“The Bulwark’s” JVL has been helping anti-Trumpers think through their options. He seems destined to become a stalwart in what’s been dubbed The Defiance.[1] ICYMI, here’s the conclusion of Last’s April 1rst post comparing Elon Musk’s “family values” to those of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a migrant from El Salvador who has been a loving father to an autistic child. Garcia was deported last month…
One last thing. The federal government now stipulates that it was wrong to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a foreign prison. It admits that it broke the law.
But instead of trying to remedy its error, our government is going to the mat in an attempt to prevent remedy. The government claims in a filing that the president of the United States has no power—none!—over the sovereign nation of El Salvador and could not possibly coerce the country into returning Abrego Garcia to America.
Here’s the government’s stated position:
Plaintiffs admit—as they must—that the United States does not have custody over Abrego Garcia. They acknowledge that there may be “difficult questions of redressability” in this case, reflecting their recognition that Defendants do not have “the power to produce” Abrego Garcia from CECOT in El Salvador. . . . But even more, they concede that Abrego Garcia is not in Defendants’ custody. . . . Despite their allegations of continued payment for Abrego Garcia’s detention, Plaintiffs do not argue that the United States can exercise its will over a foreign sovereign. The most they ask for is a court order that the United States entreat—or even cajole—a close ally in its fight against transnational cartels.
That is an actual legal argument made by Yaakov M. Roth (Acting Assistant Attorney General Civil Division), Erez Reuveni (Acting Deputy Director Office of Immigration Litigation), and Christopher Ian Pryby (Trial Attorney Office of Immigration Litigation).
America cannot possibly importune the government of El Salvador for the return of this man because we have no authority over them and El Salvador is a close ally who we cannot afford to annoy.
These motherfuckers are making this argument at the same time as they are dispatching the vice president to stand on foreign soil and threaten a formal treaty ally with territorial annexation.
They are doing this while telling Ukraine to submit to Russia because morality and law are immaterial and the only thing that matters is strength—if you don’t hold “the cards” then you do what the more powerful country tells you to do.
Well tell me, counselors, what cards does El Salvador hold that it can’t be made to do what America demands?
But that’s it, isn’t it? Our government won’t demand the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia because it doesn’t want him here. It wants him disappeared.
Because his everyday manliness is an embarrassment to them. It makes Elon Musk—and Yaakov Roth, Erez Reuveni, and Christopher Ian Pryby—look pathetic and weak by comparison.
May God have mercy on their miserable souls.
Note
1. Pace Micah Sifry.