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They were asking about it happening to citizens. From your article:

> Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran




He's married to a citizen which gives him an avenue towards legal residency and full citizenship.

It doesn't matter anyways because the government admitted he was deported due to a administrative error and because they actively undermined and sidestepped the courts authority on several occasions, there is effectively nothing stopping them from doing it to full blown citizens. Honestly, it sounds like it's just a matter of time if this keeps up.


I agree it's bad, and yes, the government admitted they shouldn't have done it. But regardless, the question was about if it has happened to a citizen, not a person who maybe could be a citizen one day but is not, and you responded with them "doing just that" when they did not, in fact, "do just that".

I'm not sure why there's a need to mislead when what's actually happening is bad enough.


It's not a need to mislead. You're grasping at a technicality. Citizenship is irrelevant if you're not given the chance to demonstrate it, which he wasn't, and again, he was actually deported because of the administrative error, not an on-purpose action, the correctness of which is irrelevant.

You're arguing whether a car wrapped around a tree has a bad alternator. Surely a fact useful to someone, somewhere, and worth knowing. But also certainly not the reason there's a problem.


100% this. To echo another poster below, it's really important to read the Supreme Court's own words here.

>"The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene. " From https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf

I suspect that is one of the main reasons behind the order. It's very obvious that citizen vs legal resident matters very little here, if due process is not given.


But the administration has now stated they are investigating how to deport citizens as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8gYlWcV6wE&t=1s

She says only the most violent dangerous criminals -- although I feel like we've heard that line before...


So.. the very post you share prooves it's not happening. Incredulously, I gotta wounder: Did/ do you really believe your link supports your claim that it's been happening?


What did I claim? Read what i wrote. The video says EXACTLY what I stated.


So, I think, the courts ruled just 2 days ago that people can get sent abroad so long as they get to 'petition' it in... Texas. Right? So like, if their was an investigation, it closed one day prior to the interview; which is why she didnt say what you think she did. Trump said Would do it, and supposedly now he Can do it. All this is 'fact'in her eyes prior to the interview. An important distinction, no?


So you think it’s sane to do nothing and wait till it’s happening when they are explicitly saying they are looking for ways to make it happen? Really?

At this when they say something absurdly unhinged and unthinkable and if you still don’t believe they will try it.. well.. maybe you’re in the market for a bridge?


If they can ignore due process in this case what's to say they cannot do it to proper citizens? It's clear they're probing their way into creating a blueprint to get rid of people critical of trump.


You would agree that this whole discussion would be considered insanity in America like 4 months ago, right?


I thought that’s what half of America wanted just 6 months ago?


Trump didn't even win 50% of the vote.

Less than 25% of people who were eligible to vote voted for him.

Yes, he won the election and was the most popular candidate.

That doesn't mean "half of America wanted him".


Yet his approval rating back in January and February was over 50%. So even those who didn’t bother to vote for him still supported him.

It’s still ~45% now when in any sane world it would be in the single digits..


None of the Trump admin's excuses for why they "can't" bring back that guy depend on his citizenship status.


>He's married to a citizen which gives him an avenue towards legal residency and full citizenship.

You seem as if you're trying to leverage that to actual citizen rights... "look, he could be a citizen someday, so that means he has these same rights reserved to citizens". But it does not work that way.

>there is effectively nothing stopping them from doing it to full blown citizens.

Be sure to raise the alarm when they do. I'd be curious if it ever got that far. I think that some on the left worry that it might not, because if they don't have the absurd slippery slope argument then many people would never be concerned about this at all.


It happens to be the case that he's not a citizen or claiming to be a citizen, but he wasn't given due process, and there's absolutely nothing stopping them from picking anybody up off the street, claiming they're here illegally, and shipping them off to an El Salvadoran prison.

All people in the us, legal or illegal, citizen or not, have fourth amendment protections, and if you strip those rights from anyone, you remove them from everyone.


Do they? We generally don’t give noncitizens the right to own a gun in the us, so clearly we are selective about applying the 2nd amendment protection. The 4th may need adjudication.


Permanent residents have the right to own a gun in the US.

The supreme court has upheld many many times that the fourth amendment applies to all people within the borders of the US.


Not just permanent residents, either. I have legally owned numerous firearms while on L1 and H1B visas in US.


And just what process is due a person under risk of deportation? People say "due process" quite often without even giving any thought to what the term means, and I doubt that 1 in 4 could give a casual definition.

One might think that the only process due to such a person would be the opportunity to contest that they were a citizen and to provide evidence to that claim. Was he denied this? Did they slap a muzzle on him as he tried to scream "but my birth certificate's in the sock drawer, just take a look!"? If the agents who detained and deported him ran any sort of check that would have discovered his citizenship in time to prevent a deportation (had he been a citizen), this seems about all the process that could or should be due.

