Well, no, Senator Schmitt. Abrego Garcia once was a resident of El Salvador and probably should have remained so. However, he did not, and is not.
According to various documents (described
here):
Kilmar Abrego Garcia's family was being terrorized by a violent Salvadoran gang, Barrio 18, and family first sent Kilmar's brother Cesar, then Kilmar himself, to the USA. Kilmar was approximately 16 years old and entered the country illegally.
Cesar, now a US citizen, was living in Maryland and Kilmar eventually joined him there. The latter worked in the construction industry and moved in with his then-girlfriend Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who was caring for two special-needs children. Though a pregnancy would be at high-risk, Jennifer became pregnant and a son was born deaf in one ear, autistic, and intellectually disabled.
On March 28, 2019, Garcia joined three young men, whom he did not know, at Home Deport to look for a job. Officers from the Prince George's County Police Department arrested the four.
Garcia was taken to jail. Though under pressure to say he was a gang member and offered release if cooperative, Garcia denied being a gang member, after which he was picked up Immigration Control and Enforcement, which
took Abrego Garcia into federal immigration detention.
The next day, ICE brought removal proceedings against him. The sole charge was
under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i), which provides that “[a]n alien present in
the United States without being admitted or paroled, or who arrives in the
United States at any time or place other than as designated by the Attorney
General, is inadmissible.”
On April 24, 2019—after nearly a month in custody—Abrego
Garcia was taken to his removal hearing before Immigration Judge Elizabeth A.
Kessler. His then-attorney, (Himedes) Chicas, applied for his release on bail. ICE
opposed the application, arguing that Abrego Garcia presented a danger to the
community because local police had identified him as a “verified” active gang
member....
The allegation appears to stem from two documents that were
introduced before Judge Kessler: a federal I-213 form (Record of
Deportable/Inadmissible Alien), filled out by ICE, and a form generated by the
Prince George’s Police Department, called a Gang Field Interview Sheet (GFIS).
The latter had been entered into the Prince George’s Police Department database
at 6:47 p.m. on March 28, 2019—about four hours after police met Abrego Garcia
for the first time—according to Abrego Garcia’s recent complaint.
The government has not introduced either the I-213 or GFIS
form in its defense of Abrego Garcia’s recent legal proceedings. The
descriptions of those documents provided here are based on characterizations of
them provided by Kessler in her ruling and Abrego Garcia’s current attorney in
his complaint.
Apparently relying on the assertions of the I-213 form,
which, in turn, apparently relied on the assertions of the GFIS, Kessler wrote:
“The Respondent was arrested in the company of other ranking gang members and
was confirmed to be a ranking member of the MS-13 gang by a proven and reliable
source.”
But Kessler—even while crediting the government’s claim of
gang membership—acknowledged that the two documents were, in at least one
respect, glaringly “at odds” with one another. The federal I-213 form claimed
that Abrego Garcia had been detained “in connection with a murder
investigation,” while the GFIS form said he and the others had been arrested
because they were “loitering outside of a Home Depot,” as Kessler wrote.
Kessler found that both documents were admissible in
immigration court, notwithstanding the objection of Abrego Garcia’s
then-attorney, Chicas, who protested that he’d not been permitted to
cross-examine the detective whose accusations seemed to underlie both.
Kessler then went on to find that Abrego Garcia had failed
to meet his burden of showing that his release “would not pose a danger to
others.” This was so, she wrote, because she found ICE’s accusation about his
gang membership “trustworthy.”
So the uncross-examined detective’s accusation came from an
unidentified informant who was also, perforce, uncross-examined—a second layer
of hearsay.
Now, for the interesting part: Garcia's attorney finds out that the Prince George's P.D. submitted no incident report for the arrest, the Hyattsville P.D. (which had checked out the four guys outside of Home Deport before the county P.D. swooped in) mentioned only the other three men arrested, and the detective who wrote up the GFIS sheet had been suspended. (This was for an unrelated matter, for which he ended up being fired.) The lawyer was denied an opportunity to speak to other officers in the Gang Unit.
