From WXXI news.

This is connections I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made with two stories of deportation.

The first, Kilmer Abrego Garcia, has exploded into the public consciousness.

A breakaway Garcia came to the United States without documentation as a younger man.

And his family says for years he has lived a pretty normal life raising young children, getting a job, joining a union.

A Braco Garcia was deported recently to El Salvador's most brutal prison after what the Trump administration admitted was an administrative error.

But both President Trump and El Salvador's president say it's too late now.

Nothing they can do about it.

While Trump and his lawyers have acknowledged the screw up, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has continued to claim that Agrego Garcia is a confirmed member of the Ms13 gang, which does not appear to be true.

This week, Senator Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador, hoping to meet with the.

Garcia and document his condition in prison or at least make sure he's still alive.

Yesterday, various reports uncovered documents from 2021, when a Braco Garcia's wife wrote to authorities requesting an order of protection.

She said that she was afraid to be around her husband, that he had scratched her eye during a dispute, that he had tossed her laptop on the ground and was driving erratically with their young child in the car.

That request was never followed up.

Abrego, Garcia's wife, said yesterday.

They have resolve their differences four years ago and that she views him as a good man and an amazing father.

More than any other story I can remember, this one seems to have been made for studying motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

On the left, Abrego Garcia is a model father who's done nothing but work hard for his family, and was caught up in a mistaken arrest of other gang members in 2019.

On the right, Abrego Garcia was probably in that gang.

He beat his wife, and whether his deportation followed due process doesn't matter because he's a violent, illegal immigrant who should be out of this country one way or another.

On the left, his wife is grieving the unlawful shattering of their family on the right.

His wife is lying to raise money.

One Republican strategist wrote this morning that every GOP congressional ad in 2026 will include the mugshot of Kilmer Abrego, Garcia and his wife's handwritten plea for protection in 2021, followed by images of Democrats rallying to support him.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said yesterday we are all Kilmer, Abrego, Garcia.

But of course, the Trump administration did not deport Abrego Garcia because of a handwritten note from his wife in 2021.

They did not deport him because they held a new hearing to examine evidence against him.

They deported him because they ignored a court order that he not be deported.

Republicans political consultant Liz Mair wrote this morning, quote, this guy is likely 10,000 times more of a blank hole than anyone on the left wants to admit, but also even the most heinous people have rights of due process.

The guy probably belongs in a jail, but that needs to be determined by the judicial system, end quote.

But Vice President J.D.

Vance spent yesterday afternoon on Twitter saying that Agrego Garcia is obviously a bad guy and not the type we should want in this country.

He said that the political left will never be satisfied and will defend bad people just to pick fights with the Trump administration.

While much of the focus is on a breakup, Garcia, there are other stories of deportation, sometimes botched or questioned deportations.

CBS news reported on the deportation to the same El Salvador prison of Andri Hernandez Romero, a makeup artist and hairdresser who had fled Venezuela because, as he said while seeking asylum, he was persecuted for being gay.

The Trump administration placed him on a list of members of the Venezuelan gang known as trend arugula, based on tattoos of crowns on his arms.

But his attorneys point out, look at the tattoos.

The crowns are drawn over the words mom and dad.

And the Trump administration is not produced.

Any other evidence that this man was a gang member?

He got no hearing.

His attorneys said the Trump administration is using AI to search for anything even tangentially related to gang language or imagery, and then mass deporting anyone who shows up in the search.

Photos taken by time magazine photographer Phillip Holsinger show Hernandez Romero at that El Salvador prison known as Seacat.

Holsinger said he heard that young man say, I'm not a gang member.

I'm gay.

I'm a stylist.

The young man cried for his mother as he was slapped and had his head shaved.

His lawyer said they have grave concerns over whether he can survive in that prison.

Amidst all of this, a new poll found that only 3% of Trump voters regret their vote, the same number as Harris voters who regret their vote.

Trump's approval rating is tanking almost entirely because of how he's handled the economy.

His work on immigration and deportation seems to remain a political strength.

Our guest this hour, we're going to talk about all of these issues.

Let me welcome them now.

Don Thompson is a constitutional attorney and a criminal defense attorney.

Welcome back to the program.

Thank you.

Evan.

Joe Pompano is a local attorney representing only herself this hour.

Although you've probably seen Joe in a number of roles in this community.

Welcome back.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Irene Sanchez is executive director of the Western New York Coalition of Farmworker Serving Agencies.

Welcome back to you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much.

And I mean, tell us what your organization does.

So our nonprofit is a small organization providing assistance to farm workers and migrants in our community.

We help with case management, education on know your rights regarding immigration.

and we also provide a family preparedness, assistance legal system for immigrants in our community.

Now, we appreciate having you here.

I want to start by reading some of the analysis this morning from a journalist I very much respect.

His name is Isaac Saul.

He runs a podcast and a site called The Tangle.

His goal is to prevent information from all sides in good faith, and let people consume information more holistically and make their own decisions.

And then sometimes he offers his own analysis.

And here's what he says about what we're looking at here.

