The Trump administration is standing by its deportation of an illegal migrant from El Salvador, alleging that the individual is a member of the “brutal” MS-13 gang and is believed to be involved in human trafficking.
In a Monday court filing, the Trump administration acknowledged that Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who unlawfully entered the United States, was recently removed from the country due to an administrative error. However, a top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official argued that Garcia should be kept in law enforcement custody — regardless of whatever country that may be.
“The individual in question is a member of the brutal MS-13 gang — we have intelligence reports that he is involved in human trafficking,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Whether he is in El Salvador or a detention facility in the U.S., he should be locked up,” McLaughlin continued.
The statement follows Garcia’s transfer in March to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum security mega-prison in El Salvador that was built to hold documented MS-13 gangbangers and other members of notorious crime syndicates. His placement into the famous prison has sparked outrage from Democrats and other critics of the Trump administration.
Garcia claims he left his home country of El Salvador to escape gang violence and unlawfully crossed into the U.S. around 2011, according to court documents submitted by his attorney. He eventually made his way to Maryland and began a relationship with his now-wife, Vasquez Sura, who is an American citizen.
Allegations of Garcia’s connection to organized crime began in March 2019 when officers from Prince George’s County Police Department arrested him and several other individuals while they were soliciting work near a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, according to court filings. While detained at the police station, Garcia denied accusations by authorities that he was affiliated with any gang.
However, after Garcia was transferred into ICE custody and was undergoing removal proceedings, the agency presented documentation compiled by the Prince George’s County Police Department that ostensibly verified his gang affiliation. A confidential informant additionally advised that he was a documented member of MS-13, a transnational criminal organization tied to Salvadoran nationals.
By June 2019, Garcia married Sura while he remained in detention, according to court documents. In October of that same year, he was granted a protected status known as “withholding of removal” after an immigration judge agreed with his contention that he would likely be persecuted by gangs if deported back to El Salvador.
Withholding of removal is similar to asylum, but comes with fewer benefits, according to the American Immigration Counsel. Like asylum, an individual granted withholding of removal is protected from repatriation to their home country and is able to remain and work in the U.S., but the U.S. government is still permitted to remove that individual to a different country if their government agrees to take them in.
Garcia was released from custody promptly after receiving withholding of removal, where he returned to his wife and child and continued to live in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Circumstances changed after President Donald Trump re-entered the White House in January, prompting significant policy changes for nationwide immigration enforcement.
Following through on campaign promises, the Trump administration has heavily focused on detaining and deporting criminal illegal migrants across the country. Border czar Tom Homan, who is spearheading the administration’s deportation efforts, said he would be focusing on the “worst first,” a policy that prioritizes the removal of criminal illegal migrants and other foreign gangbangers.
Federal immigration officials have arrested more than 30,000 illegal migrants since Trump returned to office. The White House additionally secured a deal with El Salvador, agreeing to pay the tiny Central American country a sum of money in exchange for housing heinous criminal migrants deported from the U.S. into its enormous prison facility.
The administration has since deported a growing number of illegal migrants to CECOT, including alleged MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangbangers. Garcia is now among those CECOT transfers.
On March 12, ICE officers pulled Garcia over after he completed a work shift in the Baltimore area, informed him that his status had changed and took him into custody, according to court documents. His counsel believes he was transferred to several different detention centers across the country before Garcia informed his wife over the phone on March 15 that he was being sent to CECOT. His wife later recognized him in a photo of several inmates taken into custody at the Salvadoran mega-prison.
Garcia was one of the 261 illegal migrant Salvadorans and Venezuelans sent to CECOT on March 15. His counsel accused the Trump administration of hastily deporting him and others that day “because they believed that going through the immigration judge process took too long.”
In a subsequent court filing, the Trump administration acknowledged that it was aware of Garcia’s removal protection and blamed his deportation on an “administrative error.” However, the White House is also making no apology for his deportation, standing by investigative assessments that he is an MS-13 gang member.
“The administration maintains the position that this individual, who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country, was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “Fact number two, we also have credible evidence that this individual was involved in human trafficking.”
“And fact number three, this individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang, which this president has designated as a foreign terrorist organization,” Leavitt continued. She added that foreign terrorists do not have legal protections anymore and said it was well within the president’s authority to deport these “heinous” individuals.
In court documents, counsel for the administration noted that Garcia is prohibited from disputing that he is a danger to the community due to his MS-13 membership, a factual finding that was established in his bond proceedings. He attempted to appeal this finding before the Board of Appeals, but the body deemed it “not clearly erroneous.”
“Here, Abrego Garcia cannot now relitigate the finding that he is a danger to the community,” the administration argued in its court filing. “That issue was actually litigated and decided in his bond hearing in 2019.”
“Finally, Abrego Garcia had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue,” the administration continued. “He had the opportunity to give evidence tending to show he was not part of MS-13, which he did not proffer.”
The administration has further argued that, with Garcia out of U.S custody and residing in a foreign country, the court lacks jurisdiction to order his return.
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