KASIE HUNT: All right. Welcome back to THE ARENA where we have been covering the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the initially wrongly deported Maryland man who was sent to El Salvador. He’s now been returned to the United States to face federal charges in Tennessee. He’s been indicted by a grand jury. And according to top officials at the Justice Department, was just returned today to the United States. Joining me now to discuss, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He is the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman, thank you so much for being here. REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): You bet, Kasie. HUNT: Your first reaction to this news? RASKIN: Well, it’s about time. I think the guys been gone since March 15th. The government admitted immediately that this was an administrative error. He was erroneously deported from the country. And you know, if he is to be charged with anything, if he’s a member of MS-13 or the proud boys or the Oath Keepers, bring the evidence to court and show the evidence. And charge him. Otherwise, he has a status which is withhold deportation, because the court under the first Trump administration, the administrative law judge in the immigration system, found that he had left Salvador in fear of gangs and that he would have been granted asylum. But he got there too late. So that’s what this weird withhold deportation category is that he was in. HUNT: How do you understand? I mean, the timing of this. I mean, the Trump administration clearly did not under the initial set of circumstances, want to bring this man back to the United States. But this charge, of course, does change the legal circumstances here. RASKIN: Yeah. HUNT: Why do you think they did it this way? RASKIN: Well, I think that’s Trump’s general attitude about this whole judicial counterattack against his reign of lawlessness, which is you can’t make me do it or I’m going to drag my feet. I’m going to go as slow as possible. He didn’t want to be told, even by a 7-2 ruling of the court, or a 9-0 ruling of the court, that he had to facilitate the return of this guy he had erroneously sent abroad without any due process at all. And due process is really the heart of this whole thing. And due process are the two most beautiful words in the English language. Thats what separates our rights and freedoms from arbitrary governmental power. And that’s what runs through almost everything that’s happening in America today, whether we’re talking about the rights of immigrants, we’re talking about the rights of journalists, we’re talking about the rights of federal workers. It’s all about whether you’re going to follow our legal process and the constitutional system. And when Donald Trump got prosecuted for his assorted crimes in New York, he had every element of due process and more power to him, because I would defend and I did defend his right to have right to counsel, his right to testify, or in his case, he chose not to testify, his right to cross-examine witnesses, his right to a jury of his peers. And he was convicted. He has dozens of felony convictions, but he had every element of due process along the way. HUNT: The White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, of course, out with a statement criticizing Democrats and the media. She especially focused on the idea that Democrats defended Kilmar Abrego Garcia, even though he, of course, is alleged to have committed these crimes. Do you think that Democrats risk politically playing into the president’s hands by focusing on this case? RASKIN: First of all, I don’t know of a single Democrat who defended him specifically against any crimes because he wasn’t charged with any crimes. He doesn’t have any criminal history, to my knowledge, or a criminal record. And there were no charges outstanding when he got unceremoniously picked up and flown out of the country. I mean, that’s called a disappearance. That’s what happens in authoritarian societies. They obviously want to make this about whether or not he ends up being a good guy or a bad guy, but it’s not a moral question. It’s a legal question. It’s a constitutional question of whether the government can pick people up and take them out of the country. And I think the Supreme Court has been fairly emphatic about this. Due process is for everybody. Sometimes I hear my colleagues say, you’re for due process for guilty people. Well, yeah, because we don’t know if they’re guilty or they’re innocent until we’ve had due process. That’s the whole point of due process.
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