{"id":848836,"date":"2025-05-16T22:11:59","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T03:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/16\/chabria-newsom-called-the-abrego-garcia-deportation-fight-a-distraction-then-came-the-pushback\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T22:11:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T03:11:59","slug":"chabria-newsom-called-the-abrego-garcia-deportation-fight-a-distraction-then-came-the-pushback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/16\/chabria-newsom-called-the-abrego-garcia-deportation-fight-a-distraction-then-came-the-pushback\/","title":{"rendered":"Chabria: Newsom called the Abrego Garcia deportation fight a ‘distraction.’ Then came the pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gov. Gavin Newsom made headlines Friday for his comments about wrongfully deported Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, when he was trying to make news about tariffs.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a Central Valley press conference announcing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its wildly unpredictable trade policies, Newsom answered a question from reporters about Abrego Garcia. He called the controversy about whether the man is a gang member \u201cthe distraction of the day.\u201d <\/p>\n

Chaos ensued, including a Dem-on-Dem news cycle over the holiday weekend that neither Newsom nor the Democrats wanted, in which pundits debated whether Abrego Garcia and the due process crisis his extrajudicial deportation represents was indeed a distraction, or a constitutional crisis.<\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who traveled to El Salvador and was able to speak with Abrego Garcia, shot back at Newsom<\/a>: \u201cI think Americans are tired of elected officials or politicians who are all finger to the wind,\u201d adding that, \u201canyone who can\u2019t stand up for the Constitution and the right of due process doesn\u2019t deserve to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert: I am pro-due process, and appalled that our executive branch is arguing for its suspension when it comes to immigrants \u2014 because, of course, that is the first step to curtailing everyone\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

Calling Abrego Garcia\u2019s plight a \u201cdistraction,\u201d even if only on the narrow issue of gang membership, as Newsom\u2019s office later clarified was his intent, is flat-out wrong. But the seeming split between Newsom and Van Hollen is both smaller than media is playing it, and also the most important question vexing Democrats right now: Do Americans care about the Constitution, or the stock market?<\/p>\n

Americans largely can\u2019t make up their minds about what worries them most. A good portion of people are currently zigzagging between terror that their life savings is disappearing before their eyes, and terror that their constitutional rights are in the same trash bin. It\u2019s an all-hands-on-deck moment for Democrats, and there should be space to defend both the rights of Abrego Garcia (and by extension all of us) and push back against a senseless global trade war that threatens to put America into a recession.<\/p>\n

But the controversy over Newsom\u2019s inelegant statement goes to the heart of the Democratic divide right now. It\u2019s a party in disarray that can\u2019t decide whether to go all out against the attacks on democracy, or keep laser-focused on the pocketbook issues that seem to have ultimately handed Trump his second term. <\/p>\n

Folks, it\u2019s time to walk and chew gum, as the old saying goes.<\/p>\n

Abrego Garcia is somewhere in a Salvadoran prison right now.<\/p>\n

Maybe not the worst-of-the-worst Terrorism Confinement Center, where he began his deportation nightmare in a facility that human rights watchers contend has a history of torture<\/a>, but he is still locked up in a Kafkaesque scenario that could leave him with what appears to be a life sentence in a foreign prison without committing a crime or being heard by a judge. <\/p>\n

That kind of grab-and-vanish justice is common in El Salvador, where a three-year state of emergency declaration made by an authoritarian leader<\/a> claiming he\u2019s cracking down on gang crime has suspended due process rights, imprisoning about 83,000 people, according to Amnesty International. <\/a> <\/p>\n

That sounds a bit too close to home as President Trump deports and detains people using that same tough-on-crime talk without evidence, while Vice President JD Vance argues online that due process is just too cumbersome and needs to be scrapped for convenience if the United States is to be successful, as Trump has promised, at deporting millions of people in the next few years, whether they are criminals or not. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo say the administration must observe \u2018due process\u2019 is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors,\u201d Vance wrote on social media<\/a> last week. \u201cHere\u2019s a useful test: ask the people weeping over the lack of due process what precisely they propose for dealing with Biden\u2019s millions and millions of illegals. And with reasonable resource and administrative judge constraints, does their solution allow us to deport at least a few million people per year?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yikes. Expediency over law. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo process is the new due process,\u201d Adam Winkler, a UCLA professor who teaches constitutional law, told me. \u201cThe Constitution is clear that any person in the United States in entitled to due process, it doesn\u2019t matter if they are an immigrant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsom, in a more thoughtful interview with podcaster Bryan Tyler Cohen last week, called such flagrant disrepect for the law \u201cthe other side of the red line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe founding fathers did not live and die for this moment,\u201d Newsom said. \u201cAnd so if you want this democracy, this democratic republic, to survive, that has to be called out with clarity and conviction, period, full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Newsom and Van Hollen don\u2019t disagree on the significance of Abrego Garcia\u2019s case after all. They just can\u2019t agree on how to best reach voters. <\/p>\n

Most Americans don\u2019t really know what due process is, or what losing it will mean to democracy. They do, however, understand when gas and groceries cost more, and when their retirement savings are sinking like a brick in a river. <\/p>\n

As former Republican political consultant Mike Madrid put it, yes, we need to walk and chew gum, \u201cbut let\u2019s not pretend that they\u2019re equal, because they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking, being the economy in this analogy, is far more important, he said. <\/p>\n

In a recent poll, 55% of voters said they disapprove<\/a> of the way Trump is handling the economy. Another poll by CNBC<\/a> found Trump\u2019s ratings on economic performance are currently the lowest they\u2019ve ever been in his political career, after winning the election on economic issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that Democrats aren\u2019t driving a tank through that issue is malpractice,\u201d Madrid said, and he\u2019s right. The economy won Trump the election, and the economy could lose Republicans the next one. <\/p>\n

Fighting for the rights of Abrego Garcia? <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tough case, because people are really \u2014 are they defending MS-13? Are they defending, you know, someone who\u2019s out of sight, out of mind in El Salvador?\u201d Newsom said at the Friday news conference. \u201cIt\u2019s exactly the debate [Republicans] want, because they don\u2019t want this debate on the tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s where Trump\u2019s chaos theory becomes so effective. Those who care about democracy have to fight on both the economy and due process \u2014 and so much more \u2014 because we may not make it to another free and fair election (as the last one was) if we allow the executive branch unlimited power. And, it should go without saying, there is a moral imperative to not abandon Abrego Garcia, or any of these people deported without due process. <\/p>\n

Democrats seem to be stuck in a political mindset \u2014 how do they win elections \u2014 when the moment calls for something greater. <\/p>\n

The ability to walk and chew gum, and explain to voters why both matter. <\/p>\n

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More to Read <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Gavin Newsom made headlines Friday for his comments about wrongfully deported Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, when he was trying to make news about tariffs. Speaking at a Central Valley press conference announcing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its wildly unpredictable trade policies, Newsom answered a question from reporters about Abrego Garcia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":848837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143954,4637],"tags":[143953,12452],"class_list":["post-848836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chabria","category-newsom","tag-chabria","tag-newsom"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}