As soon as? Lulz. Good one. But that’s inaccurate. Cannabis has never been a drug exclusively or predominantly used by minorities. That claim was propaganda promoted by special interests advocating prohibition back in the 30’s. That included changing the spelling of marihuana to marijuana in order to create an association with those lazy Mexicans. It’s true that the penalties for use are more severe for black and brown people. But there’s no evidence that they’ve ever used more than white people.
Cannabis use became much more widespread in the 50’s and 60’s so even if accurate, the “as soon as” assertion would be laughable because decriminalization/legalization is a recent development. But the most severe prohibitive measures were enacted by Nixon who made it a Schedule I drug alongside heroin in 1970. That was in retaliation against protesters of the Vietnam War who were predominantly young and white. The aim was to associate pot use with the hippies and use it as a weapon against the antiwar movement. Heroin was associated with the black community and used as cover to investigate, arrest, and jail their leaders.
There is racism in our drug laws. The best example is probably the 100-to-1 disparity in the penalty for trafficking crack vs. powder cocaine where 5g of crack got you 5 years while it took 500g of powder cocaine to get the same sentence.
I think the outcome is already determined and the only question is whether they side 6-3 or 5-4 in favor of Trump. I hope I’m wrong but I’m feeling pretty cynical about this one.
And there’s the rub. I don’t see any reason to believe that his continued incarceration will be to due to anything other than Trump’s instruction. I don’t think the fact that he’s Salvadoran and not Venezuelan is really a factor at all.
Does Garcia have any criminal record in El Salvador? If not then why would they have any cause to keep him in prison if the U.S. stopped paying them to do so? Would they have any cause to prevent his return to his wife and kids if they released him?