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The Trump administration is preparing to once again deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia as their push to criminally prosecute the man they wrongfully imprisoned in a Salvadoran human rights sinkhole flounders in court.
During a Thursday hearing in Maryland — Abrego Garcia’s state of residence — the Justice Department reportedly informed the court that once Abrego Garcia is released from federal custody on bail, as a judge recently ordered, they plan to have him arrested by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn said the government would then initiate the process of deporting Abrego Garcia to a third-party nation that is not El Salvador, his country of birth and where a judge previously barred his deportation over concerns for his safety.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that the Trump administration can deport people to places other than their country of origin — including Libya and South Sudan — with little notice. It’s unclear where they would attempt to send Abrego Garcia.
The Trump administration’s posturing that Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal, and that they only extracted him from El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison to make him answer for his crimes, was exactly what it seemed: a flimsy cover for the fact that he was deported illegally and in such an egregious manner that the Supreme Court ordered his return. It was a most malicious form of compliance, abusing a man and his family in service of political psychodrama.
The Justice Department’s accusations against Abrego Garica were filleted in court earlier this week, when U.S. Magistrate Barbara D. Holmes ordered his release on bail. In her written decision, Holmes laid bare that the government’s allegations against Abrego Garcia, namely that he was a criminal human smuggler affiliated with MS-13, were based on little more than hearsay from questionable witnesses, almost physically impossible scenarios, and inadmissible innuendo.
“The government cannot simply rely on the general reputation of a particular street gang to satisfy its burden,” Holmes wrote. “The government’s evidence that Abrego is a member of MS-13 consists of general statements, all double hearsay […] the government’s evidence of Abrego’s alleged gang membership is simply insufficient.”
Holmes acknowledged that even though the government failed to prove it had reasonable cause to detain Abgrego Garcia without bail over the course of his trial, he would likely be re-arrested almost immediately by ICE. His right to due process, however, was the “foundation of the administration of our criminal law depends on the bedrock of due process,” she wrote.
It seems that Holmes was mistaken on at least one point. The government apparently does not plan to have Abrego Garcia tried at all. Instead, Trump officials will move to disappear him to another country as soon as they can, before he has a chance to speak to the abuses leveled upon him at their hands.
