Disappeared by Design

They shook hands in defiance of the Supreme Court—signing off on a policy of vanishing people beyond the reach of U.S. law. One man disappeared. And they made it clear: that was the point....

(Commentary inspired by Ezra Klein’s recent monologue – 12 minutes that everyone should watch.)

There’s a kind of story I wish didn’t need telling. The kind where someone does everything right—checks in, shows up, follows the rules—and still gets swallowed by a system built to disappear them.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland, raising a family, working as a sheet metal apprentice. No criminal record. No warning. One traffic stop—and he’s gone. Deported to El Salvador in defiance of a judge’s ruling. Locked in a prison designed for terrorists. A place built not for justice—but for erasure.

The Republican administration called it a “clerical error.”
But now they say they can’t bring him back.
Won’t, really.

And that’s the part stuck in my throat. Not just the cruelty, but the audacity. The brazen claim that they no longer have the power—or perhaps the will—to reverse it. As if legal rulings are optional. As if due process is conditional.

I found myself shaken—not just for him, but for what this says about who we’re becoming.

Stories like this don’t just trouble me. They stay with me. I’ve spent a lifetime believing that stories can wake us up. That they can shift the ground just enough for change to take root.

But sometimes I wonder if we’ve stopped listening.

What enrages me most is this: the Republican administration admitted their mistake—and then punished him for it. Instead of making it right, they silenced him. Now they’re vilifying the man they wronged, trying him in the court of public opinion, while denying him the most basic thing our system claims to offer: due process.

This isn’t a story about one man—it’s a test of who we are, and who we’re willing to become.
And silence? Silence is how we fail it.

🎥 Watch the 12-minute video.
Then share it. Talk about it. Because the emergency isn’t looming.
It’s already here.

And if stories like this don’t move us—what will?

P.S.
If this made you stop, or burn a little inside—don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with five people who care about justice, who believe in due process, who still think democracy is worth defending. The emergency is no longer hypothetical. It’s here. And so is the call to act.

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