Jamie Raskin Torches Trump Administration For Deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia To El Salvador Prison

Forbes Breaking News

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-NY) decried the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an El Salvador prison, as well as other Trump Administration immigration actions.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ms. Jayapal, and greetings to the witnesses.

00:06Donald Trump's ruinous tariffs and calamitous trade war against the world, except for Russia,

00:13have crashed the stock market and cost American workers and retirees and farmers $11 trillion

00:21in one week, one week, and the Republican majority in the House could stop this nightmare today

00:32by exercising our powers over international commerce, but they prefer to own the tariffs

00:40and own the trade war. We'll see how well that works out for them going into the future. It's

00:44certainly not working out well for the American people. Now desperate to displace attention from

00:49this world historical economic debacle and the fact that courts have struck down more than 55

00:56of their lawless unconstitutional executive orders and actions. They invite us to discuss again

01:03immigration. So be it. In New York City, Donald Trump's deportation force grabbed green card holder

01:12Mahmoud Khalil for exercising his First Amendment rights in a way that Donald Trump disapproved of.

01:16Now they're trying to deport him as well as other students across the country using a McCarthy-era

01:21statute that the president's own sister, Judge Mary Ann Trump-Berry, declared to be, quote,

01:28unconstitutional on its face. Then they tried to extra-legally deport more than 100 Venezuelans,

01:34shackling them and putting them on planes bound to a self-proclaimed dictator's infamous mega-prison

01:40in El Salvador under cover of night based on an 18th century law about wartime authorities called

01:46the Alien Enemies Act, which palpably did not apply to this case because we are at peacetime.

01:54Congress still has the power to declare war under our Constitution, not the president. Despite their

01:59best efforts to keep these removals a secret until it was too late, attorneys for people on the plane filed a

02:04lawsuit. And Judge Boesberg, a George W. Bush appointee, issued an order to stop the removals

02:12while the planes were hurrying to get in the air and were still in the air. Today, the judge in that

02:18case will likely decide whether or not to hold the administration in contempt for deliberately defying

02:23the order to turn the removal flights around. On one of those flights, the administration deported

02:29Kilmar Garcia, a Maryland man, a father and husband to an American citizen, to American citizens who had

02:38a legal status called withholding of removal, a legal immigration status that specifically blocked him

02:44from being removed to El Salvador. He won this status after the government falsely accused him

02:49of being a gang member and tried to deport him during the first Trump administration in 2019.

02:54Instead, he was able to prove that he posed no threat to public safety and that, on the contrary,

03:01he had a well-founded fear of persecution from the violent gangs back in El Salvador. The first Trump

03:07administration respected that ruling, but in this second iteration, the administration violated its

03:13legal obligation and shipped him off to the Salvadoran mega prison to be locked up in a cage with the

03:19very gang members whose violence he had escaped. The administration admitted in court that this

03:26deportation, which had absolutely no legal basis, was done in, quote, administrative error. And a judge

03:32ordered them to return Mr. Garcia to the United States by midnight this Monday. Rather than bringing back

03:38the man they admitted they had wrongfully deported, the administration placed the attorney who argued the

03:44case on leave and decided to double down and appeal the order. We've seen the administration conduct

03:51indiscriminate raids that round up people with no criminal records, who've lived in our country for

03:56decades, who own homes and pay taxes, whose family members are U.S. citizens, and who pose no threat to

04:02public safety. U.S. citizens have even been arrested and detained by the deportation force as part of these

04:09reckless and lawless raids. Now the administration is trying to force state and local law enforcement agencies to

04:14use their time, their money and their resources to participate in these raids. But under article one, Congress has

04:22exclusive power over naturalization and immigration. And under the 10th amendment, the federal government has no power to

04:30quote, commandeer the machinery personnel or resources of the state and local government for federal law

04:38law enforcement purposes. But the administration is using threats and coercion now to try to force state and

04:46local governments and police departments to use their limited resources to arrest and detain students,

04:52fathers, mothers, and law-abiding community members, which means fewer cops, less money, fewer resources to focus

05:00on protecting communities from actual violent threats and gangs and the scourge of gun violence.

05:08And drugs and drunk driving and so on. There's no power in our Constitution to do that. Something I thought our

05:16colleagues believed in and respected in the system of American federalism. These authoritarian policies have

05:22nothing to do with law and order. They're about intimidation and retaliation against disfavored populations, state and

05:30local governments, immigrant communities, students, lawyers who dare oppose the administration in court, and judges who

05:38stand up to rule against Trump's continuing reign of unlawful actions. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today.

05:45Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

05:46The gentleman yields back. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We'll now introduce

05:52today's witnesses. And I'll begin by deferring to Mr. Baumgartner to introduce our first witness.

06:00Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to introduce the outstanding sheriff of Adams County, Mr. Dale Wagner.

06:08Sheriff Wagner. Sheriff Wagner is respected law enforcement leader who made the decision to cooperate with the

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