He said, quote, the Trump administration is arguing that they cannot give every person they detain and deport due process due to resource and logistical constraints.

They are also arguing that someone who ends up in a foreign prison because of their actions is now beyond their reach.

They are detaining and deporting people who haven't been accused of any crimes, and now they are suggesting they might start using the same process to send U.S. citizens to a prison in El Salvador.

Putting all of that together and being extremely alarmed doesn't mean you have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It means you are seeing things clearly.

At the heart of the current immigration enforcement debate is the fact that some people are comfortable with innocent people being imprisoned.

If it means rounding up more guilty people.

And some people find that notion aberrant.

That's really it.

And by the way, I'm not saying one is obviously better than the other.

I personally land in the sacrificing innocent people for some greater good as being aberrant.

But this is something that literally gets debated in law school classes.

Better to have one innocent person in jail or guilty people free.

So it's not a novel debate, and it's not simple, but I do think it's at the heart of where we are right now.

End quote.

Don Thompson, let me start with you.

there's a lot here.

And we're going to go in a lot of different directions here.

But in general, do you agree with this analysis that right now this is about seeing this administration's actions as either inbounds because things are so bad and due process is going to have to be abandoned, or saying due process will always matter, and that must be who we are.

Is it as simple as that to you?

I think that's the point that we're at now and due process.

If we're going to continue to have the system that we have has to always matter.

Let's illustrate this by a little thought experiment.

Evan.

I think you were a gang member, and a lot of people are saying it, and you're not going to go before a judge or have an opportunity to disprove my allegations.

And likewise, I don't have to present any evidence to prove that.

In fact, you are a gang member because I'm accusing you of being a gang member and my friends with Ice or the guys with the guns.

So get in a van.

We're going for a ride.

You know, I think that's where we are if we don't have any due process.

if if due process doesn't matter, then the system that we have known that this country has been based upon doesn't matter.

Okay.

But I hear you there.

Here's what JD Vance tweeted yesterday.

He's doing a lot of tweeting yesterday.

The vice president, he says none of these people on the left can articulate a deportation standard that one would satisfy.

Left wing critics of the administration's policy.

Two would satisfy their intuitions about what due process is required.

Three would be workable given resource constraints, and four would permit deportation of most of the illegal immigrants allowed under Joe Biden's administration.

They want to nullify the results of a democratic election.

It's that simple.

End quote.

That's the vice president.

Here's what one of his conservative followers followers said immediately afterwards.

To a lot of thumbs up from Vance and his team.

Quote, if someone has to go through an entire court hearing to get deported, we will never deport anyone under the Biden administration.

They let it in.

Around 15 million people.

If 15 million people all have to go through lengthy court proceedings, they will never be able to deport anyone, end quote.

What do you say to that?

Done.

Oh, I say so much.

well, first of all, it's not the job of the person who's being deported or the left, if you will, to come up with a standard that's necessary to justify deportation.

It's up to the government to demonstrate that there is a grounds for deportation and under due process.

There are different levels of proof that can be required in different proceedings.

But there has to be some.

They're saying they don't have time for that.

We're in a crisis.

We've got millions upon millions of people who need to be deported, and we're going to get some things wrong, but it's worth it to get to where we need to just put them in the boxcars, because we don't have time to take them to court first.

that's what that's what they're saying.

That is what they're saying.

And that is a fundamental undercutting of our judicial system.

You know, judges, basically what they're really saying is judges play no role here.

You know, Tom Homan said, we don't care what the judges say.

We're just going to keep doing it.

So, you know, there is no oversight of the executive.

We can do whatever we want to do and you have nothing to say about it.

That's a pretty dark place to be in.

Before I get to your colleagues, one other point on this and then sure, is there is there a threshold that we could reach with a crisis of immigration or lawlessness that the administration is painting the picture of that would make you say, look, this is one of those times where we're going to have to suspend our ideals here.

We do believe in due process, but it's out of control.

We don't have the resources.

We know the money.

We know the people.

We're going to get some things wrong, but we've got a mass deported.

We've got to do.

We've got to take action in a way that puts safety first.

And if we get some things wrong, we'll try to clean it up on the back end.

Yeah.

We're just going to put all the Japanese in an internment camp because we're at war with the Japanese now.

I mean, the they have invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which was a terrible act in the first place, but doesn't even apply here in the second place.

I mean, we have to be at war with someone.

We're not at war with anyone right now.

And that's part of the problem here.

I think, is we're conditioned to give words meaning, to have some some credit, not necessarily what's being said is true or what's false.

But if you say words, they're entitled to some weight.

And the words that J.D.

Vance is saying, the words that Pam Bondi, you're saying the words that Trump is saying aren't entitled to any weight.

It's like a word salad that doesn't have any basis in fact.

But people listen to when they say, well, you know, maybe he's got something there.

No, just because you say the words doesn't mean you have something there.

What they what they have.

There is an argument to do away with, due process because it's too hard.

It's hard.

Well, it's supposed to be hard.

Well, job a pronoun.

The vice president says none of these people.

And I assume you would be one of these people.

