Deportation of Maryland Dad with Protected Status is a Stark Warning Why Due Process Matters

District Judge ruling: “generalization of criminality” to Venezuelans “smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes.” Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC — In a ruling yesterday blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from Venezuelans, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen noted this administration’s “generalization of criminality” to Venezuelans, calling it “baseless” and assessing it, “smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes.”

The judge’s assertion rings especially true in light of the details that continue to emerge about the Venezuelans summarily deported without due process to a notorious prison in El Salvador, including fresh reporting highlighting that a Maryland father and spouse of a U.S. citizen with protected status and no criminal record was among those deported. As Nick Miroff of The Atlantic writes, “An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison,” noting:

“The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the mega-prison where he’s now locked up.

…Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old disabled child who is also a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record in the United States, according to his attorney. The Trump administration does not claim he has a criminal record but called him a “danger to the community” and an active member of MS-13 [the article goes on to describe why “Police did not identify him as a gang member”].

As Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) stated, “The Trump administration called it an ‘administrative error.’ But that error led to a nightmare for Maryland Resident Abrego Garcia” (listen to more from Senator Booker’s floor remarks on immigration yesterday here).

Also read Jonathan Blitzer in The New Yorker: “The Makeup Artist Donald Trump Deported Under the Alien Enemies Act,” detailing how “The President has invoked the law to send Venezuelans to prison in El Salvador without due process—and, in many cases, under false pretenses.”

As America’s Voice legal advisor and leading immigration attorney David Leopold wrote in his Washington Post op-ed this Sunday, “Trump’s immigrant purge is part of a larger agenda”:

“[D]ue process matters as a cornerstone of fairness and justice and is not a mere legal technicality. It mandates that no individual, including noncitizens in the United States, be deprived of life, liberty or property without a fair and just process. It is enshrined in the Constitution as a safeguard against arbitrary executive power … The Trump administration has used its first few months to target the due process rights of immigrants. If left unchecked, its efforts will threaten the broader rights and liberties of us all.”

• Read yesterday’s America’s Voice statement, “Compare & Contrast on Due Process: David Leopold Op-Ed vs. Stephen Miller Comments”