BALTIMORE — It's Kilmar Abrego-Garcia today, anyone else tomorrow according to constitutional law expert Mark Graber.
"Everybody is potentially vulnerable to what happened to Mr. Garcia," Graber said. “What we do know is this administration will send people to El Salvador knowing that they are not guilty of any crime and refuse to get them back.”
Graber, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, says it's a case that should concern everyone.
"The constitutional regime we knew and grew up [with] is in grave danger, that Donald Trump has no commitment to that constitutional regime," Graber said. “The administration is undeterred by any sense of truth or for that matter, decency.”
Graber said the moves he's seen in the last few months, such as lack of due process and attacks on institutions, align the U.S. more with Hungary or Turkey, which are examples of "illiberal constitutionalism."
"We need to make sure that the court system works and due process works because if you take it away for any individual, it's a very short road to take it away for every American," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said in El Salvador on his second day attempting to check on Abrego-Garcia's status.
While Garcia did enter the country illegally, a judge later allowed him to stay in Maryland. He was also granted protection from being deported to back to his home country due to safety concerns.
READ MORE: Maryland at center of illegal immigration debate once again
The Supreme Court confirmed in a unanimous decision that the government wrongfully detained him when they sent him to a maximum security Salvadorian prison last month.
"The government confessed they made an error. Why can't the government decide, by accident, we're not a citizen?" Graber said.
But the White House has doubled down on the move and shared police records that indicate Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13.
Graber believes the evidence is thin at best. He says it shows the administration could go even further.
"Why can't we send someone to a different kind of prison camp, in a different kind of repression country because they disagree with our tariff policy or they disagree with our education policy?" Graber asked. "We need to insist vocally that our representatives do not tolerate this."
Immigration case highlights that the U.S. Constitution is in "grave danger"