Abrego Garcia remained incarcerated at the Howard Detention Center in Jessup, Maryland, where in June of 2019 he and Jennifer got married through a pane of glass. Further
By that time, Abrego Garcia had applied for asylum and
similar forms of relief in an attempt to prevent his return to El Salvador,
where he feared persecution by Barrio 18. (The attorney who filed that
application, Lucia Curiel, did not return calls.) Although the asylum claim
proved to be time-barred—aliens are required to bring such claims within a year
of entering the country—in October 2019 Judge Jones did grant his request for
“withholding of removal” based on his “well-founded” fear of persecution by Barrio
18. The government did not appeal, so Jones’s ruling is now final.
Shortly after he won “withholding of removal” status, Abrego
Garcia was released to return home. Evidently, no one saw him as presenting any
danger to the community anymore.
Since then, once a year, Abrego Garcia has “checked in” with
immigration officials. This is the standard procedure required of individuals
with his status—removable, but with removal “withheld” from their country of
origin. Abrego Garcia’s last routine check-in occurred on Jan. 2 of this year,
without incident.
Aside from recent court proceedings, the chronology would be incomplete without nearly-irrelevant information which has come to light. In May of 2021, Vasquez Sura obtained from court a protective order, sometimes known as a temporary restraining order, against Abrego for an alleged incident of domestic violence, which probably was not isolated. However, for what it's worth, the purported victim responded
After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a protective order in case things escalated. We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.
A good lawyer, in the role of a public relations adviser, can be worth his or her weight in gold. There are, however, at least three things, none of which both the left and the right will fully acknowledge, each for its own ideological leanings and political slant:
1) Abrego-Garcia never should have entered the country and would not have but for that storied "broken immigration system;
2) Jennifer should not have gotten pregnant with what/who became her third child as she should have, and probably did, know;
3) Jennifer's boyfriend-turned-husband, now probably a victim of what clearly is a vicious regime in Washington and San Salvador, is likely what is traditionally referred to in the field (pardon the technical term) as a "dirtbag."
And none of this matters. Abrego-Garcia came in illegally- as an illegal immigrant (or "undocumented," as in the ridiculous euphemism)- but has been here legally, thus legitimately, as a result of a judge's ruling in 2019. That represents a breakdown of common sense, a matter not debated in the court of public opinion and, further, an unresolved issue.
Until and unless a court rules otherwise, Kilmar Obrego-Garcia should be returned to the USA, though he won't be because the Donald Trump Administration is a lawless regime with no respect for constitutional norms, and which may want to force a confrontation with the federal judiciary.
That is a serious problem, and probably a "constitutional crisis," a term which has lost its relevance while democratic governance is torn apart piece by piece almost daily. Yet, there is an even greater issue than one man being tormented and persecuted in one of the world's most notorious prisons, sent there by a government eager to have its own problems dealt with by another nation. As noted by NPR, while speaking to the El Salvador dictator on April 14
"The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You've got to
build about five more places," Trump said to Bukele, an apparent reference
to prison space that would be needed in El Salvador to house U.S. citizens.
El Salvador is already holding hundreds of people in a
maximum-security prison. They were flown from the U.S. in recent weeks after
being detained for allegedly lacking legal status or having gang affiliations....
David Bier of the right-wing libertarian think tank Cato Institute recognizes
It's obviously unconstitutional, obviously illegal. There's no authority in any U.S. law to deport U.S. citizens and certainly not to imprison them in a foreign country The problem of course is (Trump) already has illegally deported hundreds of people by just not giving the courts an opportunity to stop him. I think that's the real fear now, that he is going to try to evade judicial review of deportations of U.S. citizens.
So the issue is larger than Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, and much larger. The larger issue is reflected in the words written by Sammy Johns and sung by Waylon Jennings roughly a half-century ago (disregard the then-acceptable way of referring to minorities and my references to the song): "and the red man is right; to expect a little from you, promise and then follow through. America."
Promise and then follow through. Follow a previous promise to an group or an individual unless superseded by the judicial branch, pre-Trump a co-equal branch of government.
And the much larger issue, as famously, enduringly expressed by Pastor Martin Niemoller- "First they came for the socialists...." You know the rest. Eventually, the plan is, not only "homegrown" criminals, but eventually protestors and others. Trump doesn't want five more prisons built for El Salvador's drug addicts, thieves, or perpetrators of domestic violence.
It's this one resident, non-citizen now, and the country won't fall apart, no matter what happens to him. However, he is only a precursor. And it's a very bad sign when many of the actions of co-President Trump remind us that "first, they came for."
