A divide is creating amongst Democrats over the dealing with of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case, with some brazenly questioning whether or not leaning into the explosive difficulty is a successful technique as Republicans go on offense.
4 Home progressives arrived in El Salvador on Monday to push for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., following Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who made the trek to the Central American nation final week and met with the mistakenly deported man. The group has framed the hassle as pushing again on a risk to primary constitutional rights.
“This is about due process; it’s about ensuring that we follow the laws of this country,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) mentioned Tuesday, after getting back from El Salvador.
Few Democratic lawmakers have publicly disputed that premise as they slam President Trump’s defiance of a Supreme Court docket ruling ordering the White Home to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
However some describe the administration’s give attention to the difficulty as a deliberate distraction from different information, together with the dwindling inventory market, rising value of groceries and widespread confusion over Trump’s tariff insurance policies.
Whereas the administration has acknowledged in courtroom that the deportation was an “administrative error,” White Home officers have since leaned into the difficulty, labeling Abrego Garcia a “terrorist” and insisting he’s a member of the MS-13 gang.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) argued over the weekend that the administration “picked out this case and this man because it’s about a subject that they want to keep in the news.”
“They’re doing it because they want to distract people from the fact that our economy is in a tailspin thanks to them, their tariffs, the fact that you have got businesses that are looking at closing down or not investing, that costs are up, chaos is up, corruption is up, and the market is down,” she added throughout an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
These dynamics are elevating questions amongst Democrats over whether or not it’s a successful tactic for the social gathering to give attention to the Abrego Garcia case.
Abrego Garcia’s household and attorneys have strongly pushed again on the accusation that he’s in a gang, which rests largely on a single confidential tip. An immigration choose in 2019 granted him safety from being deported to El Salvador, and he has no legal file within the U.S.
Nonetheless, Democratic operatives say the optics matter.
“People can’t afford eggs, and … you’re flying to sit with someone who’s accused of being in a gang,” one Democratic operative informed The Hill. “Republicans have given us such an opportunity with DOGE and … with Trump tanking the economy. Obviously, you can walk and chew gum at the same time, but I don’t think we can take our eyes off the prize in terms of talking about real, real world impacts and how people are being hurt in their everyday lives by some of these policies.”
“Democrats want to think that everyone has the same morals and values that we do, and we want to think that everyone’s outraged by the same things that we are and we want to be the ones to help people and stand up for the moral injustices. That doesn’t necessarily win elections though, and last cycle was proof positive of that,” the operative continued. “We need to step back and wait for someone to be deported who has a really compelling story that’s devastating that Average Joe’s upset about. That person hasn’t presented themselves yet, and Democrats are battling their better instincts and not just hop at the first sign of injustice.”
Democrats who made the journey to El Salvador, nevertheless, are defending their actions. Frost, who mentioned he obtained again to his district Tuesday morning, argued that the social gathering can push again on a number of facets of Trump’s administration on the identical time.
“I’m a member of Congress: We have to be able to talk about and message and do things on multiple issues at the same time,” he informed reporters. “I can go to El Salvador and advocate for the release, or the return, of Abrego Garcia. … I can do that, and then I can come back home and have a week focused on cost of living because the cost of living has been going up.”
The controversy amongst Democrats is rising as Republicans go on offense on the matter, placing a highlight on the left’s response.
The Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) on Monday provided to pay for Home Democrats to journey to El Salvador — so long as they “livestream the whole thing.”
“If out of touch House Democrats are so desperate to cozy up to violent gang members, the least they can do is let Americans watch the show. We’ll pay for the plane tickets, they just can’t forget to smile for the camera while they sell out their constituents,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella mentioned in an announcement.
It’s been a whirlwind week for the social gathering on the subject ever since Van Hollen laid out his plan to fly to the Central American nation the place Abrego Garcia has been held and successfully headlined a whole information cycle for the minority social gathering.
Whereas few query Van Hollen’s motivation, they do wonder if he was the suitable determine to tackle this battle. The Democratic operative mentioned that regardless of Abrego Garcia having lived within the Outdated Line State, it’s “very notable” that no border-state Democrats who cope with immigration each election cycle are on the entrance traces of the present battle.
“The hit on him that he’ll fly to El Salvador on taxpayer dollars and meet with a guy who’s accused of being in a gang, but he won’t meet with the family of gang victims in his home state is a very fair hit,” the operative mentioned. “I think Democrats can be supportive of rule of law, and we should be supportive of rule of law, but I think we need to pick and choose our messengers better and we need to pick and choose our battles better.”
“If you look at the senators who actually have to deal with immigration as an issue in their state in order to win, the fact that they’re not trying to hop on top of this, but a liberal senator from Maryland is kind of tells you everything you need to know about how palpable it is to the middle,” the operative mentioned.
Different high-profile Democrats have additionally questioned the necessity to focus intently on the Abrego Garcia scenario.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is amongst them, having labeled it a “distraction” from financial tumult.
Nonetheless, some Democrats consider the battle over Abrego Garcia is a worthwhile one within the grander scale of the 2026 cycle because it retains social gathering activists and the high-intensity voters — a lot of whom have been annoyed with Democrats’ responses to different points — activated and engaged earlier than Trump’s first 100 days are even over with.
“It is April of 2025. The people paying attention right now are diehard politicos, and we need to give our base something to root for because if you just take losses every day, fans stop showing up,” a second Democratic operative mentioned. “They’re the only people showing up to the stadium right now. … You gotta play something for the people who are still watching MSNBC.”
