Little Rock Everyone in America may not know Abrego Garcia’s name, but there are few people who haven’t gotten the word that a man was mistakenly deported to a heinous prison in El Salvador. In some crazy calculation that is beyond me, Trump and his administration have staked out their position in both federal courts and the public square by refusing to return the man, stonewalling the court to create a constitutional crisis, and even going to the ridiculous lengths of pretending that little El Salvador, whom they are paying $6 million to hold these dark-of-the-night deportees, is refusing to release the man.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen embarrassed the administration by jetting down to El Salvador and pleading for Garcia, a Maryland resident and worker, to be returned, meeting with the country’s vice-president, and eventually Garcia himself. Now a bunch of other Democratic Congressman are landing in El Salvador to stir the pot up to a boil again. The self-proclaimed dictator of El Salvador, understanding his position was less than credible, tried a half-court, Hail Mary shot, claiming he would return all 252 immigrants to the USA, if Venezuela would free an equal number of people from its prisons, including opposition leaders to that government. In sports, this would be called a misdirection play, designed to disguise who really has the ball and where the play is actually going.
Garcia and his cause are now a big-time political story. There’s no way that Trump and his fire-breathing anti-immigrant team are in any position to win this one. The longer it plays out, the more they lose, especially as it distracts from the rest of what they are trying to do.
What’s interesting to me is how did this happen?
A million years ago, starting ACORN in Little Rock, in the early days I would often go downtown early in the morning to have coffee with a group that coalesced around a political wizard named Max Allison, who was then as old, as I was young. Max had been an Arkansas political force in one campaign after another, most famously as the early campaign manager for Wilbur Mills, who at the time was the powerful chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Max used to quiz me – and others – about the political “equation” in the daily news and ask us to calculate whose “fine hand was behind the headlines.” For me this was a life lesson, and the Garcia story demonstrates its power.
I think the stick stirring this drink is Gustavo Torres, the longtime head of CASA in Maryland. It doesn’t take much to see someone in a bright red CASA t-shirt right beside the microphone when Garcia’s family has a press conference. Her positioning is not a mistake, but a message. I worked as a consultant for CASA and Torres in setting up the membership program for CASA Action, their c4 in 2008-2009. I know Gustavo well as a comrade and companero. He has always been close to Van Hollen and has him on speed dial. I would be shocked to find that it was not Gustavo and the CASA folks who didn’t keep the lines burning to Van Hollen demanding that he do something to bring Garcia back.
CASA and its worker centers have also been one of the anchors for NDLON, the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network. When Senator Van Hollen visited El Salvador there was a front-page picture above the fold in the New York Times of him talking to the military trying to get into prison to see Garcia, no doubt a highlight of his career and a huge coup for the emerging Trump resistance. Standing next to him in the picture is Chris Newman, identified by the Times as the “family’s lawyer.” Chris is the NDLON’s Legal Director & General Counsel. He’s been with NDLON for more than 20 years. He’s not in private practice and didn’t just happen to be the Garcia’s family lawyer. I can almost hear the call between Pablo Alvarado, the head of NDLON, and Gustavo Torres, with Chris on the line, making this happen, and figuring that as a lawyer, fluent in Spanish, he would be key in making the El Salvador play. I missed meeting Chris the first time when he was in New Orleans after Katrina 20 years ago, but I can easily remember having dinner with him and Gustavo, as we tried to put together a march for immigration reform timed to the Obama inauguration. There’s a random quote from Chris where he says he was “scared” in this exchange in El Salvador. That’s just spin for political and humanitarian impact. Like Gustavo and Pablo, he’s the guy you ask to step him when it counts, and he wouldn’t stutter when he demanded Garcia’s freedom.
None of this just happened. The “fine hands” working behind the scenes here are not in the limelight, but they came together to make the light shine where it needed to be, and they deserve our thanks. This was all well-organized from start to finish, and these were the organizers. They deserve our thanks, and no matter how carefully they hid their hands in this affair, they’ve earned props from all of us who believe in justice.
