Torture at CECOT

We interrupt the budget drama to bring you this immigration update:

Allison Gill has published a story on the Mueller, She Wrote blog on an amended filing by lawyers for Kilmar Garcia Abrego, alleging widespread torture of inmates at the facility, including Abrego himself.

I wrote about Abrego's illegal detention and deportation back in April. For months, the Trump administration deflected and delayed court-ordered action, keeping him in prison in El Salvador. Now we learn about actual conditions in the gulag. The details are deeply disturbing, but I encourage you to read them. You should know what is being done in your name:

Mr. Abrego's Account of Torture at CECOT in El Salvador

Let me be clear on a bunch of stuff.

If you break the law, you're subject to the consequences that the law prescribes. If you're in the country illegally, those consequences may include arrest and deportation.

There are, no doubt, vicious criminals in the country illegally (also legally!). Vigorous pursuit of those people is important for public safety.

There are also, no doubt, farm workers and construction workers and restaurant staffers and home health care workers in the country illegally, who haven't committed other egregious crimes. They've broken a law that matters, but we could choose to take a more thoughtful approach to them and their families.

Critically, the Constitution guarantees due process. The government is subject to habeas corpus. It must produce those it has arrested in court so that they can challenge their arrest and the charges against them. Abrego's rights were explicitly violated when he was arrested, chained, put on a plane and flown to El Salvador. We sent him and many others to a torture camp, with no due process, so that the Trump administration could claim a win for the mass-deportations-now MAGA faithful with compelling television.

Abrego – not others – was eventually returned to the US and his now being held in prison in Tennessee. He has competent legal representation. The wheels of justice are grinding away. Should he be found guilty of one or more crimes, a judge will levy a sentence permitted by law. Should he be found innocent, he will likely have a cause of action against the US government.

His return should not cheer us. It only happened because so much attention was focused on his arrest. He had family members able to promote his cause and lawyers willing to pursue his case.

Others remain in the same gulag, unable to challenge their arrests and deportations, suffering the same indignities and crimes perpetrated against Abrego while he was in El Salvadorean custody. Trump is not merely complicit in those crimes. He wants them.

That stain is on America and on all Americans.