The verdict is in
It comes as no surprise that the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case isn’t unique. Indeed, it is the rule rather than the exception. Of 90 illegal kidnappings and (let’s call it what it is) renditions of Venezuelan men sent to an El Salvadorian prison by the Trump “administration,” 50 were in the United States legally. In other words, a despicable criminal act was committed against 50 innocent human beings by the grotesque Trump freak show.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, analyzed available immigration data for cases where records could be found. Their findings were shocking. “The government calls them all ‘illegal aliens,’” the report concluded, “but of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point.”
I hasten to point out that the remaining 40 also had their Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights grievously violated. There was absolutely no justification for the violent, humiliating abduction of any of these men. But the fact that the majority of them were in the US legally is an appalling indictment of the racist stupidity of Trump’s claque of goons and thugs. In any just system the kidnappers would be arrested and brought up on charges. Kidnapping is a federal crime.
Instead they smugly accused these men of MS-13 gang membership, human trafficking, murder, rape and drug-peddling without a single shred of evidence, while a calm and rational examination of the actual records tells a very different story. Liars like Karoline Leavett sanctimoniously scold the White House press corp for daring to question her insistence that these men are the worst kind of criminals. If she had evidence she would show it. She doesn’t because she knows she’s lying.
The only “evidence” they have offered are tattoos, none of which are conclusive. Many of the tattoos cited as evidence have absolutely no connection to gang activity whatsoever. In many cases they reflect personal or cultural references.
The Cato Institute used the example of Andry José Hernández Romero, a makeup artist, who has crown tattoos on his arms that reference “Three Kings Day.” Three Kings Day is a celebration in his Venezuelan hometown. For that he gets violently kidnapped and screamed at in the middle of the night by testosterone-crazed authoritarian lunatics, his head gets violently shaved, and he gets summarily deported by cargo plane to a brutal prison in El Salvador.
We all know the real reason why these men are being treated so hideously. It isn’t because they’re gang members or criminals, that’s a lie. It’s because they were born in another country and their skin is brown. Period. Trump and his gang of hooligans did this.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.