The Abrego Garcia case pulls Democrats into the immigration debate Trump wants to have

For Democrats the Kilmar Abrego Garcia occurrence is about fundamental American ideals due process following court orders preventing leadership overreach For the Trump administration and Republicans it s about foreigners and gang threats and danger in American towns and cities And that argument is precisely the one that Donald Trump wants to have This dichotomy is playing out as Democrats double down on their defense of Abrego Garcia a Salvadoran man mistakenly deported and imprisoned without communication They re framing his scenario as a threat to individual rights to challenge President Trump s immigration policies The effort comes as the Trump administration pushes back harder turning this deportation into a test scenario for his crusade against illegal immigration despite a Supreme Court order saying Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States In trying to shape population discourse against Democrats White House agents are accusing them of defending a foreigner who they ve claimed is a gang member based on testimony of an informant and whose wife admitted she once filed a protective order against him despite now advocating for his return Trump administration hours ago Appeals court calls Trump administration's defiance over mistakenly deported man shocking' Immigration Apr Maryland Sen Van Hollen meets with El Salvador's VP in push for Abrego Garcia's release Trump administration Apr Kilmar Abrego Garcia will never' live in the US again White House says Due process and separation of powers are matters of principle Democratic Rep Adriano Espaillat the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus disclosed Thursday Without due process for all we are all in danger Democrats began the year without unity on immigration The opposition started the year splintered on its immigration strategy especially after an poll season where Trump led Republicans to victories by harping on illegal boundary crossings and vowing to conduct mass deportations But now plenty of Democrats are latching onto the Abrego Garcia event with a senator trekking down to El Salvador and a number of House representatives working to organize official visits to the Salvadoran prison On Thursday evening Maryland Sen Chris Van Hollen posted photos of himself meeting in El Salvador with Abrego Garcia The lawmaker did not provide an update on the status of Abrego Garcia whose attorneys are fighting to force the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U S Trump responded Friday with a social media post saying Van Hollen looked like a fool the previous 24 hours standing in El Salvador begging for attention Still other high-profile Democrats such as Hillary Clinton California Gov Gavin Newsom and Vermont Sen Bernie Sanders are making a general appeal by painting the development as an example of regime overreach But even Newsom who has presidential aspirations recognized Trump s ability to curry favor with the society These are not normal times so we have to call it out with clarity and conviction Newsom revealed in an interview with YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen But we ve got to stay focused on it so the American people can stay focused on it Because his success is his ability to win every damn news cycle and get us distracted and moving in different directions Immigration was a relative strength for Trump in a March AP-NORC poll which identified that about half of U S adults approved of his approach to immigration And he came into office with strong sponsorship for one component of his immigration agenda deporting people with certain kinds of criminal histories The vast majority of U S adults favored deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes according to a January AP-NORC poll There was far less consensus about how to handle deportations more broadly though The January poll determined that removing immigrants who are in the country illegally and have not committed a violent crime was divisive with only about in U S adults in assistance and slightly more than in opposed Along those lines a Pew Research Center poll from late February discovered that while about half of Americans revealed at least specific immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported very meager people in that group supported deporting immigrants who have a job or are married to a U S citizen Trump staunchly defends his administration s position The Trump administration has acknowledged Abrego Garcia s deportation was a upshot of an administrative error saying immigration bureaucrats were aware of his protection from deportation But Trump functionaries have described Abrego Garcia who was living in Maryland as a terrorist and claimed he is a member of the MS- gang even though he was never criminally charged in the U S with gang involvement He is not coming back to our country Attorney General Pam Bondi has stated In defending his administration s position Trump says he is doing what he was elected to do and justifying the need to deport millions saying a big percentage of settlers who arrived during the Biden administration are criminals an assertion for which there is no evidence Studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans And while it is not clear when Abrego Garcia arrived in the U S he began fighting against deportation proceedings in before Democratic President Joe Biden took office I was elected to get rid of those criminals get them out of our country or to put them away but to get them out of our country And I don t see how judges can take that authority away from the president Trump a Republican stated Thursday A three-judge panel from the th U S Circuit Court of Appeals disclosed Trump s administration is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order While immigration is a relative strength defiance of court rulings could put his administration in a trickier situation A Washington Post Ipsos poll conducted in February discovered that about in Americans think the Trump administration should follow a federal court s ruling if it determines that the administration has done something illegal Rep Glenn Ivey a Democrat who represents the Maryland district where Abrego Garcia lived reported The Associated Press that no accusations brought up by Trump bureaucrats would change how he approaches the episode Ivey who is more aligned with the party s moderates described the issue as about more than just immigration On the one hand it s an immigration issue On the other hand it s also a constitutional issue he announced Yes there s an immigration component but it s rapidly growing into a separation of powers conflict that could indeed end up taking on historic proportions Gomez Licon revealed from Fort Lauderdale Florida Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jonathan J Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this summary