PS Am I the only one that notices how the news media always describes him as "from Maryland" when he wasn't born there, didn't attend school there, etc?


> the only process due to such a person would be the opportunity to contest that they were a citizen and to provide evidence to that claim

They should have the due process to prove they are here legally. And yes, they were denied that.

Even if you imagine due process is for citizens only, you can't prove citizenship status without due process, so it has to be given to everyone.

Otherwise, nothing's stopping ICE from just claiming you're not a citizen and shipping you off to El Salvador. How would you prove otherwise?


> They should have the due process to prove they are here legally.

This sounds like a nonsense statement. Non-citizens are only ever here legally at the pleasure of the United States. If we allow them in for 2 weeks, or 3 months, or whatever on a visa... we can change our minds and cancel it early.

The idea that they can have some absolute temporary right to be here ignores what it means to be a non-citizen. You have no right to be here, just a temporary privilege that can be revoked at any point for entirely arbitrary reasons.

>And yes, they were denied that.

I've heard no evidence that this was the case. "Due process" rights are, in many cases administrative. No trial, no judge.

>Even if you imagine due process is for citizens only,

I did not say this, and I do not imagine it. I just happen to know what due process rights actually are.

>you can't prove citizenship status without due process,

Was he denied his opportunity to prove citizenship to the agents who detained him? Did he try to get them to look in his wallet for papers, but they ignored that? Did he beg them to just look in his closet and see his birth certificate? That would be denial of due process.

>Otherwise, nothing's stopping ICE from just claiming you're not a citizen

So you claim. But it's absurd to think that will happen. If you believe it will happen, then just wait and sound the alarm when it does. I'll be genuinely surprised.


> Was he denied his opportunity to prove citizenship to the agents who detained him? Did he try to get them to look in his wallet for papers, but they ignored that? Did he beg them to just look in his closet and see his birth certificate? That would be denial of due process.

Yes, yes, and yes some more.

Did you just wake up from a coma?


> . But it's absurd to think that will happen

Really? The things that are happening now are so absurdly insane that nobody could have imagined them just a few years ago, and you are still gullible enough to say something as silly like that...

> sound the alarm when it does

The loons will just move the goalposts yet again. So what would that achieve?


[flagged]


> It's absurd that people who aren't citizens would be sent back to their home countries

I’m obviously referring to everything the current administration is doing not this specific case.

> common ground with the left

I’d consider myself a moderate centrist. Maybe mildly center-right.

> Do you even know why you want

If the only way of stopping them from coming is to surrender democracy to an authoritarian government staffed by exceptionally deranged and incompetent individuals, well.. let them come then..

> I contend that there's no chance of me ever being deported

Probably. As long as you don’t burn down any Teslas or say nasty thing about the president it’s very unlikely..

> of unease you feel right now continues until 2029 and beyond.

So you are willing to give up democracy and the rule of law (and economic stability for that matter..) just to get rid of some immigrants you don’t like?


If we don't have due process, in that, you can't go and defend yourself in public court, nobody here is really legal or not. It doesn't matter if your birth certificate is in the other room. Without due process it's whatever the ICE agent that's bagging you feels like. What are you gonna do? You don't get due process, you get no court hearing, you get the pleasure of getting onto a plane and flown out to a slave labor prison in El Salvador. Also Garcia had full legal permission to be here but it shows they never checked it and thus he was whisked away like we can expect other's to be if things stay on the current path.


>If we don't have due process, in that, you can't go and defend yourself in public court

That's not due process. Due process rights do not guarantee you any sort of court hearing or trial. It does not require a judge. 90% or more of due process is administrative in nature. The bureaucracy infringes your due process rights when they don't "go through the motions" of how to handle a particular situation. How should they handle deporting someone? By checking that they're not deporting a citizen. If they failed to check, if they failed to give him the opportunity to prove citizenship, they denied his due process rights. Did they do this?

>It doesn't matter if your birth certificate is in the other room. Without due proces

You miss the point. I wasn't asking if his birth certificate was there or not. I'm asking "did they give him the chance to claim as much, and did they follow up and make sure it wasn't there". If they didn't give him the opportunity to make the claim, if they ignored such a claim, this is a denial of due process.

And there was no denial. If you had more than a second grader's understanding of due process, you wouldn't be so confused here.

> What are you gonna do? You don't get due process,

"Look Mr. ICEman, you're making a mistake. We can clear this up in minutes, pull my wallet out and take a look at my identity documents, some of which indicate I'm a citizen. It'll only take two minutes to reveal me as a liar if that's not the case."

And if they refuse, then my due process rights have been denied.

>Also Garcia had full legal permission to be here

He showed up without such permission, then weaseled his way into getting contested permission after the fact. Which was always the case under previous policy, there was no practical way to send them back if they made it 100 yards across the border.


