For at least 35 years, probably longer, I’ve been hearing that, in order to have any real solution to the southern border problem, there would need to be bi-partisan legislation by Congress.

I have literally heard that over and over again for decades.

However, it turns out that was one big lie.

Perhaps “lie” is the wrong word to use there because I believe many people who’ve been saying that for years wholeheartedly believed it to be true.

And that was also the argument of the Joe Biden administration for four years, during which wave after wave of illegal immigrants poured across the border and into America.

Nobody knows how many millions of illegal immigrants came through Biden’s Swiss cheese border into the country, but a common estimate used by many is 10 million people in four years, give or take.  Some say the number is a lot higher.

But then look what happened: Donald Trump got elected president, was inaugurated, and immediately – starting on his very first day in office – implemented a wide range of strategies and put forces to work to shut the border down to illegal immigration. And, within weeks, there was massive improvement; and now – just over 100 days into the new president’s term – the problem, by all accounts, has been almost completely eliminated.

Currently, the flow across the border is only a small trickle of illegal aliens here and there.

So, it turns out that it actually didn’t take a complicated bi-partisan bill at all. It just took one man who was willing to laser focus on the problem, make the necessary commitments to solve it, and be willing to take the political heat over the cries of humanitarian concerns that came with slamming the border shut.

Despite that astonishing and nearly instantaneous success solving a decades’ old problem in a few weeks, no one is talking about that: You don’t see it reported on the news, and, when the subject of conversation among ordinary people turns to Trump and politics, you don’t hear people mention it either.

In fact, in the latest polls, Trump is underwater on immigration – something that in the past has been one of his very strongest issues, and you would think his approval in that area would now be up in the 60s or 70s.

Nor are the media or the people talking about the major companies that, in the last three months, have announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in new money into America. Nor, by the way, does anyone mention that President Trump secured the release of six American hostages in Venezuela, two Americans in Afghanistan, a Pennsylvania teacher who was being held in Russia, and others as well.

The whole point of Trump recently doing a bunch of interviews at the 100-day mark of his second presidential term was so that he could talk about his accomplishments.

But no one is talking about those things because they’re focused on something else.

Do you know what they are talking about? Everyone in the media, everyone in the public, mostly just want to talk about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his imprisonment, apparently for life, in a high-security El Salvadoran prison famous for its brutal treatment of inmates. (The guards there say, “The only way anyone leaves here is in a casket.”)

Trump is asked about it in just about every single interview he does. The press corp asks his spokeswoman about it at every single White House briefing. The constant court decisions being perpetuated by the case generate hundreds of headlines.  On YouTube and TikTok, viral videos remind millions of social media users of Garcia’s wrongful deportation and imprisonment, and every day in Congress, Democrats constantly berate Republicans and Trump on the floor of the US House and Senate in blistering verbal assaults for not bringing Garcia back.

The case is making headline after headline two months after the fact and the story will not go away.

The Trump administration has admitted that the un-convicted man was wrongfully deported in violation of a court order, and the administration is making no effort to correct the mistake.

Now, largely because of Garcia, Republican senators and congressmen and congresswomen can’t even hold town halls because so many people are outraged over the situation. If you think Americans don’t care about an alleged gang member from El Salvador being deprived of his rights – well, it turns out that they care a whole, whole lot.  If you don’t think so, go to this link https://youtu.be/nYNI9x7e85Y?si=7yPy3dbQscHXUlYL70 of US Senator Chuck Grassley and watch the 80-year-old Republican farmers and others in Iowa at Grassley town halls.  Go to the 39-minute mark in the video, and see if you don’t think those elderly red state farming community Trump voters don’t care about the mistreatment of Garcia.

When Republican Congressman Mike Lawler tried to hold a town hall in New York recently, and he started it by attempting to lead the Pledge of Allegiance with his hand over his heart to get the meeting started, he was met with a stream of loud boos.

He could not even lead the Pledge of Allegiance without the crowd booing.

He turned and looked at crowd and, disgusted, asked something like, “Come on, you won’t even say the Pledge of Allegiance?”

As Lawler’s town hall progressed, the comments made it obvious why. The crowd was booing at the sight of Lawler pledging allegiance to the flag because why should he be allowed to pay homage to the sacred principles of this country and the US Constitution while he is simultaneously not doing anything to uphold them.

Trump has taken what should have been a two-day, page-five story and turned it into one that’s making headline after headline two months later, and it will be one of the biggest news stories of the year.

Trump recently held an interview with ABC to talk about the accomplishments of his first 100 days as president and the only clip anyone shows from that is the one where Trump gets very angry and stays that way, and, seven times, insists that the letters and number “MS-13” were really tattooed on Garcia’s hand.

