'This is the crisis moment': Political scientist says Trump crossed a crucial red line
Jacob Levy, Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University, cautioned in a Blue Sky thread that the case involving a Maryland man the U.S. government acknowledges was "wrongfully deported" has reached a "crisis moment."
In March, Kilmar Ábrego García was accused of being an MS-13 gang member and deported to El Salvador along with others whom the U.S government alleged were dangerous. The deportation was carried out despite a U.S. judge telling the government that it could not deport García to El Salvador.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate the return of García to the U.S.
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During a press conference with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele on Monday, the Associated Press reported that Trump passed the buck to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who said she would "facilitate" García's return by ensuring a plane was available. Bukele, however, said he would not release a terrorist to the U.S.
"I had been doubtful that we were going to have a 'this is the crisis moment' with Trump, as opposed to 'everything about this is a destructive catastrophe.' But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment," wrote Levy in response.
"An [sic] firm, open commitment to the destruction of habeas corpus — the creation of a new rule that says anyone the administration orders ICE to seize can be shoved onto a flight to a torture prison in another country and there's nothing any US court can do about it— destroys constitutionalism," he alleged.
"The fact that the administration is, *at the same time,* announcing an intention to include US citizens in the shipments to El Salvador makes it all the more plain and open — but the rule they're embracing in the Ábrego García case already includes citizens by implication," Levy continued.
"Add on DOJ's arguments in the Ozturk case: even if a person was seized by ICE for reasons that violate the First Amendment, i.e. for plainly protected speech, they'll be treated as outside habeas protection, and by the way, we can keep dodging federal court jurisdiction by moving the prisoner," he added.
The Ozturk case involves Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was detained by ICE and later deported. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that Ozturk was detained for co-authoring an op-ed criticizing Israel's conduct in Gaza.
"The slope isn't slippery; the frog isn't gradually getting boiled," Levy said in the thread. "Within its first hundred days, the Trump administration has openly asserted the right/power to seize and imprison anyone — including political dissidents, including citizens — and deprive them of any legal recourse at all."
"If that's not the crisis, nothing is," he closed.