Welcome to Washington: Republicans Seem Thrilled To Have This Deportation Fight

Democratic voters have for months been urging their leaders to do something — anything — to try to thwart the Trump administration. With little power in Washington, the opposition party has resorted to protests, rallies, and marches, just as it did in 2017, though it feels slightly different. The “everything protest” that I described in a recent column was bound to find a poster child eventually, and Republicans are thrilled with whom Democrats ended up. Welcome to Washington, where Democrats are plotting their schedules this coming week as Congress is out of session. Some lawmakers will follow the lead of Senator Van Hollen, who made a journey this past week to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Central America. Mr. Abrego was mistakenly deported to his native country of El Salvador in March, where he was detained in a maximum security terrorist confinement center. After it was disclosed that he was deported due to an administrative error, the government of El Salvador moved him to a lower security prison, though as of Sunday he remains detained despite not facing any criminal charges in the country, nor even here in America. While the legal battle drags on in Judge Paula Xinis’s courtroom at Greenbelt, Maryland, the White House certainly isn’t shying away from this fight. They’re leaning into it. On trade policy, the president reversed course after he admittedly was spooked about bond markets. On inflation, Republicans have deflected, telling voters that things will eventually get better, but for now they may have to suffer slightly. On Elon Musk’s mass layoff scheme for federal employees, the White House has bragged little about the impact that Americans will feel from Social Security administration staff, food inspectors, and medical researchers being fired en masse. For Mr. Abrego, however, Republicans will shine a spotlight on him all day long. When Mr. Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Thursday, members of the White House press corps received an email from press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s staff saying that we would get a surprise briefing in just a few hours. Ms. Leavitt would appear with a “special guest” behind the podium even though no briefing had previously been scheduled that day. The special guest was Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant in 2023. Just days after the murderer was convicted, Ms. Morin — herself a Maryland resident — wanted to denounce her senator. “To have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge — or, barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother … so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen — why does that person have more right[s] than I do, or my daughter, or my grandchildren?” Ms. Morin told reporters, some of whom were seen wiping tears from their eyes as she spoke. “I don’t understand this.”It’s not surprising that President Trump and Republicans want to have this fight. Based on current polling, immigration and border security are the only issues where the president is above water. Tariff chaos, a lack of consumer confidence, and an uptick in inflation has led voters to have a net negative approval rating of Mr. Trump’s economic stewardship — a sharp break from his first term, when managing the country’s economy was net positive. Even though Democrats were routed at the ballot box last year, in part due to the large spike in migrant crossings at the border, party members seem equally as eager to step into the cage for Mr. Abrego. Some viral moments have caught the attention of the engaged Democratic base. Senator Grassley was accosted this past week at a town hall by a gruff Iowan for his position that Mr. Abrego ought to remain in El Salvador. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, too, was jeered by a crowd when she said she was fully supportive of Mr. Trump’s deportation efforts. On social media on Sunday, as Mr. Van Hollen was completing “the Full Ginsberg” by making the rounds of all five major television news interview programs, the White House social media accounts were dispatching videos of the senator’s defenses of Mr. Abrego, signifying that they — and the president — may be more than happy to keep this story and others like it in the news all the way to the midterms.

Welcome to Washington: Republicans Seem Thrilled To Have This Deportation Fight

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