RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Democratic Party is twisting in agony over its newfound lack of popularity among rank-and-file voters, including those within its own party. To understand why, the party needs look no further than its support for bringing illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia, you see, was among those here illegally who were deemed criminal enough to be shipped immediately back to their home country. Abrego Garcia is not an American citizen; he is Salvadoran, both by birth and by legal citizenship.

Sending Abrego Garcia back should have been a slam dunk. And it was, until U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg found “probable cause” for holding the Trump administration in criminal contempt of his March order forbidding the deportation of Abrego Garcia.

Now we’re told this is a “constitutional crisis.”

It’s true the Justice Department admitted making an “administrative error” in sending Abrego Garcia back when they did, but that error wouldn’t have changed his deportation status; only it’s timing.

It’s also true that the Supreme Court has said that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, as if Trump controls El Salvador’s prisons.

For the record, on Monday, meeting at the White House with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Trump explained why he couldn’t “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from prison.

Because he can’t.

Indeed, Bukele was asked point blank by the media if he’d send Abrego Garcia back. His response: “Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

This has further enraged already-furious Democrats, who desperately want to neuter the Trump administration’s right to remove those who have come here illegally, including those who belong to foreign gangs, or commit serious felonies.

In the case of Abrego Garcia, Trump, as commander in chief, has determined that criminal gangs such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Salvadoran MS-13 are in cahoots with unfriendly foreign governments, and their members therefore can be treated as potential combatants or terrorist threats under U.S. law.

It’s therefore relevant that a U.S. immigration judge in 2019 denied Abrego Garcia bond in a hearing because he had been “confirmed to be a ranking member of the MS-13 gang by a proven and reliable source.”

For those who are here illegally and intend to rob, rape, steal and murder, it should be an easy call: Send them back to where they came from. Simple. Any civilized nation would do that. Any civilized person would support it.

But not the Democrats.

“The Abrego Garcia affair has anti-Trump forces almost convulsed in a mixture of rage, self-righteousness, and political opportunism,” veteran Washington journalist Byron York observed.

So why are Democrats organizing for the return of a man found by two lower court judges to have been an MS-13 gang member? A man who was previously credibly accused by his wife of physical abuse, and was suspected of human trafficking?

And why did Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen suddenly jet off to El Salvador this week to meet with Abrego Garcia and then even have drinks with him? Does he not know he has no rights whatsoever to interview a Salvadoran citizen in a Salvadoran prison, much less to demand his return to the U.S.? That El Salvador’s government let the two meet was a gift.

While we’re at it, why do two other Democratic members of Congress, Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, also want to travel to El Salvador to make “welfare checks” on Abrego Garcia and other prisoners?

Could it be that, as they hemorrhage political support, the Democrats’ electoral strategy now revolves around flooding the U.S. with illegal immigrants and then letting them vote?

It’s hard to explain President Biden’s decision to open our borders and let in 20 million illegal immigrants any other way. It’s even harder to explain Democrats’ decision to let even illegals who commit serious crimes to stay.

And do they not know illegal immigration isn’t popular with voters?

For instance, the February I&I/TIPP Poll showed that 56% of voters support “Trump’s promise of large-scale deportations of illegal migrants,” including nearly a third of Democrats. And a just-finished CNN poll finds that a majority of Americans want all of those here illegally deported, criminal or not.

Knowing this, it’s strange elected Democrats would turn Kilmar Abrego Garcia into such a cause célèbre, while showing so little concern for victims of illegal immigrant crime. Indeed, they seem more worried about Trump deporting thousands of illegals and crushing Dems’ future electoral hopes.

So there may be method to the Dems’ madness.

A groundbreaking 2014 study shockingly concluded that “roughly one quarter of non-citizens” in the U.S. “were likely registered to vote,” and that “6.4% of non-citizens actually voted.” With 18.6 million illegal immigrants now residing in the U.S., that’s more than a million votes.

So are we cynical to think that’s why far-left Democrats now want even criminals and gang-bangers, including Abrego Garcia, to stay here? As we asked in our headline: “Do Desperate Dems Really Want To Die On Illegal Immigration Hill?” The answer, apparently, is yes.