President Donald Trump has been sending undocumented immigrants to a mega prison in El Salvador without due process. Most of these deportees have no criminal record, yet our government has condemned them to indefinite incarceration in an infamously inhumane penitentiary.

In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration admits that its deportation order was unlawful. In 2019, a court had ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be sent to El Salvador, as he had a credible fear of being persecuted in that country. The White House attributed his deportation to an “administrative error.”

The Supreme Court has ordered Trump to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, but the White House refuses to comply and has publicly vowed that Abrego Garcia is “never coming back.”

Some Democrats believe that their party must call attention to this lawless cruelty. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and four progressive House members have traveled to El Salvador in recent days to check on Abrego Garcia’s condition and advocate for his due process rights.

But other Democrats fear their party is walking into a political trap. After all, voters are souring on Trump’s handling of trade and the economy, but still approve of his handling of immigration. Some Democratic strategists therefore think that Van Hollen and other progressive advocates for Abrego Garcia are doing the president a favor: By focusing on the plight of an undocumented immigrant — instead of the struggles of countless Americans suffering from Trump’s tariffs — they have increased the salience of his best issue and reinforced the narrative that Democrats care more about foreigners than about the American middle class.

This story was first featured in The Rebuild.

Sign up here for more stories on the lessons liberals should take away from their election defeat — and a closer look at where they should go next. From senior correspondent Eric Levitz.

As one strategist told CNN, “The impulse among lots of Democrats is to always crank the volume up to 11 and take advantage of whatever the easiest, most obvious photo opportunity is. In this case, you get a situation where you’re giving the White House and the Republicans a lot of images and visuals that they think are compelling for them.”

Some progressives have declared this argument morally bankrupt. But I don’t think that’s right. Democrats have a moral responsibility to defend both America’s constitutional order and its most vulnerable residents. It does not follow, however, that they have a moral duty to hold press events about Abrego Garcia’s case — even if such photo ops do nothing to abet his liberation, while doing much to boost Trump’s political standing.

In my view, the argument that Democrats are doing more harm than good by taking a high-profile stand in favor of due process is not immoral, but simply mistaken. Van Hollen’s trip has plausibly benefited US residents unlawfully detained in El Salvador. And the political costs of such dissent are likely negligible, so long as Democrats keep their messaging about immigration disciplined and eventually shift their rhetorical focus to Trump’s economic mismanagement.

The case for Democrats to dodge a high-profile........

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