He's talking about, can articulated a deportation standard that would satisfy their intuitions about what due process should be required.

Do you believe that that's wrong?

Do you believe you can articulate to the vice president a deportation standard about what due process should be required?

Now, I am not an immigration attorney, but certainly even the Supreme Court, which is not a progressive court, has said that due process should be applied and it involves notice, notice to the person that they're going to be deported, enough of an opportunity to respond.

That's not a really high bar that has to be met there.

And in order for us to maintain our fundamental character of what we are as Americans, we have to have some process.

Otherwise, after this is allowed to happen, then others are deported this way.

And then, perhaps, as Trump has said, he wants to do, the homegrown criminals.

And how are we to look at and determine who the homegrown criminals are without any process?

That means anyone can be subject to this.

And I know that there will be some who say, well, that doesn't mean me, but I think very often in this current climate, people have said, oh, that wouldn't happen to me and are waking up to find out that certain things are happening to them.

And for example, the economic issues that you pointed out before.

So a little bit of background of what Jill is talking about there.

This is new from the Wall Street Journal.

This morning, while talking in the white House, President Trump was caught on a hot mic saying to the president of El Salvador that homegrown Americans could be deported in the near future and that El Salvador should build five more prisons to house them.

Two days later, El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, announced plans to double the size of the mass prison where his government is holding US deportees.

He told Secretary Kristi Noem he has 80 plus acres that he's going to continue to build on.

This is a long term solution.

No, I'm response.

No, replied President Trump said not enough as in build more prisons.

So yes, the president is musing about actually deporting Americans.

That is true before before we even talk about that, though, the I think what I hear you saying, Jill, is that it's a red herring from the vice president to say that, well, there's no standard of due process that would satisfy you.

You're just trying to come up the works and stop all deportation.

You seem to be saying, no, listen to your own Supreme Court.

it's not a high bar.

And as long as we at least start with that, we're in a much better place.

Yes, yes.

And you said it much better than I did.

Okay, well, I just want to make sure I understand, but but the I think part of the allegation is that people on quote unquote, your side are intentionally trying to gum up the works so that no deportations could be carried out.

I don't see that.

I think that I actually have done a, pro bono case once in a deportation proceeding, and we followed the rules.

It was, not a deportation proceeding.

I'm sorry.

It was an asylum proceeding.

And so we followed the rules.

There are many, many rules and, criteria that determine whether someone can remain in this country or not.

And there was, a hearing officer set up.

There was a process, and there was a decision made based on the evidence that was offered.

And so to say that a system doesn't exist where we would support it is not accurate, because there are people who have been involved in these cases for decades working within that system and applying those standards.

All right.

I mean, how do you see it?

Well, I say that we already have a process.

and I want to make clear that petition for asylum is legal, right.

That is protected under the, immigration, international law.

But also I wanted to say in this case, he already went through the process.

A judge said withholding or removal, this individual does not have to go back.

So for you to tell us it's okay for us to have due process sometimes and then not in another time, it doesn't make any sense.

We have a process he went for of a judge.

The judge said, you would not need to be deported and then you deport him anyway, right.

And this happened in 2019.

So they should have obeyed that law.

that decision from that judge.

So what we're seeing happening, often is individuals mistaking what does it mean to have legal status in our country, what that process look like.

And it's very difficult, for an individual who have crossed the U.S, whether they petition for asylum on the border, whether they did that way inside the United States, because it's a very complicated law.

they still have the right to petition for asylum.

He went and saw a judge.

The judge says you do not have to be removed, but they still remove him.

And that is wrong.

Yeah.

I mean, it was an asylum claim that brought, the Andri, Hernandez, boy.

Romero.

Thank you.

Producer Megan Mac.

Andre.

Hernandez.

Romero, from Venezuela about a year ago.

Said he was fleeing persecution, for being gay and was seeking asylum and gets caught up.

And now he's in that same prison that Agrego Garcia is.

And if you've read the story, one of the things that I think I would certainly want to know, and I think probably we should know from this government, there are attorneys in the room who can maybe step in, tell me if I'm right or wrong here, but I think we should know how they are, what standards they are using.

And one example is when Elon Musk and the Doge team started, they promised that this administration would use a lot of AI to streamline things so that we wouldn't have to rely on human work that would be slower, more cumbersome, and sometimes more expensive.

And and I'm thinking of a conversation almost two years ago on this program with someone who was talking about how AI is going to be used to help with medicine, and was very optimistic about that, about cancer.

But they said, we have to get the kinks out.

One example was using AI to look for cancerous lesions and skin cancer.

And what the.

I got very good at doing was determining what lesions visually were cancerous or not.

But the AI also decided that rulers if there's a ruler in a picture like a measuring ruler, that's a sign that you have cancer.

Because in all of these images, doctors were using rulers on the skin to try to determine how big is this lesion.

And I decided, well, every time that there was a cancerous lesion, it was being measured by a ruler.

Rulers are cancerous.

So then they had to reprogram the machine to say, no, the ruler is not actually cancerous.

Interesting pick up there.

