Deportation: A Short-Term Fix With Long-Term Consequences

On March 28, a Salvadoran man named Jose Eduardo Moran-Garcia, all of 28 years old, stepped off a plane in El Salvador, escorted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Wanted for aggravated homicide, robbery, and a litany of other crimes, his removal from American soil was hailed as a triumph of justice by ICE’s Denver Field Office Director Robert Guadian. The operation, executed with military precision alongside El Salvadoran authorities, closed a chapter on a man who slipped into the United States undetected, only to be caught in Whittier, California, last October. To hear ICE tell it, this is a victory lap for law enforcement, a shining example of international cooperation.

But let’s pause and peel back the layers of this story, because it’s not the clean win it’s made out to be. Moran-Garcia’s deportation isn’t just a logistical feat; it’s a glaring symptom of a system that prioritizes punishment over prevention, that exports problems rather than solving them. For every fugitive sent back, we’re left to wonder: what happens next? The answer, rooted in decades of evidence, is a cycle of violence and instability that doesn’t end at our borders. It festers abroad, and we’re complicit in its spread.

This isn’t about coddling criminals. It’s about recognizing that shipping someone like Moran-Garcia back to El Salvador doesn’t erase the conditions that bred his crimes or the ripple effects of his return. As a nation, we’ve got to ask ourselves: are we truly safer, or are we just kicking the can down a blood-soaked road?

History offers a brutal lesson here. Back in the 1990s, the U.S. deported waves of gang members to El Salvador, many tied to groups like MS-13 and 18th Street. What followed wasn’t justice; it was chaos. Those deportees didn’t just vanish into the ether. They brought with them tactics honed on American streets, sparking a 40% surge in violence between 1985 and 2011, according to studies tracking crime in the region. Extortion doubled. Drug trafficking exploded. Local youth, desperate and disenfranchised, swelled the ranks of these gangs, creating a feedback loop of migration and bloodshed.

Fast forward to today, and Moran-Garcia’s return fits the same pattern. El Salvador, already buckling under the weight of poverty and weak governance, isn’t equipped to rehabilitate or contain someone with his rap sheet. Each homicide there drives two more children to flee northward every month, research shows, a statistic that ought to haunt anyone who thinks deportation is a tidy fix. We’re not solving crime; we’re outsourcing it, and the consequences boomerang back to our doorstep in the form of desperate families at the border.

Advocates for strict enforcement argue this keeps our communities secure, that removing dangerous individuals like Moran-Garcia protects American lives. Fair enough, no one wants a murderer next door. But that logic crumbles when you realize the threat doesn’t disappear; it metastasizes elsewhere, destabilizing entire regions. The Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement taskforce might pat itself on the back, but their success is a hollow one if it fuels the very crises driving migration in the first place.

International cooperation, like the kind praised in this operation, isn’t the problem. The European Union’s Arrest Warrant system proves extradition can work when it’s paired with human rights safeguards and judicial oversight. Germany and Sweden don’t just ship people off; they ensure the process doesn’t ignite powder kegs abroad. Our approach? It’s a blunt instrument, wielded with little regard for the fallout.

And let’s not kid ourselves about ICE’s capacity. With a workforce of just 20,800, stretched thin across sprawling mandates, the agency leans on task forces and quotas—75 arrests a day per field office—to keep the machine humming. That’s not strategy; it’s desperation. The result? A focus on high-profile wins like Moran-Garcia, while the root causes of crime and migration fester unchecked.

There’s a different path, one that doesn’t confuse vengeance with virtue. Imagine a system that invests in prevention—tackling the poverty and violence that push people like Moran-Garcia into crime long before they cross our borders. The UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, a framework we’ve signed onto, calls for exactly that: joint investigations, mutual assistance, and a focus on dismantling criminal networks at their source. Honduras, for instance, has deepened its extradition ties with the U.S., but it’s the accompanying efforts to curb drug trafficking that offer real hope.

Communities here get it. In South Florida, groups like the Florida Immigrant Coalition use Instagram to arm people with “Know Your Rights” tools, building resilience against enforcement overreach. That’s the kind of ingenuity we need—empowering people, not just punishing them. Deportation might feel good in the moment, but it’s a short-term flex that leaves long-term scars.

To those who say we can’t afford to care about what happens beyond our borders, consider this: the undocumented population ticked up to 11 million in 2022, fueled by crises we’ve helped worsen. Stricter border policies under Biden cut crossings by 94% since mid-2024, proving we can control our frontiers without turning a blind eye to the human cost. Why not pair that with a foreign policy that stabilizes, rather than destabilizes, our neighbors?

Jose Eduardo Moran-Garcia’s plane ride back to El Salvador wasn’t justice prevailing; it was justice deferred. We’ve washed our hands of him, sure, but at what price? A liberal vision of security doesn’t stop at expelling threats; it demands we confront the systems that create them. Anything less is a betrayal of the values we claim to uphold—compassion, fairness, and a belief in second chances.

The choice is ours. We can keep playing whack-a-mole with fugitives, or we can build a world where fewer people become fugitives in the first place. Moran-Garcia’s story isn’t the end. It’s a wake-up call. Let’s not hit snooze.