The Kilmar Abrego García Case Is Not a Mistake—It’s a Trial Balloon

One man. No trial. No charges. Just a label—and a vanished life.

Apr 18, 2025

Why does the Kilmar Abrego García case matter? Because it’s not just about him. It’s about what happens next. If the government can strip away your rights with a single accusation—no hearing, no judge, no defense—then we’re all just one wrong label away from vanishing.

Due process is what holds the line. And Trump is testing how far he can push before it breaks.

To some, due process is just legalese. To others, it’s the thin line between democracy and dictatorship. But to Donald Trump? It’s an inconvenience—something to skirt, weaken, or redefine.

Let’s be clear: due process isn’t a technicality. It’s the backbone of a free society. It means the government doesn’t get to punish you on a hunch. It means you can’t be thrown into a prison cell simply because someone doesn’t like your face, your name, or where you come from. It’s the guardrail that keeps state power from becoming state terror.

The Founding Fathers understood this. They knew what unchecked power looked like—a crown, a decree, a gallows. That’s why they didn’t just write laws. They built firewalls. Against tyranny. Against vengeance. Against a leader who could say, “Off with their head,” and have it done.

Which brings us to Kilmar Abrego García.

A U.S. legal resident. Not convicted. Not even charged. Just accused—of being in a gang that someone, somewhere, labeled a “terrorist” group. No hearing. No evidence. No lawyer. No judge. No appeal. Just a knock, a flight, and now, a prison cell in El Salvador.

This wasn’t justice. It was rendition.

Let’s not pretend this is an isolated case. It’s not. García wasn’t the only one. Others were swept up the same way—disappeared by decree, deported without due process, labeled without proof. And that label? “Terrorist.” That one word turns a person into an enemy, strips them of rights, and justifies anything that follows.

The power to name is the power to erase.

Because when the state gets to define who counts as “us” and who doesn’t—when citizenship is no longer a shield but a performance graded by loyalty tests—we’re not in a republic anymore. We’re in something much darker. A place where categories become cages. Where “gang member,” “radical,” “socialist,” “protester,” or “immigrant” become not descriptors, but sentences.

Trump’s second term is already shaping up to be a war on dissent—one where bureaucratic violence replaces bullets, and silence does the work of censorship. What happened to García isn’t an accident. It’s a prototype. A test of what the system—and the public—will tolerate.

And what did we do?

We watched.

The government admitted García was taken by mistake. The Supreme Court ordered his return. The administration pretends it’s powerless. That it’s up to El Salvador. So García still rots in a Salvadoran prison. That’s the part we should all lose sleep over—not just the mistake, but the erosion of due process itself. Because that’s how authoritarianism grows. Not through spectacle, but through repetition. Not with fire and fury, but with paperwork, indifference, and delay.

They didn’t need a trial to exile García. Just a label. A whisper. A shrug.

So ask yourself: if they can do it to him, what’s stopping them from doing it to you?

This is why the García case matters. Because once due process becomes optional, no one is safe. Not the activist. Not the journalist. Not the neighbor who doesn’t wave the right flag or believe the right things.

It won’t happen all at once. It never does. Tyranny doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in through exceptions. Emergencies. Mistakes.

Until one day, your name ends up on the wrong list.

And there’s no one left to ask why.

James’s Substack

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