I only bring it up because it was used as a be careful, even the best new technology gets things wrong.

And I would want to know if you're using AI to look for tattoos of crowns.

And this guy's got mom and dad with a crown on their names, does that mean that he's in this trend?

Arugula from Venezuela if there's no other evidence?

And is that grounds to send him to a prison with no hearing?

Is that a reasonable question?

Do you chill?

I think it's a very important question.

And the good faith or goodwill of the governing body plays into this, because I alone is not going to identify or shouldn't identify who is going to be deported.

You need people intervening to make sure that that picture reviewing the quote unquote evidence.

Right.

Exactly.

Or, you know, and then caring about the results of that review.

So we know we've heard about this 19 year old who was arrested, by Ice.

And it happened at a time when someone said, oh, no, he's not the one.

One of the ice team members said, he's not the one we're here for.

And they said, grab him anyway.

So we need people who want to follow the rules in our government and in these enforcement positions.

And it can't just be I alone.

If we have AI and people who don't want to follow it.

That's how we wind up in this very dangerous state.

John, what do you see there?

Well, I mean, we know some of the problems with I know you're familiar with this one.

They've been using Doge has been using AI to eliminate offensive words to them, which resulted in eliminating the Enola Gay from reference, because it had the word gay in it.

Maybe renaming it the Enola Straight for perhaps so.

But right now, I mean, we don't know what standard they're using because they're not disclosing it other than JD Vance thinks somebody is a bad guy.

I mean, that is the only disclosed standards that we have at this point.

It's not like it's going to be, well, preponderance of the evidence or clear and convincing evidence or, you know, this kind of thing.

They're not admitting to applying any standard.

Well, but again, I'm trying to, in good faith, understand where people are on all sides of this.

And one thing that's certainly come up in the last 12 to 24 hours.

I'll start with you, Irene.

I will ask all of you about this.

We're reading the reaction to this story that, well, Ma Abrego, Garcia's wife, filed for an order of protection, and therefore, maybe he really was a bad guy, and she was worried about him being violent in 2021.

Now, she said yesterday that they long ago reconciled, that she never pursued, that there was never an arrest, that he's been a great dad.

But some people are saying there, you know, I got her own handwriting on this and therefore, doesn't that deportation feel better now?

what do you make of that?

No, it's not because it's not going through due process.

We all have situations within our families or relative in which perhaps we have an argument that have escalated.

and she did not continue with the case.

But that's not the point.

The point is that he had her with all the removal that he was told by a judge, you do not have to go back to your home country and you send them anyway.

There is different type of law.

So this family law, that is consumer law, there is a business law, that is immigration law.

You have an immigration judge.

Federal immigration law say you do not have to deport this individual.

You ignore that decision and now you send them anyway, going back to figure it out, why you can justify a decision that you violate it.

That doesn't justify it, Jill.

Does it justify anything to you?

No, it does not.

Because if we get into individual decision making by individual leaders who receive information that, they don't have the hearing, they don't have all the background information, then we're bound to wind up with cases where we think things have gone wrong, where there's, improper, you know, false statements being made.

And that's why we have due process.

That's exactly why we have the systems we have is to ensure that it's not based on someone's dislike for someone, someone's bias against a people.

Done.

Exactly.

I mean, it can't be different standards for different people.

So your question, does it make you feel better that he was engaged in a domestic violence incident some time ago?

That is apparently resolved itself?

Well, until all of the police officers that have been engaged in domestic violence incidents with their spouses get deported, I don't feel better about it because it indicates a different standard for the people you like versus the people you don't like.

So listeners, we've got a lot of your feedback coming in already.

We'll take your phone calls 844295 talk.

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Last thing, I'll ask our guest before I turn it over to listeners is just the question of I know you all feel strongly about this, and I know you're concerned not only about what's happening now, but what could happen next week, next month, next year.

There does not appear to be much evidence that the American public is deeply moved by this.

There's division, certainly, and it's pretty well along political lines.

But this is from what I've seen, at least so far.

This is not only not viewed as something that's causing mass alarm in anything outside of typically drawn political lines.

Don Thompson But this is a move that a lot of Americans like.

Again, Donald Trump's approval ratings are tanking right now because of the economy, not because of immigration, not because of deportation.

Why do you think that is?

Well, I mean, there's a large segment of the population that should probably be considering the fact that they don't have the grounding and the training to have a valid opinion in this area.

I mean, they haven't studied due process up up until now.

They haven't studied our constitutional law up until now.

But because of the internet, everybody's a constitutional scholar and they all have an opinion.

Well, it might not be worth anything as far as an opinion goes.

But, you know, there's there's a core part of Donald Trump's base who doesn't care about anything else that's going on.

He hates the same people they hate, and he gives them the green light to hate those people.

But aren't there some people you know who aren't just in his base, who felt like immigration maybe was not handled well, not just under Biden, but in recent years that we needed a better policy, that we needed a better system, that we needed more resources to adjudicate asylum claims and everything else going on, and that there is a reasonable concern about where immigration has gone in this country.

Oh, I think all of that's true.

And I think there are people on the left that feel that way, too.

