The struggle of one Salvadoran American has become emblematic of both the current administration’s savage war on immigrants and our collective hopes for the rule of law. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, kidnapped by ICE in March and detained at the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador despite a 2019 judicial order, then released from CECOT because of a long campaign for his freedom, then held in detention in Tennessee until mid-August where he fought another deportation to Costa Rica, then released to reunite with his family, has now been detained again with the threat of another deportation: to Uganda.

To say that this case is political is an understatement. The administration spins lies about him to justify their unlawful actions against him and thousands like him, kidnapped, denied their legal rights to due process, and then either deported or condemned to indefinite detention in the flourishing, for-profit hell of ICE detention. Their baseless claims of Abrego Garcia’s “crimes” embody the false construction of the “criminal alien”: character assassination pimped out as legal category.

The rule of lies by the powerful will continue to fabricate allegations against those they target for their disdain. This can be anyone: immigrants, dissidents, LGBTQ folks.

Abrego Garcia’s fight is the struggle of our collective lives. On the brink of his detention and likely long fight against another deportation, he admonished his supporters: “Regardless of what happens here with ICE, promise me this that you will keep fighting, praying, believing in dignity — not only for me but for everyone.”

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)