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Notes -
The crux of the Abrego Garcia controversy is a dispute about who "morally" counts as an American citizen.
The rallying cry of the pro-Abrego Garcia camp is: "If they can do it to him, they can do it to any of us." In other words, they see no meaningful difference between him and a legal US citizen, and so there is no Schelling Fence that can be drawn between the two. On other hand, the pro-Trump camp who wants Abrego Garcia to stay in El Salvador are not at all concerned that they will be next, because in their view citizens and non-citizens are two morally distinct categories.
The slippery slope argument (e.g. Laurence Tribe yesterday, and Justice Sotomayor's concurrence) is that if the government gets its way with Abrego Garcia, there will be no legal obstacle preventing them from treating citizens in the same way.
But the thing is, this is already the case. The US government's treatment of citizens abroad is already effectively unconstrained by the law. The government can negotiate for the release of a citizen imprisoned by another country, but nobody would argue that the government is legally obligated to do this, and it's absurd to imagine a court compelling them to do so, because that effectively makes diplomacy impossible. (The US government must be able to value the citizen's return at less than infinity, or else they lose all negotiating leverage.) On the other hand, the government can drone-strike a citizen abroad without due process, and while that may stir up political pushback here at home, there are effectively no legal repercussions.
This is because, according to the constitutional separation of powers, foreign affairs are a quintessentially "non-justiciable political question". In common parlance this means: If you don't like what the government is doing, the proper way to fix it is through advocacy and the democratic process, not through the court system.
To which the pro-Abrego Garcia camp will gesture around at the crowd of protesters they've assembled, waving "Free Abrego Garcia!" signs, and say "Great, come join us. Here's your sign!"
But of course the pro-Trump immigration hawks see no need to take it up, because even if these protests have no effect, this does not in any way diminish their confidence that if a citizen were to be treated in the same way, then the backlash would be swift, universal, and sufficient to compel the citizen's return - no court order needed. For them, it is simply obvious that the failure of the Abrego Garcia advocacy has no implications whatsoever for the success of the hypothetical advocacy on behalf of a fellow citizen, and this is no cause for cognitive dissonance because citizens and illegal-immigrant non-citizens are two entirely separate categories.
Prior to anything else in the political life of a nation, there must be near-universal agreement on who constitutes the body politic for whose benefit the government exists and to whom they are accountable. If there is factional dispute over this basic question, then morally speaking there is no nation, but multiple distinct nations that happen to find themselves all mixed up in the same land. But I'm sure this is no great surprise.
I don't understand your use of the word "morally" here. The question isn't who counts as an American citizen in some legal or moral sense, so much as what physically can happen to a citizen or non citizen. Facts are disputed, and even the worst cops get things right most of the time, but it is unclear to me where in the process the circuit breaker exists for me to avoid being deported to El Salvador. This is of course, incredibly unlikely: I'm a blond American and I've never lived anywhere north of the Narragansett or south of the Mason-Dixon. But assuming I was picked up, it's not clear at what point any of that becomes relevant. I don't get a hearing before deportation. Speaking English, or being white, are no guarantee of anything. Once I get to El Salvador, do they give me a hearing?
If there is no functional way for me to assert my citizenship, then my citizenship is of no value, and in order to protect my rights as a citizen I must protect the rights of anyone else from whom it is impossible to distinguish myself. I don't want to live in a country where I must carry an ID card at all times at risk of being sent to a foreign torture prison.
The moral core of the question in my mind is whether El Salvador is acting primarily as the USA's paid jailor, or are they acting as a sovereign choosing to imprison their own citizen. I'm not sure there is a clear answer there.
A little analogy...
I go over to BJJ tonight, an assistant coach is teaching class. During open mat after, one of the three guys at the gym named Tom rolls with me. Tom is a bit of a dirty fighter, and when we're rolling and he's trying to get out of a single leg, he hits me with the old oil check. I shout what the fuck, we yell at each other, I leave. The next day I come back for the morning class, and the gym owner asks me how the Tuesday night class was, I tell him the class was good but Tom fucking oil checked me and that's not why I come here, if it keeps happening I might have to quit. The owner says no, that's fucked, Tom is fucking banned.
Two scenarios from here:
The next day, Tom calls me, and says "Hey, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, I got too worked up, I'm gonna work on myself and make sure that never happens again. Let me buy you a case of Yuengling as an apology, and maybe we can be friends again?" I might forgive Tom, or I might not, but I'm under no obligation to tell the gym owner to let Tom back in. After all, it's his gym, not mine, I can't make him change his mind, if he feels that behavior is unacceptable even once that's his right.
The next day, Tom2 calls me, and says "Hey, what the fuck dude, I didn't oil check you, I wasn't even there that night, you got me confused with Tom1!" At this point, I definitely have a moral obligation to tell the gym owner to let Tom2 back in, and explain the mistake, and that he shouldn't keep Tom2 out on my account. The gym owner could, of course, ban Tom2 for totally unrelated reasons. It's his gym not mine. But I'm obligated to tell him that he has the wrong Tom.
Which of these scenarios we are in makes the difference for me, morally.
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