Dems fume over 'due process' for Abrego Garcia despite long history of party bucking the legal principle

Fox News

22-04-2025

Democrats are facing pushback as they continue to call for due process for illegal immigrant and suspected MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia after years of seemingly ignoring due process for their political rivals.
During the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election and the first Trump term, many Democrats called for President Donald Trump to be put in jail despite only facing allegations of impropriety at the time.
"He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement," Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters said in October 2019. "But for now, impeachment is the imperative."
"I don't want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison," then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly told fellow Democrats in 2019, according to Politico.
Democrats also assured the public that January 6 prisoners were receiving due process in terms of their treatment in jail despite Republican claims to the contrary and arguing that the defendants were being held for too long.
"They want to have a conversation about whether or not their iPads are working or if they have enough time on their iPads," Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas said in 2023, according to the Dallas Observer. "This is what I'm hearing. As someone who's been a public defender, let me tell you something: They know nothing about what bad conditions are."
During a Jan. 7 press conference, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said about the January 6th protesters, "No leniency. No leniency for these people. They have the cameras all over. They have their pictures. No matter what part of the country they came from, we ought to go after them right now."
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called for Kyle Rittenhouse to be thrown in jail as his trial was still developing.
"Lock up Kyle Rittenhouse and throw away the key," Jeffries posted on X, then known as Twitter, during the trial where Rittenhouse was facing a homicide charge for his actions during a George Floyd riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rittenhouse was ultimately acquitted.
Democrats fought vigorously against the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and amplified allegations of sexual assault against him before any due process had been completed investigating those claims.
Speaking to CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, called for an independent FBI investigation of claims against Kavanaugh, before explaining why the presumption of innocence and due process should not apply to his case.
"I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases," Hirono told host Jake Tapper, in response to a question about whether Kavanaugh was entitled to a presumption of innocence. "His credibility is already very questionable in my mind.... When I say that he's very outcome-driven, he has an ideological agenda, and I can sit here and talk to you about some of the cases that exemplify his, in my view, inability to be fair."
Over the past few weeks, Jeffries and other Democrats have been vocal proponents of due process when it comes to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant with alleged ties to a violent gang who was deported to El Salvador.
Many Democrats have railed against the Trump administration over issues like due process and questions about the kind of treatment Garcia could be receiving in the prison he is allegedly being housed in.
"Mistakenly removing a U.S. resident that has protection from deportation legally granted to him by an immigration court and then making no effort to get him back not only places Mr. Abrego Garcia's life in danger, but also violates the basic principles of due process and the rule of law," Waters said in a recent letter to Trump.
The face of the resistance to Garcia's deportation has been Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Garcia last week which drew strong criticism from the White House.
Van Hollen also opposed Kavanaugh's confirmation using the unsubstantiated sexual assault allegations against him.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, "If the hill that Democrats want to die on is demanding the return of a violent illegal alien, wifebeater, and foreign terrorist, we are happy to dig that grave for them."
Some on social media have called out Democrats in recent days for alleged hypocrisy on the issue of due process, with many pointing out the millions of illegal immigrants who entered the country under President Joe Biden with little to no concern from his party.
"I'm here to remind you that Democrats have never actually cared about due process," Townhall columnist Dustin Grage posted on X while quoting the Jeffries post on Rittenhouse. "Hope this helps."
"Democrats do not care about due process, not one bit," Breitbart senior editor Joel Pollak posted on X. "That's why we now have millions of illegal aliens in the country to begin with – and also why they trashed the civil liberties of hundreds of witnesses and defendants under Biden."
"The entire purpose of flooding us with immigrants was to make due process impossible," Twitchy's Amy Curtis posted on X. "That some are okay with this, and don't care about undoing the damage done by Democrats does not surprise me."
"It's important to remember that when it came to BLM mob demands and accusations of sexual assault against men (believe all women), the left/Democrats proudly dismissed Due Process," conservative commentator Chad Felix Greene posted on X. "They only care about Constitutional rights when they believe it benefits them politically."