The Destruction of the American Ideal

Opinion|The Destruction of the American Ideal

Even by the ugly standards of this administration, the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia stands out.

A Salvadoran migrant and metal worker in Maryland with no criminal record other than traffic violations and illegal entry into the country, he was arrested by immigration authorities in March and deported to one of the notorious prisons of his homeland, in contravention of a U.S. immigration judge’s order. The government acknowledged the “administrative error” — an Orwellian euphemism for a Kafkaesque nightmare — but petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal judge’s order requiring his return on Monday. The same day, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the lower court’s order so it can have time to consider the case.

Abrego Garcia was an unimportant person when he was deported — except, of course, to his wife and son and two stepchildren. He is the subject of an accusation that he belonged to the MS-13 gang — but there is only flimsy evidence and no proof. The entire edifice of American justice is built on the conviction that there is no guilt without proof beyond reasonable doubt — and that there is no unimportant person, at least not in the eyes of the law.

I’ve been thinking about this case as an emblem of everything that makes Donald Trump’s presidency so vile and destructive, even when I’ve bent over backward to give him the benefit of the doubt, and even when I’ve agreed with him on this or that point of policy. I have, to borrow a line from Peggy Noonan, a “certain idea of America.” He ain’t it.

What is that “certain idea”? It has to do with a type of democratic nobility, something most of us can recognize the moment we see it. It’s Sojourner Truth asking the suffragists at the 1851 Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, “Ain’t I a woman?” It’s Lou Gehrig, stricken with A.L.S. in his thirties, calling himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

It’s Gail Halvorsen, the candy bomber of the Berlin Airlift, parachuting chocolates and gum to the hungry children of the besieged city. It’s John McCain refusing an offer to be released before other American P.O.W.s in North Vietnamese captivity — and, 40 years later, publicly rebuking a supporter for calling Barack Obama, his opponent in the 2008 presidential race, “an Arab.”