney General Aisha Braveboy. “I care about him and his family. His children go to our schools. They are being raised in our communities and he should be there as their father, ensuring that they have the best of everything.”
This is a constitutional crisis and a human rights nightmare. Because so much of what is happening is viewed solely through a political lens, it’s also important to know that what Trump’s doing is not popular at all with the American people. G. Elliott Morris, who digs deep into data, analyzed the numbers and wrote this:
The media narrative is that “Trump is popular on immigration.” But as we can see, that is not really true. On the specifics of his policy, and especially on the on-the-ground implementation, Americans are mostly opposed to what his administration is doing. (And the data above should probably be considered an overestimate, since the polls I’ve used are old and conducted before the Abrego Garcia news.)
In other words, Trump’s critics have an easy opportunity to fight the president in the court of public opinion. Americans do not approve of abducting fathers who have been in America for decades and sending them to torture camps in the jungle; And, contra Trump’s wishes, they also oppose the extrajudicial transfer of U.S. citizens convicted of crimes to foreign jails.
America’s Voice Statement on the Abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk
