I decided to take the 50 mile jaunt on my yacht from West Palm Beach to go fishing for wahoo near Bimini, Bahamas. Left in the morning and planned to return late afternoon. As my craft makes 35 knots in good seas, we're talking an 1.5 hour trip each way. While fishing the reefs of Bimini, one of my engines stalls and I can't restart it. I putt into Bimini harbor for repairs. Bahamian Coast Guard escorts me into port. Tie up my craft at the dock. Coast Guard members arrive, question me and ask for my passport. Don't have one. Never had one. Bahamian Coast Guard arrests me. Takes me into custody. Puts me on a plane and flies me back to the US without a hearing or any legal proceeding. Well at least I'm going back to the good old US of A. Not exactly. The Bahamian plane arrives in Colorado instead of Florida. Florence, Colorado to be exact. I'm put in shackles and escorted from the plane to the US Supermax prison in Florence and thrown in a cell. Yet, I've committed no crime other than being in the Bahamas without a passport and I have no criminal record. I sit in prison for months. My wife and children are prohibited from ever visiting me. I remain a prisoner in my home country of the United States without ever having been charged with a crime.
Absurd story right?
Yet its basis is precisely what has happened to Mr. Garcia. A man whose only crime was to be in our country without proper documentation. And now he rots in a prison in El Salvador.
No matter if Garcia is an MS13 member, beat his wife, transported folks across state lines, failed to put the toilet seat down for his wife, whatever... Garcia deserves legal process. He's been denied Habeas Corpus.
Our country is responsible for this mess and has already admitted that its deportation of Garcia was an "administrative error".
This situation stinks to high heaven and must be fixed. We broke it, we need to fix it.