The reporter was actually trying to help him out by attempting to move on many times, but Trump, obviously disturbed by the firm traction the Garcia issue is getting, kept insisting angrily that “MS -13” was tattooed on his hand.

Garcia is the story that keeps giving and giving to the Democrats and the Trump haters.  And it will keep on giving and giving too.

Do you know why? Because, in this case, they are absolutely correct and Trump is absolutely wrong.

The US Constitution simply does not allow federal agents to just pick up un-convicted people off the street, ship them off to some foreign hellscape prison, admit they made a mistake, and then just say we are going to leave him there forever even though he was never allowed due process under the law.

The funny thing is, rather than just take the two-day hit, Trump has elevated the issue to a point where no one wants to hear anything about his accomplishments – and the problem is, again, now so bad that Republican members of the Senate and House can’t hold a town hall without generating viral videos of things like 72-year-old Jewish women being dragged out of meetings by security while everyone boos and screams “Shame! Shame!” at the Republican politician on stage.

The Garcia problem is also completely sabotaging Trump’s own other initiatives.  For instance, in order to save money and make American citizens think twice about committing crimes, Trump is hoping to send American citizens to El Salvadoran high security prisons.

Trump is known for being able to get very hard things done, and no one should ever underestimate his ability to succeed when he puts his head to something – especially since he has the unconditional support of a Republican House and a Republican Senate.

However, his plan to send American citizens faces tremendous legal hurdles. Trump said he is having Pam Bondi look into ways it could be done legally.  The process would likely need to involve first stripping people of their citizenship and then sending them to a prison in El Salvador.

Trump told the president of El Salvador that if he, Trump, can successfully find a way to carry out the effort, then El Salvador would need to build five more prisons just like it. CECOT, as the infamous prison is known, holds 40,000.  Trump was just speaking off the cuff when he mentioned five more just like it – but, whether it’s two or three more CECOTs that would mean sending hundreds of thousands of American citizens to those prisons.

And maybe that would save a lot of money and drastically reduce the crime rate in America because so many would-be criminals would be deterred.  However, here’s the thing. Trump’s plan will be completely dead in the water if he can’t or won’t get Garcia back.

Here’s why.

 There is no way in the world that the Supreme Court of the United States is going to let Donald Trump send American citizens to very harsh high-security El Salvadoran slave-labor prisons for life unless there’s some way to remedy mistakes when it becomes known that a mistake has been made.

And if Trump ends up sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to several CECOT prisons in El Salvador – well, trust me, some of those will be mistakes, as was the case with Garcia.

Here’s the thing about holding American citizens in American prisons: If the courts find out that a mistake has been made – that an innocent man has gone to prison for murder, say – then they can, and do, remedy that by letting the person out of prison and, often, paying him or her millions of dollars.

If Trump is to have any hope at all of sending American citizens to mega-prisons in El Salvador, then he is absolutely, positively going to have to demonstrate that he has the ability to get them back once they are there.

Although Garcia is not an American citizen, Trump needs to get Garcia back. Karl Rove said so on Fox News and Joe Rogan said so on his show. In fact, many conservative Republicans believe that it is important to uphold the Constitution.

 And, by the way, think about it:  If the Fifth Amendment doesn’t matter, then why should the Second Amendment?

Trump needs to get Garcia back, let him have due process in an American court of law, present what the administration says is an absolutely overwhelming mountain of evidence that Garcia is a violent gang member, and then deport him immediately after he is convicted of whatever those horrible crimes are that the White House knows about.

It could all probably be done in a day and a half and then the story would be over and done with, and Trump and other Republicans could go back to talking about the accomplishments, rather than the mistakes, of the new Trump administration.

Trust me, if the evidence is as utterly damning as the administration says it is, then once the American people see all of it presented in court – and they learn all the horrible things Garcia has allegedly done – then Garcia will be a much, much less sympathetic person than, as he is now being portrayed in the media, “an illegally kidnapped, disappeared and imprisoned for life Maryland man who’s a husband and the father of two special needs kids.”

And, purely as a practical matter, think about this: One day there will be a Democratic president in the White House and he or she may also have some people he or she would like to accuse of a crime, arrest, and then immediately fly out of the country in the middle of the night with no due process – and then say, sorry, we can’t get them back.

Trump himself, for instance, has been accused of a vast litany of extremely serious crimes by the Democrats – so maybe the future Democratic-led Justice Department will come get Trump in the middle of the night and fly him to a hellhole prison in some out of the way third-world country, and say, “Oh, sorry folks, we meant to try him before we imprisoned him for life; it was a mistake but we can’t get him back.”

For the love of God, Mr. President, just bring Garcia back, present your evidence, make your case as required by law, and then deport him again. This time, legally.

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