Trump immigration crackdown enters the Twilight Zone

Kafkaesque.

- Clarence Page

One hears that word a lot in discussions of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Or, for lowbrows like me, "The Twilight Zone" might be the pertinent reference.

Abrego Garcia is the Maryland man who was wrongly deported and imprisoned without trial in a grim prison in El Salvador. In March, agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stopped Abrego Garcia while he was driving with his young son. Within days, he was on a plane to a notorious terrorist confinement center called CECOT in El Salvador, where it is clear that U.S. officials were content to leave him to an uncertain fate.

His wife sued the United States over the deportation in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The process revealed a sordid reality in the administration of President Donald Trump that brings to mind the scene in Lewis Carroll's children's tale "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," when the Queen of Hearts impatiently declares during the trial of the Knave of Hearts: "Sentence first — verdict afterward."

In essence, that's the shaky case against Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration no longer disputes that he was mistakenly deported. And, indeed, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must obey a lower court's direction to "facilitate" the prisoner's release and return to the United States.

However, Trump, who shows little patience for anyone or anything that gets in the way of his agenda, curiously deferred to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has rebuffed calls for Abrego Garcia to be returned to U.S. custody.