They Know He May Be Dead. And They’re Joking About It.

How the illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego García became a test run for authoritarianism and why the silence may already be covering up a death

What we are witnessing is more than a bureaucratic failure, more than a “crisis.” It is the full collapse of constitutional order, accompanied by smirks and side comments in the White House.

Kilmar Abrego García was illegally deported in violation of a federal court order. He was sent to one of the most brutal prisons in the Western Hemisphere. And now, with a unanimous Supreme Court ruling demanding his return, Donald Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele are appearing together on camera laughing off the entire matter.

Bukele, parroting unproven claims that García is a terrorist, called the idea of returning him to the U.S. “preposterous,” comparing it to smuggling a threat into the country. There is no evidence supporting that claim. None. In fact, the only court rulings in this case affirm García’s right to remain, his marriage to a U.S. citizen, and his legal presence under an existing protection order dating back to 2019. The government’s own attorneys admitted the deportation was illegal.

Now we know more. A hot mic moment captured Trump speaking under his breath, saying:

“The homegrowns are next. You gotta build about five more places.”

Let that sink in. Trump is now openly fantasizing about sending U.S. citizens, those he deems undesirable or criminal, to foreign mega-prisons like CECOT. He’s not even hiding it. The infrastructure is already being normalized through the unlawful deportation of immigrants like García. The idea now is to expand it.

If García is dead, killed in a prison the U.S. helped fund, placed there in violation of our own laws, then the Trump administration is not just responsible, it is complicit. And it is now signaling the same fate for others.

This is no longer theoretical. The administration is already targeting Americans for prosecution, surveillance, or public shaming: from whistleblowers like Miles Taylor to cyber-security officials like Chris Krebs, to immigrants with no criminal records like García, whose only crime was trusting the legal protections this country claims to uphold.

This isn’t border policy, this is fascism cloaked in procedural ambiguity. It is using immigration enforcement as a test run for silencing dissent, disappearing people, and eroding the distinction between lawful citizens and political enemies.

The fact that Bukele is now pretending he can’t return García, when he has every ability to do so, proves this isn’t about legality. It’s about power. It’s about setting a precedent: that when the executive branch breaks the law, no one can stop it. Not Congress. Not the courts. Not even the public, unless we rise together to make it impossible to ignore.

If Kilmar Abrego García is already dead, then this isn’t just a moral failure. It is state-sanctioned murder by indifference, enabled by lies and institutional decay.

And if we do not act now, if Congress, civil society, and the public do not demand accountability, then yes, “the homegrowns” will be next.