Comment by thrance

The fact that no charges have ever been brought against him by the Salvadoran government, yet they still claim to be holding him there lends credence to this. Why would they not simply release him? If he's dead it would be a major problem for Bukele's government as well as the US government. So evidently we're in "disappeared" territory now.

Roll a D20: if it's even he comes back, if it's less than 10 he mysteriously disappears.

If you read the SCOTUS ruling, all it upholds from the lower courts decision is that the USG must 'facilitate', not 'effectuate' his release. AFAIK the Court doesn't have a way to order El Salvador to do so

It, indirectly, was, because it was the reason the country initially relied on decentralized citizen militias for defense in the first place. Many of the founders were worried that a standing federal army would be a tool of oppression, and wanted to keep most of the firepower distributed amongst the populace.

The system more or less worked until the Spanish American War, when the government realized that the militias need some sort of standard in order to integrate properly with the regular army when called up. This led to the creation of the National Guard in 1903. It was tightly integrated into the Army structure in 1933.

What arguably made the Amendment obsolete was the advance of technology. By the early 20th century conventional warfighting took too much firepower, support, and coordination for a loose citizen militia to conduct. At best they could form the core of an insurgent force, but the goal is always to not get to that point.

In theory, that insurgent force could work against a tyrannical federal government. In practice, even if most of the people with the civilian firepower weren't supporting the tyranny I'm not sure it would work out. Conducting an insurgency against a foreign occupier is a lot different than conducting one against a domestic oppressor.

Today I learned, thanks! As a European, I'm not overly familiar with the genesis of American law ;)

This. The 2A absolutists want guns to pacify their neighbors, not the government.

This is nonsense. Plenty of nonviolent, peaceful groups carry arms.

Leftists (e.g. Anarchists, Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Queer Liberation, Black Liberation, etc.) groups typically are pro-firearms. Not always, but plenty are. The Black Panthers, famously, were armed, but so are are orgs like the Pink Pistols. Martin Luther King Jr. had many guns for self defense, and carried a revolver at times. Marx famously said that workers should be armed.

Centrists (e.g. Democrats, some Labour parties) typically abhor guns, and value the decorum and principle of the instution to keep us all safe. They are a "if society is well ordered, then there's no need for arms" group.

Right wing folks (e.g. Republicans, Proud Boys, KKK, etc.) are the folks who you are describing -- by and large supporting these measures and also want to use firearms to exert control.

It's really, really important if you consider yourself to be a progressive to ask, "Who will gun control laws in America be used to prosecute? Will that be minority groups dispraportionately?"

Historically and presently, armed minorities are more difficult to oppress, and many many leftist groups have historically and presently been armed for the purposes of community defense. By suggesting that arming oneself is a right wing position you erase history and erode current efforts for folks to build community safety systems.

>Now, imagine if those people had gotten their way, and how much easier it would be for the administration to do some of the things people claim it wants to do (e.g. gulags).

Given that none of the people with firearms have done a damn thing to stop this and how many of them even voted for Trump and support his policies, because American gun and militia culture has been infested with Nazis since forever, I don't see how it could possibly have been any easier. There has been and continues to be no resistance to Trump of any significance. When he does open up the gulags for real, it's going to be America's armed patriot militias who round people up for the regime.

This is entirely disconnected from reality [1]. If he was not an illegal alien, he would not have been deported at all.

[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13...

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I checked the first two results and not one of them said the man was innocent [1][2]. It's okay if the claim is baseless and there is no citation, but asking me to find a citation for someone else's baseless claim is not really okay.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/14/abrego-garci...

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-meet-with-el-salvador...

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I don't know in his personal case if he is lying. However, you can get to what the probability of a random applicant for an asylum being truthful very easily. You just need a good estimate of the % of migrants that had to flee gangs or other risk of death (gangs that are still in control of their communities), then compare that to the % that claim they had to flee for those reasons, then subtract.

I don't know what that % is, but we have courts that are deciding these cases every day. The actual court cases are more complex to analyze because lack of adequate council or other factors might influence outcomes. However, of people who attend their interview, about 44% are determined to not have a credible fear.

So you are saying that anyone who leaves central america can never return home because they would then be murdered? I don't think you are saying that, because people move back and forth from central america every day without being murdered.

An awful lot of people move every day, even from areas where there are protection rackets. Do the protection rackets kill everyone who comes home to visit after moving to another city? How do they keep track of who is 'escaping' and who is just moving because they got married or found a job somewhere else? Again, you aren't suggesting that these rackets ban all movement in and out of the areas they loosely control?

People come to the US primarily to find work at a much higher wage than they would be able to find where they are from. Often there is no opportunity for work whatsoever where they are from. They can have a life here that they would never be able to achieve, they can have healthy children who get medical and dental care and will have a chance at an education and a good life here.

If I were in their shoes I would absolutely try to come here illegally if I couldn't do so legally. If I was caught I would, without hesitation, lie and say I would be murdered if I returned home, or whatever else my lawyer carefully prompted me to say, just like Mr Garcia and almost everyone else claiming this. The reality is if these protection rackets were here in the US and not at all in El Salvador, Mr Garcia would almost certainly still choose to live here and just pay the protection money rather than returning home. I doubt that he was ever influenced by gangs in his decision to move here, and I doubt that he has any fear of them if he would return, and I don't think it would change his decision either way.