Love Thy Neighbor?

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has moral and legal implications too strong for us to stay silent

This week’s post is going to be a bit different from the usual, but please stay with me to the end. It’s important.

I generally try to avoid writing politically themed articles for several reasons. First, I believe that that which unites us is greater that which divides us. I write primarily because writing is a disciplined way to try to find joy, transcendence, and meaning in my life as a homeschooling stay-at-home dad. These are the kinds of experiences that could be meaningful to anyone, regardless of who you are, what you believe, or how you voted. The sense of connection and community that I get from sharing these universally common identifiable experiences with you far outweighs the sugar high of feeling like I scored a point on a political opponent.

Second, the natural tendency of political reading and writing is to operate in an echo chamber. We all want to find an agreeable echo chamber that will express and defend the views that we already have more eloquently than we can. If that’s the kind of writing that I aspire to do, I’m hopelessly outgunned. I don’t have time to spend hours a week researching and sourcing a policy op-ed, particularly when there are already countless professional pundits and even more amateur ones who do. In this age, when, as EB White predicted nearly a century ago, every man is a published author with an average readership of two, you can already find hot takes on every conceivable issue, from every conceivable perspective. There is no need for me to throw my hat in the ring.

Finally, and most importantly, I realize that most issues are complex enough that two intelligent, well-intentioned people could survey the evidence and come to two very different conclusions. American Christians, all following their reason and the dictates of their consciences, differ widely about how to balance the sanctity of human life with the inalienable rights of women to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Conscientious people come to different conclusions about whether it is justified to take human life in a particular war, or any war, or the death penalty. Civic-minded patriots may have different ideas about when and why speech should be permitted, censored, or punished (although, if they are truly patriotic and civic-minded, they must be careful to apply the same standard to speech that they approve of as well as dislike—something that neither end of the political spectrum currently seems willing to do). Reasonable people may disagree about what constitutes fair and sensible economic policy.[1]

However, every so often, there are rare—and usually horrifying—moments of moral clarity: moments of acute injustice in which there is clearly a right side and a wrong side. In these horrifyingly clear moments, we know that we cannot agree to disagree, and we cannot remain silent. If we do, we become consciously complicit in what we are witnessing.

In my opinion, the apprehension and deportation of Kilman Abrego Garcia to the CECOT—the megaprison–and, by some definitions, concentration camp— in El Salvador where Salvadoran dictator (his words, not mine) Nayib Bukele has locked away thousands of Salvadorans without rights, oversight, legal representation, or due process for suspected gang affiliation—is one of these moments.

At this point, you may feel tempted to stop reading. You may be part of the approximately 50% of Americans (depending on how the question is worded) who support President Trump’s immigration policies. You may be, like Vice President JD Vance, tempted to roll your eyes at more “liberal bedwetting” over a “criminal” and a “terrorist.”

If that is your gut reaction, please read on. You are my intended audience. You see, if this were simply a disagreement about what constitutes sensible immigration policy, I wouldn’t waste my breath, because that is another area where I believe that sensible people of good will can agree to disagree.

However, the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not about immigration. It is about two much more fundamental ideals: the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves; and the commitment to justly and faithfully apply the law without prejudice or partiality. (These two imperatives are simply moral and legal sides of the same coin). In our commitment to these ideals, there is no room for disagreement, whatever our political persuasions may be. If we forsake the latter, we lose our country. If we forsake the former, we lose our souls as well.

You can’t love your neighbor unless you know who your neighbor is. All too often—especially when it comes to immigration—labels are used as a way to avoid knowing our neighbor. If a person is simply an “illegal,” a “criminal”, or better yet, a “dangerous terrorist” or even an “animal,” we are absolved from the need to know anything else about them. They are their alleged crime. They are the enemy. That is all that we need to know.

But if we are committed to loving our neighbor as ourselves, that is not all we need to know. The whole point of the story of the Good Samaritan—the original answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”—is that our labels are inadequate and even antithetical to the Christian concept of neighborliness. No person—no citizen or immigrant, legal or illegal, priest, Levite, or Samaritan—can be reduced to a label. Consequently, no person is absolved from the responsibility of loving his neighbor on the basis of a label. As Dr. Jemar Tisby notes, “labels can’t erase the image of God.” Loving our neighbor does not necessarily mean having warm feelings towards our neighbor, or liking our neighbor, or trusting our neighbor, or even avoiding punishing our neighbor if he has done something wrong. But it does mean that we treat our neighbor according to who he is and what he has done, not who we assume he is and what we are afraid he might do.

So who is our neighbor? Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, what has he done, and why should anyone be upset about what has happened to him?

Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Image Credit: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14626547/el-salvador-migrant-kilmar-abrego-garcia-wife-domestic-violence-claims.html.

I had hoped to write a detailed analysis of the facts of the Abrego Garcia case, but this has proven to be much too large a task (which is why my article is a day late this week). Fortunately, many others have already done the heavy lifting and explored the issues more deeply and eloquently than I could. I am going to stand on their shoulders and strongly encourage you, if you have questions, to follow up on their work with the links that are provided below.

Here are the agreed-upon facts, insofar as I can ascertain them.

1. Kilmar Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally in 2011, at the age of 16, fleeing gang violence in his native El Salvador. However, this epidemic of gang violence cannot simply be dismissed as “not our problem”; the United States bears some responsibility both for the creation of the transnational gang MS-13 and for the 13-year civil war that destabilized the country and led to the proliferation of gang violence. For more about the surprisingly American history of El Salvador’s gang problem, see here.

2. Abrego Garcia lived in the United States for fourteen years without any known criminal activity aside from traffic violations. Although there were suspicions and allegations of gang affiliation, they were never substantiated. Abrego Garcia married an American citizen (Jennifer Vasquez Sura) and together they were raising their autistic son, as well as her two children from a previous relationship at the time of his apprehension and transportation. Abrego Garcia received protected “do not deport” status from a federal judge in 2019, which prohibited his deportation to El Salvador (though he could be deported to a third country) and allowed him to legally live and work in the United States conditional on his checking in annually with ICE, which he did not fail to do. Since the government (then under the auspices of the first Trump administration) did not challenge this order, it became binding. For more about Abrego Garcia’s known history in the United States, see NBC’s coverage here or Gabe Fleisher’s excellently researched and nuanced “25 Facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia” here.

3. After Abrego Garcia’s apprehension, the Justice Department admitted that it had deported him “through administrative error;” despite this, no effort was made to correct this error. Instead, the attorney who made the admission was sacked.

4. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously—including all three of the justices that Trump himself has appointed—that the government has a duty to “facilitate and effectuate” Mr. Garcia’s return to the United States. For more about this ruling and what it means, see Joyce Vance’s excellent article here.

5. The government responded by defying the Supreme Court, inviting Salvadoran president Bukele to a sit-down meeting at the White House and simultaneously claiming that it was powerless to comply with the Court’s order and, at least according to White House advisor Stephen Miller, claiming that the Court’s order actually meant the opposite of what it said. In any case, it was clear that they had no intention of complying. Chillingly, President Trump met with Nayib Bukele and joked about building “five more prisons” for “homegrown” dissidents as well. For more analysis about this meeting, see historian Heather Cox Richardson’s excellent article here. Since then, the administration has only intensified its attempts to justify its mistake by repeating and amplifying unfounded or unsubstantiated allegations about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s actions or character. For an excellent Christian perspective on this attempted character assassination, see Pat Kahnke’s thoughtful article here.

6. The 4^th Circuit Court, representing the district where Mr. Abrego Garcia lived, issued a unanimous ruling ordering the government to disclose what steps it was taking to secure Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release. This conservative court, headed by Reagan appointee J. Harvie Wilkinson III, issued a strongly worded statement indicating that the illegal deportation of Mr. Garcia, if not corrected, would have chilling implications, not only for other immigrants with protected status, but for American citizens as well: “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.” For more about this ruling, see Joyce Vance’s excellent analysis here.

In conclusion, this is not (as it has been presented to be) a question of whether the United States has a right to protect its borders or to punish criminals. It is a question of whether it has an obligation to protect its residents and provide all who live in or visit the United States with the protection of the law from arbitrary detention and punishment. It is a test case to determine if anyone can be detained, arrested, or disappeared at will. Before you dismiss this as so much hysterical arm-flailing, please read about the cases of Merwil Gutierrez—taken by ICE by mistake and yet still sent to CECOT—or Richard Duarte Rodriguez, a Venezuelan refugee who, in spite of having no criminal record and being awarded Temporary Protected Status, was abducted by ICE and sent to CECOT as well. To these cases can doubtless be added many more.

It is a question about, when you see someone who speaks Spanish or Haitian Creole and perhaps has a tattoo, you see a “dangerous enemy alien” or a neighbor.

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[1] For the record, I am not a relativist on any of these issues and will gladly defend my views on any of them for anyone who is interested. However, these issues are complex enough that, even if I disagree strongly with someone else’s conclusion, my default assumption will be that we are both acting in good faith. I will not jump to the conclusion that they only disagree with me because they are ignorant, stupid, and/or evil.