Yeah.

The immigration has not been handled particularly well.

It could be handled much better.

but but you don't think it's a logical claim then for some to say.

And then therefore what I'm seeing right now is justified, right.

That therefore is not justified.

If we're going to continue to have the system of laws that we have had since the inception of this country.

Jill, why do you think right now, this administration's actions on immigration are still viewed as a political strength to them.

They're still viewed with a lot of favor.

I can't speak for the folks who view it that way, but I think that there has been a tremendous effort to divide all of us in different ways.

And so when we're divided and we can feel like we're on the the right side of the division, perhaps that is something that those on that side are our, favor greatly.

To me, though, it's not just about immigration, because we're seeing all of the constitutional rights that we have enjoyed under a tax.

So we have, for example, due process within the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, the right to due process before the deprivation of life, liberty or property.

But we're also seeing attacks on the first Amendment, the right to speak out.

And even, you know, at colleges, institutions where people have traditionally been encouraged to learn through exchange, through difference of opinion, we're seeing, the attacks on the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, with the Ice efforts at this point.

And that's going to touch all of us.

So perhaps they might have a greater affinity for one amendment over another of the Bill of rights.

But overall, this is an erosion of our country and its foundational principles.

I guess I wonder if anything is happening that you think could convince people that, you know, in your life who don't agree with you to start moving in your direction?

Are you feeling like that's bridging all?

It's hard.

And I have this conversation with friends who are like minded so often about how do we reach people, how do we have these conversations?

And I don't know if it's, I was just in communication with someone this week about telling personal stories about why things matter to them.

I have, been involved with trying to engage in demonstrations so that the community can see if you're feeling alone and isolated, and that you're the only one who feels this way.

You're not.

And perhaps others will say, wow, there's a lot of people who disagree, and they're doing it peacefully.

but maybe there's something to look at here.

But I think our core divisions are so deep right now.

I struggle with how to do that and appreciate any dialog that can occur.

Irene, what what do you make of the fact that this administration is still viewed pretty favorably on immigration?

I think that there is a lot of misinformation, and I'm going to start with, what does it constitute for somebody to be a US citizen?

You can have an individual in a country for over 20 years with U.S. citizen children who are not eligible to have legal status in the country.

And I hear this happening often when somebody say, well, that person has been here for ten years, they you have apply for citizenship, but it doesn't work that way.

Somebody need to have a family based petition, and that person needs to be petitioned.

And then after waiting years, maybe if the person is a direct relative and have a fiscal sponsor, then they can then be allowed to stay in the country legally.

If not that, that option is not for them.

And after they become a legal permanent resident, I'm talking about maybe 3 or 4 years after the fact.

That's when they can have to wait five years to become a U.S. citizen, right?

There is so many rules that are based on the country that you're from, is based on what type of relationship you have with somebody inside the United States.

It means if you apply for asylum when you walk inside the US, if you are a refugee, is very broad.

And when you see situations where initially we're told, well, we're going to go after people who are undocumented, well, people under temporary protected status are not undocumented, right.

So what would you remove those protections?

And they try to do so quickly so they can justify to remove people out of the country.

These individuals pay a fee to be able to get a background check.

They got fingerprinted.

If there were threats to the government, they would have known.

Right.

And the situation is that they were granted temporary protected status because they were not a threat to the government.

They created this policy.

About the CBP wand.

When you have to wait outside the United States in order to be able to access and coming into the US, they have illegal entry.

They came into the United States following the directions of the government, and now you have over 900,000 individuals leaving the country.

So to answer your question, if and when you say what will happen or what can happen for people to change their mind, give them time because they're not going after criminals.

They're going after individuals who are hardworking people.

They're going after the IRS to access data for people paying taxes.

Right.

So when you start seeing that 3 or 4% of entrepreneurs who are immigrants, when you go after the three, 4% of the healthcare workers who are immigrants, when you go after the three 1% employed in arts, entertainment, hospitality and food services that are immigrants.

When you go after the 70% of the foreign born farm workers who feed our communities, when you go after the 37% of construction workers from our community, 42% of the transportation or warehouses, when you can affect your roof, you can understand what happened.

All right, let me go ahead.

I just wanted to add one thing, and that is that Irene pointed out all of these rules and procedures.

And so when you were asking the question about J.D.

Vance before, there are plenty of procedures in place that people are abiding by are following.

Can I even.

Yeah.

I mean, the argument on the other side, if you will, has been well, they should have come here the right way.

They should have done it the right way.

Well, that doesn't matter anymore.

They did it the right way.

And they're still being extricated from the country.

They went through all these hurdles, which I've been described very well, which are not easy to go through.

And, you know, took took the time to do that because they wanted to be here.

And now it doesn't matter.

Let me give some phone calls.

Kevin and Victor first.

Hi, Kevin.

Go ahead.

Hi.

well, I'm having a hard time telling which side of this issue you and the panel are on, but I'm going to just take a guess here.

I, I don't want to see anyone innocent go to a prison in El Salvador, especially.

