The country’s most infamous illegal migrant could walk free due to an immigration judge’s failure six years ago to take a crucial step in a court ruling.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 gangbanger previously accused of repeated domestic abuse, is fighting deportation to Africa and criminal accusations that he participated in a years-long scheme to smuggle other illegal migrants into the country. However, the judge presiding over his deportation case reportedly argued that a 2019 ruling barring his repatriation to El Salvador failed to explicitly order him deported.
“There is no order of removal in the docket, in the record,” United States District Judge Paula Xinis stated during a Thursday hearing, according to Politico. “You can’t fake it ’til you make it. You got to have it.”
“You have to have the order,” Xinis continued. “It’s got to be an order memorialized somewhere and I don’t have it.”
Xinis’ comments were in reference to a 15-page order handed down by Baltimore Immigration Judge David Jones in October 2019. Jones at the time granted Abrego Garcia a withholding of removal order — which barred his repatriation to El Salvador due to his claims that he would likely face gang-related persecution if returned — but Jones did not specify where the illegal migrant was to be removed or that he even needed to leave the country.
Jones’ order pertained to the first time Abrego Garcia was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after local police in Maryland arrested him outside a Home Depot in 2019 and suspected he was an MS-13 gang member. The Salvadoran national lost his bid for asylum at the time, but Jones granted him a withholding of removal order after he claimed gang members were targeting his family’s pupusa business.
The distinction could prove crucial as the Trump administration currently attempts to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia while his attorneys argue he should either be sent to Costa Rica or allowed to remain in the U.S. Abrego Garcia has so far claimed fear of deportation to more than 20 different countries.
“It’s critically important,” Andrew Rossman, Abrego Garcia’s attorney, said to Xinis, according to Politico. “I think the entire structure the government has built crumbles if there is no final order of removal.”
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign, however, chalked the missing order to a simple technicality, stating that Abrego Garcia’s deportation order was implicit in the immigration judge’s finding that he could not be sent back to El Salvador specifically.
The Trump administration is simultaneously moving forward with human smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia in a Tennessee court room.
Federal prosecutors, who have publicly accused Abrego Garcia of making more than 100 trips smuggling migrants and drugs across the country, recently declared that they will be bringing forward a mountain of evidence for their case, such as the Salvadoran national allegedly making over 500 calls to co-conspirators during the smuggling operation and explicit images Abrego Garcia allegedly shared with a 15-year-old minor with whom he also encouraged to take part in the operation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
