Illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 12 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Allegedly a member of MS-13, he was deported to El Salvador and has resided in El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center for
Abrego Garcia’s case has become a cause célèbre on the Left, where Democrats and their open borders allies have peddled the story that he was “mistakenly deported.”
The Leftist narrative about the poor oppressed illegal alien goes like this: Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a 29-year-old father of two from Maryland who had lived in the United States since 2005. He had no criminal convictions and was appealing a removal order when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported him on April 4.
Now, here’s the back story based on reporting by Ben Finley for the Associated Press, Abrego Garcia came to the United States illegally in 2005. In 2019, he went to a Home Depot looking for work when he was arrested by county police, according to court filings. Detectives asked if he was a gang member. After explaining he wasn’t, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Abrego Garcia later told an immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released. His then-girlfriend was five months into a high-risk pregnancy.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, alleged that he was a certified gang member based on information that came from a confidential informant used by county police, records state.
According to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his current case, the criminal informant had alleged that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he has never lived.
The information was enough for an immigration judge in 2019 to keep Abrego Garcia in jail as his immigration case continued, court records state. The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership and rank.
Abrego Garcia later married his girlfriend while still in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was in jail.
In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released, and ICE did not appeal.
So, bottom line: Abrego Garcia came to the United States illegally and is an alleged gang member who has had a hearing and has been ordered deported. The information regarding his gang affiliation has been accepted in a finding of fact by an immigration judge.
The narrative that he was “mistakenly deported” reached the height of absurdity when United States District Court Judge for Maryland Paula Xinis issued an order requiring his return from El Salvador. Xinis’s order was later largely overturned by the United States Supreme Court which said the most a court could ever compel the Executive Branch to do would be to “facilitate” his return, which would be a voluntary act on the part of the government of El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia is the subject of a valid deportation order. If there was a “mistake” in his deportation it was deporting him before his appeals had been exhausted, not that he was deported even though he was legitimately in the United States.
Yet the Left continues to push the narrative that he was “mistakenly deported.” So, what would happen if Abrego Garcia were returned to the United States?
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller explained, “We would put him back into ICE detention and then he would be deported either back to El Salvador or somewhere else.”
“In 2019, he was ordered deported. He is a final removal order from the United States. These are things that no one disputes. Where is he from? El Salvador. Where is he a resident and citizen of? El Salvador. Is he here illegally? Yes. Does he have a deportation order? Yes.”
What’s more, noted Mr. Miller, “A DOJ lawyer who has since been relieved of duty, a saboteur, a Democrat, put into a filing incorrectly that this was a mistaken and removal. It was NOT! This was the right person sent to the right place.”
“Now some have said, well, but he had a thing called a ‘withholding order.’ A withholding order means you’ve been ordered deported, but an immigration judge is saying you cannot go back to a particular country. Here’s the thing: if you are a member of a foreign terrorist organization, you cannot have a withholding order.”
“Since he’s in MS-13, there is no withholding order. Furthermore, that gang he is accused of being persecuted by doesn’t exist anymore in El Salvador! The 18th Street gang is GONE.”
“So you have an illegal alien from El Salvador where are we supposed to send the illegal alien from El Salvador? To what country?”
Mr. Miller wrapped up his rebuttal of the “mistaken deportation” narrative by saying, “…not only am I convinced of it, not only is El Salvador convinced of it… he’s an illegal alien from El Salvador with a deportation order! So, his only options in life… his only options in life are to be deported to El Salvador or to be deported to some other country. That’s IT.”
Confirming Stephen Miller’s point that the government of El Salvador is convinced of Abrego Garcia’s gang affiliation Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on April 14 that he will not be returned to the United States.
“You’re suggesting I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele told reporters during the Oval Office meeting. “I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”
Can the lawfare against President Trump’s immigration policies get any more absurd than a Leftist federal judge demanding an illegal alien terrorist be returned from his home country – where he is being held as a terrorist – so that he can have a hearing to ratify the existing deportation order to which he is subject, after which we will then send him back to El Salvador?