But, we have such a huge problem that the, the the actual invasion of people over the last four years in the in the tens of millions, possibly certainly over 10 million is a real threat and a problem for America.

And we do have to take urgent action.

And you can't do normal due process for millions of people, obviously.

So I say they have to make sure, number one, that the people they're arresting are people who really are a threat to America.

They need to be, diligent about that.

But I don't want to see them having to be overly cautious or overly careful, because we have a huge problem.

And within that, millions of people that came, we know that there are really dangerous people, really violent people have done horrible things.

And, so, you know, I, I, I don't want to see anyone innocent go to a prison in El Salvador.

I do want to see people who are clearly illegal and shouldn't be here, maybe go back to their own countries.

Can I can I ask you a quick question about that, Kevin?

yeah.

So I certainly understand the argument that you're making.

And I think that that indicates that what Isaac, Saul and others are writing is the right way of framing this.

Right now, there are a number of Americans who are saying due process must be at our core no matter what.

And there's a number who are saying this is an emergency.

We don't have time for due process.

We're going to have to do the best we can.

And some people there may be some collateral damage, but it will be worth it to make these changes.

And I hear what you're saying.

I want to ask you, though, when you look at what the administration is doing, if if the latter perspective were their perspective, why wouldn't they get word from the Supreme Court that it's a rare nine zero Supreme Court decision that they must try to effectuate the release?

Why wouldn't they say we, our own lawyers in court, called it an administrative error, and we can exert a little pressure on Buckley this is one guy that we can say we screwed up on.

Or maybe, the stylist and hairdresser maybe we screwed up on.

Why aren't they saying we're going to move fast?

We're going to break things.

We're going to get things wrong.

When we get it wrong, we will admit it, and we will work as fast as we can to fix that, given we don't want to put anybody in a prison, let alone in El Salvador, if we get it wrong, if their lives are on the line, why aren't they doing that?

well, actually, I don't know the whole story of this man, this Maryland man, as they're calling him.

But, if he is an innocent person, I hope that they will act to get him out of the prison.

They may know a lot more than I or, you know, the you or I know, but, I don't want to see any innocent person go to a prison like that.

so.

No, I think that's the reason.

I think that's a dodge, though, Kevin.

I mean, I think it's wise for us to not assume we know people intimately when we find out that his wife filed for an order of protection, some people were surprised.

They had kind of built up probably a fantasy image of a hard working immigrant.

People are people.

and, you know, I don't think we should do anything, but other than be humble, admit their stuff, we don't know.

But that's also a way of copping out.

If you say, well, the government must know something we don't know and they don't have to show it in court, we'll just trust that they know it.

That's that is what kind of standard is that?

No no no no, I didn't say that.

They definitely know.

I said they might know things that we don't know.

But but you're not troubled I mean from what we understand literally they said this was an administrative error.

And the Supreme Court said fix this.

And then they they laughed about it.

It was a technicality.

This person was supposed to be deported.

And then someone gave him a stick.

It's not someone who gave him a state, was the court.

What am I?

He was totally innocent.

No no no no.

Okay, okay.

Kevin.

That's just wrong.

Kevin.

You're wrong man.

It wasn't somebody who gave a mistake.

It was a court that examined the case against him.

And what they said was he came here without documentation.

He came here illegally, but he was here.

And now he's building a life here.

The government said, well, we think he's in this gang.

And they relied on someone who claimed he lived in a state he never lived in, and looked at his clothing, and they did not have any other evidence to connect him to a gang.

And the judge said, if you deport him, he's going to be at more risk.

He must stay now.

He must stay.

Then the guy gets a job, he works for a union and who knows what his life is like.

But what you are describing is not like a situation where, yeah, he was supposed to be deported years ago and they just finally did it.

A judge said no in 2019, initially, initially, he was going to be deported.

And then the stories I said and they had to stay on that deportation.

Deportation.

That's what I said.

It's not a stay.

But anyway, people probably have a lot more information about this guy than we do, but I don't know if he's innocent.

I do want him to be released from prison.

Why do you think they had?

Why do you think they have more evidence than we do?

They're not coming forward with it.

You know what?

What what gives you that idea?

They're they're involved in this stuff 20 47A day.

I think they have a lot of information and I don't know, their hairdresser.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm just saying they might suspect we're speculating here.

Okay.

You have absolute knowledge of this, sir.

Nobody's got answer.

No, it's not about absolute knowledge.

What we're saying is have they presented a case that is suitable to accepting that someone was deported in error and is now in one of the world's most brutal places and might be dead?

And does that trouble you?

There are times.

Thank you for the fourth time.

If he's innocent, I would love to see him released from prison.

How would we find out?

If there's no due process, how would we ever find out that he's innocent?

Well, there could be thing mechanisms going on behind the scenes that we don't know about.

So due you process goes behind the scenes.

You guys want to turn, Trump and Buckley into, these, you know, demonic figures who just are full of hate.

Like, you're one guest there said that, you know, the Trump supporters are just full of hate.

They're glad they're doing this because of hate.

No, not anything for the hate.

They just want America to be a healthy and wholesome society.

