‘Smug’ Jesse Singal and ‘Idiotic’ JD Vance Spar Over Deportation of ‘Maryland Man’ – Twitchy

We’ve heard a lot about “wrongly deported Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Wednesday. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen shot video of himself flying to El Salvador to bring back his “constituent,” or at least speak with Garcia and check on his well-being. Van Hollen said the incident was “Exhibit A of a bully [President Donald Trump] picking on the most vulnerable.” According to Axios, Sen. Cory Booker is considering leading a trip to El Salvador to demand that the accused MS-13 gang member be released back to the United States.

Jesse Singal, who is no conservative but has angered the Left with his pieces on conservatism, opposes the deportation and even got into a spat on X with Vice President J.D. Vance. Zaid Jilani also entered the chat, which began on Tuesday.

Vance posted:

Consider that Joe Biden allowed approximately 20 million illegal aliens into our country. This placed extraordinary burdens on our country–our schools, hospitals, housing, and other essential services were overwhelmed. On top of that, many of these illegal aliens committed…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) April 16, 2025

… violent crimes, or facilitated fentanyl and sex trafficking. That is the situation we inherited.

The American people elected the Trump administration to solve this problem. The President has successfully stopped the inflow of illegal aliens, and now we must deport the people who came here illegally. 

To say the administration must observe “due process” is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors. To put it in concrete terms, imposing the death penalty on an American citizen requires more legal process than deporting an illegal alien to their country of origin.

When the media and the far left obsess over an MS-13 gang member and demand that he be returned to the United States for a *third* deportation hearing, what they’re really saying is they want the vast majority of illegal aliens to stay here permanently. 

Here’s a useful test: ask the people weeping over the lack of due process what precisely they propose for dealing with Biden’s millions and millions of illegals. And with reasonable resource and administrative judge constraints, does their solution allow us to deport at least a few million people per year?

If the answer is no, they’ve given their game away. They don’t want border security. They don’t want us to deport the people who’ve come into our country illegally. They want to accomplish through a fake legal process what they failed to accomplish politically: 

The ratification of Biden’s illegal migrant invasion. 

President Trump and I will not stand for it.

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JD, if someone’s really a bad hombre you can give them a trial and prove it. Saying you don’t have to prove it means you’re OK with deporting innocent people. Treating people like throwaways is no different than the elites in this country did to your own family over generations.

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) April 16, 2025

Again, you’re not even addressing the issue. Biden overwhelmed the system with illegal migration. Is your proposed solution to give a jury trial to all 20 million illegal aliens (more if you count those already here)?

And of course, our very robust jury trial system produces…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) April 16, 2025

… errors. So I’m not “OK with deporting innocent people” any more than I’m “OK with sentencing innocent people.” What I am OK with is the reality that any human system will produce errors. Further, I accept the actual tradeoff: between not enforcing the law and enforcing the law. And I choose the latter despite the inevitable errors.

You are hiding behind “due process” while ignoring that your actual solution means the ratification of a Biden border crisis that was rejected at the ballot box.

That’s when Singal was tagged in.

Joining the Trump bandwagon means you either need to be dumb or pretend to be dumb. JD Vance might have mortgaged his morality and his legacy, but he’s not dumb. He doesn’t actually think anyone’s proposing 20 million trials. Rather, he knows he has very, very dumb supporters. https://t.co/M8PkhR4YPR

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 16, 2025

Vance resonded:

I hate this smug, self-assured bullshit.

“I know I’m right, and people must be dumb or immoral to disagree with me.”

It’s an easy way to go through life, because then you never have to think seriously about why your worldview is a justification for the mass invasion of the… https://t.co/b6ff7QYlyZ

— JD Vance (@JDVance) April 16, 2025

… country my ancestors built with their bare hands.

None of these people can articulate a deportation standard that:
1) would satisfy left-wing critics of the administration’s immigration policy;
2) would satisfy their intuitions about what “due process” is required;
3) would be workable given resource constraints; and
4) would…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) April 16, 2025

… permit deportation of most of the illegal immigrants allowed under Joe Biden’s administration. 

They want to nullify the results of a democratic election. It’s that simple.

1/ This is rank bullshit. JD and his colleagues have publicly accused a guy who is languishing in a Salvadorean torture-prison of being MS-13. They’ve presented no proof of this. JD could, NOW, work to end this obvious miscarriage of justice. Instead he’s mad I’m being ‘smug.’ https://t.co/E2Z8INY9xR

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 16, 2025

“Languishing.”

3/ This is idiotic. @JDVance‘s team signed some sort of secret agreement to pay a burgeoning autocrat to house our detainees in a black-hole torture prison. You can’t do that and then be like NOTHING WILL SATISFY YOU PEOPLE LIFE’S SO UNFAIRhttps://t.co/LXwf5Iia9N

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 16, 2025

Life is unfair. But an illegal immigrant was just deported to his home country, and we’re fine with that.

El Salvadoran in this country illegally gets sent to El Salvador.

Sounds good to me.

— NormieUtah (@NormieUtah) April 16, 2025

J D Vance owes you nothing

— Sinikill-One (@SinikillOne) April 16, 2025

An illegal has been sent to his country of origin. His home country. End of story.

— Korban Consulting (@KorbanKonsult) April 16, 2025

Jesse, I think the proof of MS-13 membership is that an immigration judge formerly ruled that he was a gang member.

Hope this helps!

— Eric Blair (@GOrwell2020) April 16, 2025

Calm down.

— Ferraris (@turningabout) April 16, 2025

For us, it’s nice to have an administration that is all on the same page. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and more have stood strong on this issue.

It’s also nice that an independent journalist can interact with the vice president like this and not be thrown in prison, which is what would happen if this were really the dictatorship they say it is.

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