ICE has deported a father who is legally protected from deportation by court order to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison. Apparently ICE does not give a shit about court orders.
File under the “No Shit” heading, obviously. I warned about this when they came for Mahmoud Khalil, and we saw it with the total lack of due process for people getting carted off to El Salvador without any semblance of due process. ICE’s attitude has been “trust me, bro” when it comes to their vetting of who gets sent to CECOT.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a refugee from El Salvador, owing to the fact that he and his family were under threat by Salvadorean gangs. He came to the United States in 2011 due to threats of murder, kidnapping and torture against him and his family. This was part of an extortion attempt by the gangs in question. After his asylum hearings, he was granted a status of “withholding of removal”, preventing deportation.
He was also accused in of being a member of MS-13 in 2019. He was picked up in a Home Depot parking lot while looking for work, and was identified as an MS-13 member by virtue of having tattoos and an accusation by an unnamed source; he was found by the judge to not be a member of MS-13, and his withholding of removal status maintained. This finding was due to the accusation having no proof, with even the police saying they did not believe the accuser and did not believe Abrego-Garcia was a gang member.
JD Vance has claimed Abrego Garcia is a “convicted gang member.” No. There was no conviction, only an accusation. JD Vance is a fucking liar. To state it a second time, Abrego Garcia’s withholding of removal was maintained, and no conviction occurred.
Yet nonetheless, Abrego Garcia was deported to CECOT. ICE personnel stopped his car after picking up his son on March 12, saying his status had changed.
The White House and ICE know they fucked this up. They have stated so. This was all a “administrative error”. Hell of a administrative error to deport a pan to a megaprison for an indeterminate sentence. “Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the government told the court.
It is the contention of the Trump administration that they are powerless to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. They definition have no interest in pursuing his return, based on their inaction and diffidence to his situation. They have offered two excuses for their inaction.
One reason is that they say they have no authority over El Salvadorian imprisonments. While technically true, when has that ever stopped the United States from demanding prisoner releases in the past?
The second reason is that Trump’s “primacy in foreign affairs” outweighs the interests of Abrego Garcia and his family. Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, had some choice words about that.
If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless – all of them – because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”
The will eventually come for your neighbors, your friends, even you, if we allow this kind of thing to continue.