They don't want to have millions of people unvetted in our society that we don't know anything about.

Kevin, I think what what I'm hearing is a desire to say that due process is at the core of what we do.

We don't imprison people and we don't possibly condemn them to death if we don't have evidence for it.

And no matter what, our standards must be held to that.

Now, you can't argue that we don't have time for that now, as the Vice president has said, and I understand the intellectual part of that.

Everyone will decide what lines they are on.

But you did not come into this conversation and say, and boy, if they get it wrong, they better fix it fast.

You kind of shrugged and said, well, maybe they know something about this guy that we don't know, which is not really a workable solution for anybody who might be dead or tortured wrongly.

Again, you don't you don't know that he's dead or you're speculating right there.

You don't know if he's been dead or tortured.

I kind of do.

I didn't say he's dead or tortured.

I said he could be.

No, I know he could be worse.

We're saying I'm speculating, too.

You can speculate, and that's fine.

If I speculate, I'm a sinner of some kind.

No, no, no.

All right, all right.

So let me just jump in.

I'm going to send it back to our guest here.

I do appreciate the call, Kevin.

I'm not saying I can speculate.

You can't.

I'm saying that's a prison that literally has that track record.

Literally has that track record.

I'm not going to speculate that he's, you know, getting plush robes and three meals, let me put it that way.

So I guess I just wanted to clarify, when somebody is in front of a judge and immigration judge, there is that the Office of Principal Legal Advisor, and there is an immigration attorney in certain situations.

So, you know, I want to make clear that not everybody has the right to have an immigration attorney.

for immigration court, it's a different process because it's a civil matter, not a criminal matter.

But you have somebody from the government trying to find every possible evidence to convince the judge to issue at the importation order.

So you have this individual who have vast knowledge on legal work, and that person is presenting every possible evidence.

I'm sure they presented everything they could to try to get him to get a deportation order, get removed from the country.

The judge, an immigration judge who is a federal immigration judge, evaluates the entire evidence and say this person King could not go back.

So it's not that we're not talking about who has the information or not.

The information was presented in 2019, and the information was given to the judge, and the judge decided that this individual is not a race to the United States.

It needs to stay in the U.S.

So even if you have that knowledge that an immigration judge has said this person has to stay in the U.S., do you feel that the government can just choose to say, well, we may have a different information later on, so we get the him anyway?

How is that okay?

Witting with a way that the United States is right, where the whole point, the entire, I would say we're all right.

We are that who said that?

Expectations that the way that we need to behave and have to we have to respect human rights and have to we have to respect our Constitution.

And here we are disregarding the decision of a federal judge.

And if I can just add that, you speculated that perhaps they have additional information that we don't know about, and I would guess that if they had that information, given the outcry right now, they'd want to share that.

But beyond that, then you said Evan was speculating about perhaps something terrible has happened to him.

And that's why we have due process.

That's why we have procedures where the evidence is presented and an analysis is made, and due process is different in different situations.

So not everyone gets a jury trial.

That's in a criminal case, for example.

but people do have the right to have present evidence or share that, you know, tell their story and have evidence presented against them and know what it is.

We have that due process so that it's not about speculation.

Yeah.

If we don't get a break, I'm in real trouble.

So we have to take this break.

I want to say to Kevin, though, I do appreciate the call and I understand even if no matter what I think I do understand people who say we don't have time for due process.

There's too much.

I understand why our guests in studio say, be careful of going down that road.

Understand what it means when you say we no longer are going to require due process and understand what that means.

When the desire for deportation expands to American citizens or people who speech the government doesn't like or any other category, just understand where we're going.

But I do understand where you are in saying, I just think there's too much illegal immigration, don't have time for due process.

But when confronted with actual mistakes, what do you do?

That's not speculation.

That's what we're looking at.

Actual mistakes.

Let's come right back.

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Wine sales are down.

The work is really hard.

Climate change is affecting it.

We'll talk about everything facing the region next.

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This is connections I'm Evan Dawson.

All ideas are welcome.

All ideas deserve people deserve respect.

Ideas deserve interrogation and they're all welcome to be interrogated here.

Mine too, by the way.

I mean, I'm just sitting here with a mike's chair, and we're going to keep talking about this stuff.

Let me get back to your feedback here, Rick.

And brightness next.

Hi, Rick.

Go ahead.

Evan, I want your guest to respond to this hypothetical, in the next administration, the president of the United States orders Marco Rubio, the former secretary of state, to be deported.

He's taken into custody.

He's put on a plane, and he said to send El Salvador to stay in that prison.

What right does he have to claim due process if the government's already sent him to El Salvador?

Isn't the precedent that you can just ship anybody to any gulag you want without any due process for anybody?

Is that the rule?

Now?

I take the protocol.

Oh thank you Rick.

I think what Rick is pointing to is the wisdom to say that this administration will not be in power forever.

And when it is their political opponents, do you want a tit for tat?

Do you want the next administration to say, well, you've given us the sword and we're going to wield it, or do you want to ask if they'll have the wisdom not to wield it?

And what will happen then?

