The Disappeared 238

As the Epstein story continues to dominate the news cycle, some individuals who have been overlooked deserve attention: the original 238, among whom was Abrego Garcia, and the injustice done to them.

I want to drill down into something that’s being eclipsed by the Epstein scandal a bit. I stumbled across an article today from the LA Times. In April of 2025, back when the ball was just getting rolling on these illegal kidnappings, it kicked off with 238 people who were sent to El Salvador. This story itself was eclipsed when the Justice Department (or should we call it the Injustice Department under Trump), fatefully admitted to mistakenly deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

At the time, I said that we don’t know who’s on those planes. As more and more has come out over the months since, it’s become clear how right I was on that. According to the LA Times article, the announcement stated that approximately 90% of the migrants sent to El Salvador had no criminal records. So right now, as I type this, we have one unjustly detained immigrant, Garcia himself, returned to the United States, describing situations of torture in the notorious El Salvadoran prison, and 237 still in the prison, of whom El Salvador has admitted that the United States still maintains custody. In other words, the Trump administration can send those back to the United States whenever it wants; it just doesn’t.

Another thing that happened over the months since April? The not-so-Supreme Court chiseled away at habeas corpus to the point that one must wonder whether or not the constitutionally established right still exists at all for American citizens.

Quick aside, though: those 237 people are still in El Salvador today, and 90% of that is 215 people who committed no crime at all. Additionally, since April, we’ve learned that American citizens have been wrapped up in the deportations. So remember, when people are telling you about the 238, we don’t know who they all are. The reporting you see? Primarily based on data from the White House, which has been caught in multiple lies around their immigration policies, and multiple more since they kidnapped and shipped off those few.

But I want to stay focused on those 238. What happened next?

ABC reported ten hours before I typed this that some of them will be sent to Venezuela. Why? It’s part of a three-country deal where Venezuela is returning 10 people to the United States in return for hosting those prisoners. The deal isn’t specifically for the 238, as I can tell from the article, but involves 250 Venezuelans who were freed by El Salvador and sent to Venezuela.

Ignoring the fact that this gives support to Maduro, a dictator who desperately needs the support as he clings to power after losing the election, we still don’t know whether all of the Americans were sent to Venezuela, because we can’t believe anything out of this White House. But even so, let’s recap so we don’t get mired in the details: at least 215 people who have done nothing wrong in the United States were kidnapped and sent to the El Salvadorian attempt at a Gulag, and many of them were tortured and beaten for doing nothing wrong, on top of being ripped from their families. And now, they’re being used as political pawns to prop up a dictator that, assuming some were actually from Venezuela, many of them likely initially fled.

This bothers me. But what else bothers me? The MAGA base seems completely unbothered by this. For all we truly know, there are American citizens wrapped up in all of this. That doesn’t bother the MAGA base, but what does seem to have an impact? Epstein.

This is why I’ve been trying to amplify the Epstein message. It’s not because I care more about Epstein than the ripping away of the rights of the American people: if we don’t know who’s on the planes, and they’re not adhering to due process under the law to explore that case, then how do we know if Americans are being detained or not?

We can’t.

And if you can’t make that distinction, then there’s no difference in the eyes of the government between American citizens and immigrants. Therefore, how can we say that the United States supports the rights of American citizens? We can’t. The Injustice Department, ICE, and the Republicans in Congress have cemented that for us.

Back to the point, though. Their base, meaning Republicans, may not care about immigrants, and may have blind faith that their American-ness is enough to protect them from kidnapping and torture (it’s not, but try telling someone that—I have, and wow…), but they do care about Epstein. So if you see more on Epstein from me from now on, it’s because I’m helping amplify something that chisels away at the Republicans’ power, and not because I believe it’s more critical, tragic circumstances though they be, than the right of Habeas Corpus being trampled regularly by this administration.

Let’s face it, we’re not getting our rights back until the Republicans are unseated, so job number one, however insufficient it may feel, is to pound that wedge in, split their party, and take back control. Focused and on-message is how we do that. However, we must always keep in mind why we do, which is what compelled me to write this article.