When I started my journalism career in 2012, one of the first things that editor Ginny Wray impressed upon me was the importance of the word “allegedly.”
For example, let’s say a woman murders her husband. The murder takes place in the front yard of their home and a neighbor across the street captures the entire incident on a 4K video recording. Also, the woman is wearing a T-shirt that says “I murdered my husband in cold blood and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” The woman is arrested and sent to jail to await trial.
When you’re writing the news story about the incident, you don’t call the woman a “murderer” under any circumstances, even if you have no doubt that she committed the crime. Instead, you call her “the alleged murderer.” You might also say she’s “suspected” or “accused” of murder.
The reason for this is the presumption of innocence, which the Supreme Court has ruled is one of the most basic requirements of a fair trial. A defendant in a trial is presumed innocent until the prosecutor has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant has committed the crime.
The presumption of innocence is deeply linked to the Due Process Clause which can be found in the Fifth and 14th Amendments. The clause states that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This is a concept that’s been well established since the Magna Carta. The Supreme Court has also ruled that the right to due process applies to citizens and non-citizens alike as long as they’re in the United States.
All of which brings us to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man you’ve probably heard about in the news just lately.
Garcia, 29, has lived in the United States for the last 14 years. He works construction, is married, and helps raise three children with disabilities.
The Trump administration deported Garcia to El Salvador’s notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), one of the largest prisons in the world and one of the worst. The basis for the deportation was that Maryland police identified Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang. Garcia denies the claim and has yet to be charged with a crime.
A U.S. immigration judge tried to block Garcia from being sent to CECOT, but the Trump administration sent him anyway. The Supreme Court ordered Garcia’s return, but the Trump administration has refused to act, claiming that Garcia was sent to CECOT in error but regardless, he really is a member of MS-13.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, one of the few remaining politicians who’s willing to put his money where his mouth is, flew to El Salvador last week and met with Garcia and he’s working to have Garcia returned to the U.S.
The White House has doubled down on claims that Garcia is a member of MS-13 and some kind of monstrous gangbanger and human trafficker, while his defenders point out that he’s never been convicted of a crime.
While I’m certain Garcia’s character will continue to be litigated in the public eye for some time to come, to do so is to miss the point.
Even if it were revealed that Garcia is a member of MS-13 who has taken lives, kicked puppies, and routinely cheated at Monopoly, it doesn’t change the fact that his right to due process is clearly laid out in the Constitution.
“But he’s here illegally!”
It doesn’t matter. He has the right to due process.
“But he’s a gangbanger!”
Even if he is, he has the right to due process.
“Did the folks who visited the Capitol on January 6 get the right to due process?”
They did in fact, that’s why we had all those trials and they weren’t just disappeared to a Central American prison and quietly killed.
However you feel about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, this is about something much bigger than one man. If the Trump Administration denies the right to due process to one person in defiance of an order from the Supreme Court, the ramifications extend far beyond that person.
As Sen. Van Hollen said this past Sunday on Fox News, “My whole point here is if you deprive one man of his Constitutional rights, you threaten the Constitutional rights of everybody. … If you threaten the rule of law for one person, you threaten it for everybody.”
If the President were to ignore an order from the United States Supreme Court and continue denying someone the rights guaranteed to them by our Constitution, it would be a rejection of the rule of law bordering on treason.
Allegedly, anyway.
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