Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy on Monday explained how Attorney General Pam Bondi could legally legitimize the deportation of alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego García.
Despite an immigration judge ordering Abrego García deported in 2019, a second judge later issued a withholding of removal order, which barred his deportation to El Salvador and enabled him to work in the U.S. McCarthy, on “America’s Newsroom,” said Bondi has legal options to revisit that order and potentially reverse it by finding that it is now unwarranted due to circumstances changing in El Salvador. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GOP Launches Investigation Into Taxpayer-Funded Group Allegedly Caught Teaching How To Avoid ICE)
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“He is deportable. And it’s always been true that if they could find a third country to send him to, they could have sent him there,” McCarthy said. “And it’s also always been true — and I don’t understand what Attorney General Bondi is doing here, frankly — there’s a procedure in the law that allows the attorney general, even though this is six years ago, to reopen the withholding of removal order. She could make a finding that basically the conditions under which that order was imposed in 2019 have changed.”
Abrego García received the withholding of removal order to El Salvador based on concerns of persecution by Barrio 18, a rival gang to MS-13. The Trump administration acknowledged it had made an “administrative error” when deporting Abrego García to his home country of El Salvador.
“As I understand it, the gang that Abrego García claimed to be afraid of, that he would be persecuted by when he went back — that’s been smashed by the government there,” McCarthy added. “I could conceivably see her say, ‘We’ve looked at this again. We’re going to undo the withholding of removal order because the conditions have changed.’”
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has clamped down on Barrio 18 in his country, significantly diminishing its power, according to think tank InSight Crime. Bukele’s administration has imprisoned more than 10,000 of the gang’s alleged members, with others hiding out or departing the nation.
“And then if that were true, there is at least an argument that as long as he is not in custody over there, because he hasn’t been convicted of anything, there isn’t anything wrong with deporting him,” he continued. “But they have to follow these steps. That’s what the process is.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed to the Daily Caller Thursday that Abrego García was stopped in Tennessee in December 2022 on suspicion of human trafficking after being found to be transporting eight passengers across the country, as previously reported by the Tennessee Star. He allegedly did not hold a valid driver’s license, but was let go at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the outlet.
Moreover, four Democrats landed Monday in El Salvador to demand the return of Abrego García, who is also accused of abusing his wife.
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