You keep saying other people have no idea what due process is, and you keep implying that asking a police officer really nicely not to arrest you is due process. Due process is given via the judicial system. The executive branch doesn't have the authority to be judge, jury and executioner. The police don't get to determine your rights, the courts do.


>and you keep implying that asking a police officer really nicely not to arrest you is due process.

I didn't imply this, in fact if you go up a few comments, I specifically say that due process rights are often administrative in nature. If the bureaucracy lets everyone file paperwork and processes it the same way every time, but when you show up with your paperwork to file it they throw it away without looking at it and say "we're already rejecting it"... that's a due process rights violation. In fact, that's pretty much the textbook definition of it. It's not that hard to understand. The "but he didn't even get a trial!" whiny-assed ijits don't seem to get that, or you. The "police officer" has already arrested you (though not in this case, because it wasn't an arrest, and not a police officer). They're allowed to do that, that's their job. Even when they do it to the wrong person.

Did the police officer check if he was a citizen or not? When (if?) he protested that he was, did they double-check? If those things didn't happen, no due process was skipped, ignored, or infringed. You don't know what due process is either... it's just this phrase you've heard and read from time to time in popular news media without ever thinking about it.

> The executive branch doesn't have the authority to be judge, jury and executioner.

Since these aren't criminal cases, they don't get a judge, jury, or executioner. They get a deportation. And by law, the executive branch really does have this legitimate power and authority. Deportations aren't penalties for crimes.

>The police don't get to determine your rights, the courts do.

This is a strange, distorted view. The courts aren't used to create new rights, only to determine the correct interpretation of rights when there is a dispute. It won't go your way at all. No matter how many times the media calls him a "Maryland man" despite being from El Salvador.


> One might think that the only process due to such a person would be the opportunity to contest

Well a federal judge thought otherwise. The government ignored him and did what they wanted anyway. That’s your definition of due process?

> Am I the only one that notice

So your comment is actually sarcastic?


Would his being a citizen have mattered to any of the procedures prior to his rendition? The government never made any effort to prove that he was here illegally (which is important since he wasn't), and he never had an opportunity to offer a defense.


He's a permanent resident. Splitting hairs over citizenship when he was here legally massively misses the problem with blackholing people here legally.


> Splitting hairs over citizenship when he was here legally massively misses the problem with blackholing people here legally.

And on top of that this case should be horrifying to anyone regardless of whether they want to split hairs because:

A) they admitted he was deported in error

B) they are now effectively trying to argue there is no way to get him back

So even if you believe they would never knowingly do this to an actual citizen they are only one slightly different mistake from disappearing a citizen, whether or not it has happened yet.

Nevermind the fact that Trump himself has repeatedly floated the idea of deporting citizens: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/10/trump-...

And then lastly and most importantly IMO it is wildly un-American to believe anyone (regardless of citizenship or legal status) is not entitled to due process.


He's *not* a permanent resident; he's on "withholding of removal" status since 2019 [*]. It's not splitting hairs to discuss that, but you're right that the govt is (deliberately) pursuing a "camel's-nose-under-the-tent" approach first on a small class of people where Congress and INA haven't defined a direct clear path to PR or becoming a citizen, unlike a GC would since both his wife and child are US citizens.

He was granted "withholding of removal" status in 2019, which protected him from deportation to El Salvador (for fear of gang violence/extortion, which is why he came to the US).

The current DOJ acknowledges that at the time (2019) the "[first Trump admin] government did not appeal that decision [to grant withholding of removal], so it is final". It also seems like they never previously made any allegation that he was a gang member, and that they don't have any solid proof now that he is (other than supposedly one informant who incorrectly claimed Garcia lived in NY, so basically no credible evidence whatsoever).

By jumping the gun on deporting Garcia without due process, the current admin seems to unwittingly be forcing the issue to the Supreme Court very soon. (UPDATE: SC has just ruled unanimously 9-0 that the admin must try to release Garcia.) Looks like the SC's going to be very busy this May-June.

[*] Withholding-of-removal is a pretty rare status, rarely granted by court (>99% rejection rate), much rarer than Green Card, and applicants have to demonstrate credible fear. [0] This procedure is defined in INA § 208 (INA = Immigration and Nationality Act) [1]

As of 12/2024 there were over 100,000 individuals (from Cuba, China, Venezuela, Mauritania, Nigeria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.) with orders of removal remaining free in the US due to various special interest statuses, including withholding of removal, according to a report from FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform). [2]

(Does anyone have stats on what historically happened to people in withholding-of-removal (what % became citizens, what % got GC, what % voluntarily left, what % got deported, what % moved to a different status etc.)?)

[0]: https://www.justice.gov/eoir/reference-materials/ic/chapter-...

[1]: https://www.uscis.gov/laws-and-policy/legislation/immigratio...

[2]: https://www.fairus.org/news/executive/new-data-show-over-100...

[3]: https://time.com/7276642/kilmar-albrego-garcia-error-deporta...




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