Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of legal resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from a notorious prison in El Salvador, rejecting the White House’s claim that it could not retrieve him after mistakenly deporting him.

Let this sink in: Garcia was deported without due process, without a criminal record, and without any evidence that he is a gang member. Now, Trump is defying the Supreme Court order, creating the constitutional crisis he has been moving toward all along.

Further intensifying the crisis is yesterday’s collusion between Trump and El Salvador’s President Bukele, in the Oval Office, to illegally ship U.S. citizens whom Trump deems dangerous to prisons in El Salvador.

This unprecedented constitutional crisis echoes the chilling steps of a dictatorship. It is straight out of the playbook of authoritarianism and bears the hallmarks of a coup.

Combine this with Elon Musk’s ongoing and illegal gutting of our federal government and theft of our data, with Trump’s attacks on universities, law firms, judges and people he deems “disloyal,” and it becomes imperative for citizens to speak up and demand an end to this reign of lawlessness.

People are the ultimate power in any government. As long as we have a voice, we must use it.

JULIA HESSE
Astoria