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the Supreme Court said the Trump administration needed to correct its admitted error of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador and attempt to get him home — without any dissents. But it also left some room open for the Trump administration to prevail in the lower courts if it says it has tried but simply cannot bring Abrego Garcia back, which you can read as a kind of victory — but only if your intent is to openly defy a court order and leave Abrego Garcia rotting in a Salvadoran prison.

to frame Abrego Garcia’s case as only about illegal immigration is just unbelievably dishonest. Nobody would be upset about a proven gang member being deported legally — at least I wouldn’t. Abrego Garcia might very well be a “bad guy,” or he might not be. Maybe the cop who claimed he was a gang member is the actual bad guy. I really don’t know and, frankly, I don’t really care. Our government violated a court order while effectively sentencing Abrego Garcia to life in one of the harshest prisons in the world, built for terrorists and the most dangerous gang members on the planet, without even accusing him of a crime (other than coming here illegally). Now, it appears to be gleefully defying a Supreme Court ruling. That’s what people like me are upset about. That’s what Trump and Miller and Vance are dishonestly leaving out of their framing.

Vance’s argument is also dangerous. It turns due process into some optional, squishy requirement that can be observed or denied by our government, based on what they say is possible with the resources they have or the public interest as they define it. Is that a can of worms he wants to open? That due process is now conditional? Does Vance or Trump ever imagine that Republicans will once again in the near future be in the political minority? Has that thought crossed their minds?

If Vance’s argument is that the government lacks the resources, then it can create them. This same administration is currently proposing a $1 trillion (with a “t”) military budget, including up to $150 billion of new funding to the Pentagon, and it’s paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to imprison Abrego Garcia and hundreds of others for one year. Why not put some of that money toward increasing the number of immigration judges to adjudicate these cases and clear the backlog? That’s an argument I’ve been screaming into the void for years (and one I was thrilled to see pushed in National Review this week), and an actual solution that can uphold the values of law and order the administration purports to stand for.

Just to put that all down clearly: The Trump administration is arguing that they cannot grant due process to every person due to resource and logistical constraints. They are also arguing that someone who ends up in a foreign prison because of the government’s own actions (or mistakes) is beyond their reach. They’ve deported some people who haven’t been accused of any crimes. And now they are suggesting they might start using this same process on U.S. citizens. If you put all of that together and don’t get extremely alarmed, then you are not paying attention.

I think I’m seeing things with a great deal of clarity. In some alternative reality, the Trump administration is winning court cases 9–0 and protecting American citizens from a dangerous invasion. In this reality, they’re ignoring the Supreme Court, deporting people against lower court orders, and violating the rights and privacy of U.S. citizens. The discussion shouldn’t be about whether I’m suddenly a partisan hack, it should be about why a usually measured moderate is suddenly ringing the alarm bells.

For context, I was angry when President Biden tried to create the “Disinformation Governance Board” — now, Trump is snatching college students off the streets for op-eds they wrote. I was angry when we learned the Biden administration was pressuring Facebook to take down posts it deemed dangerous to public health — now, Trump is using AI to monitor people’s social media activity and forcing U.S. citizens to hand over their phones at points of entry. Shoot, I was even critical of Biden for pursuing student loan relief through executive action — imagine if he had actually ignored the court orders that stopped him.

yes, Trump inherited a serious crisis we need to solve: Millions of unauthorized migrants are still in our country, and millions of them came in under Biden. Yes, solving this problem is a major logistical and resource challenge, and it’s why Biden deserves ample criticism for failing to take action while millions of people illegally crossed the border in a short period of time. But no, we should not forfeit due process and violate court orders and fundamentally undermine the American project of liberty in trying to solve those problems. We should not allow this current administration, or any other future administration, to become the arbiter of when rules should or shouldn’t be followed.

Some extended thoughts on where we are: David Brooks once said that President Donald Trump has the wrong answers to all the right questions, and I’ve been thinking about that quote all week.

Daddy/Boy isn’t an incest fantasy - it’s a nurturing fantasy. It’s about being in the possession of a caring and dominant man who both takes charge of you and protects you. It can honestly be very sweet. Just be sure anyone you’re engaging in this play with is a good guy who’s really looking out for you.

Henry Kissinger often highlighted the strategic differences between Chinese and Western approaches, emphasizing China’s reliance on long-term, indirect strategies inspired by their cultural and historical traditions. He famously compared Chinese strategy to weiqi (go), a game focused on strategic encirclement and gradual accumulation of advantage, contrasting it with chess, which prioritizes decisive victories and direct confrontations.