But I also think history says that that's why you start talking about third terms.

That's why you start talking about administrations that go on forever here.

Done so.

But I mean, Rick is not wrong, though.

I mean, we should be asking what happens when the shoes on the other foot, Rick, is not wrong.

That's what the fear is.

And I want Marco Rubio to have due process.

I mean, if you know a man for all seasons, if you cut down all the laws, what will stand for you?

What will stand in the way when they come after you?

And the answer is nothing.

I mean, we have to have a standard that's going to protect the people that we don't like.

And if we don't like Marco Rubio in the next administration, there should still be a standard to protect him from arbitrary removal from the country.

Although if this administration loses, they'll probably pre pardon everybody which who knows how long those will go on.

I don't think the Biden administration did anybody any any favors with their widespread pardons that probably only make this whole game worse.

But Rick I do appreciate the points there.

let me get, Barbara in Rochester.

Hey, Barbara.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Barb, how's it going?

I'm going to start with this one.

I, I think that part of the problem that we're having is not just that I think a big part of it is that people, such as the last caller.

Kevin, thank you for calling.

There's a tendency to give this government the benefit of the doubt, and I'm not sure why that's happening.

When this government is president and many of the people who work for him or with, are speaking in terms that are that are quite frightening and quite fascistic, that's a word.

we're talking about, you know, who their enemies are and they're regular Americans, or they're people who are who are here, some of whom quite legally gone through courts for many good reasons, are here.

Sometimes they haven't gone through courts because our system doesn't allow for that anymore very easily.

It's really hard to get down to the border.

It's hard to get, you know, an asylum case.

It's hard to get any of these things.

It's just the assumption that someone must be that the government must be doing something right when they're giving us all these signals that they're not.

I did not know until I was listening to this show that, one of the people that they've shipped out of this country to El Salvador is is a gay man.

I mean, until I was listening to this program, I didn't know that.

And I'm frankly extremely concerned.

You know, there's this administration is no friend of the gay community.

What is happening to this man?

The thought that people don't matter because they're they're they're immigrants, asylum seekers from another country, a different color, a different.

Sexual or sexual orientation or gender orientation.

What what is that?

That is that is hate and that is based that is used in these cases to justify what is happening right now.

Well, Barb, let me just jump in because we're gonna lose time.

And I appreciate that.

yeah, I would encourage everybody to look up, the case of Andrea Hernandez.

Romero, if you want to learn more, because a prego Garcia's case is getting a lot of attention.

Hernandez.

Romero, I think, should probably be pretty well known.

if you want to learn more, anything you want to add there?

Joe, I think one of the things that we just have to try and hold on to is picturing the people who are subjected to this as people, you know, instead of strangers and stories and numbers.

And so when I think of this fellow Abrego Garcia, I think he's he's close to my son's age.

And what what would happen if something happened, God forbid, something like this happened in your family?

How would you react and how how do we not have compassion for folks who are going through this, when it could it could happen to the people we know.

And but this administration is basically saying it's only going to happen to the people who've done bad things.

They are saying that and it's by their own claims without evidence.

And that brings us right back to due process.

final thought from you, Irene Sanchez.

What do you want to leave with listeners as we continue to think about these issues?

Well, the reality is that they're not after people who are doing bad things.

We, are seeing how, Border Patrol, especially in the there are on the Quaid office has being racially profiling and detaining individuals.

just because of the color of their skin?

because they have equipment on construction work, because they know that they might be workers and they're just guessing, is this individual legally in the country or not?

and that's not the right way to leave.

I have families who are legally in the country.

There are, U.S. citizens who are now carrying U.S passports.

So I wanted to ask the rest of the community, how do you feel if at any moment, any time your son or daughter or your brother or your sister could be stopped and sent to a detention facility because they could not prove that they were U.S. citizens, is that okay?

Is that what we live on right now?

So they're not going after bad people.

They are going after anyone that is brown or black, and they're trying to use that as a way to justify this policies.

About 30s Dylan Thomas I know your blood pressure has been up.

Sorry about that.

Well, Barb's point is well taken.

Why is this administration, given the benefit of the doubt when they don't deserve it?

I mean, this president has shown the ability to misuse the Department of Justice for his personal petty gain.

I don't kind of want to give any administration the benefit of the doubt.

I know I don't need justice to say, but here there has been a an evidentiary demonstration of the misuse of the levers of power.

Two for personal on government related reasons.

Trump has gone after law firms that have represented adverse parties in litigation to him, for example, just to try to get even.

So the fact that he's he's getting the benefit of the doubt from the Supreme Court.

You know, we have to we have to respect the executive.

Well, most executives, but maybe not this one, given the track record at this point of what has been done to thumb his nose at the court, would you be surprised to see deportations of American citizens this year?

Not given the the language of this administration?

I would done same here.

It wouldn't surprise me.

I want to thank all of you for being here.

and I want to thank all of our listeners on all sides of this issue.

Let's keep talking.

Don Thompson, Jill Bono, Irene Sanchez, thank you all for being here this hour.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Having more connections coming up.

Yeah.

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