To hear officials in Donald Trump’s administration tell it, a Salvadoran father in Maryland they admitted was wrongfully deported to a brutal prison in his home country is “involved in human trafficking.”
But government lawyers have not raised any such claims in court, and the allegations appears to have first introduced publicly during a White House press conference.
Administration officials claim they have reviewed intelligence linking Kilmar Abrego Garcia with human and labor trafficking, which his attorneys and family have flatly denied.
Officials also have refused to share any of those reports or any other evidence supporting their claims.
“We’re not going to give out our national security documents every time a terrorist denies they are a terrorist,” Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News on April 15. “That would be insane.”
Asked for a snapshot of any such evidence, a Homeland Security spokesperson directed The Independent to McLaughlin’s comments to Fox News on April 4.
“The individual in question is a member of the brutal MS-13 gang,” she said. “We have intelligence reports that he is involved in human trafficking. Whether he is in El Salvador or a detention facility in the U.S., he will be locked up and off America’s streets. MS-13 gang members murder, rape, and maim for sport. It’s shameful that the mainstream media chooses to do the bidding of these vicious gangs while ignoring their victims.”
The only mention of trafficking allegations against Abrego Garcia in court documents comes from his own attorney, who notes that “although the White House has accused Plaintiff of involvement in human trafficking, [the government’s] court filing omits any such scandalous accusation.”
On April 15, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt labeled Abrego Garcia “a foreign terrorist” and an “MS-13 gang member” who “engaged in human trafficking.”
The allegation was first publicly raised by Leavitt herself, two weeks earlier.
On April 1, after government attorneys admitted Abrego Garcia’s removal was due to an “administrative error,” Leavitt justified the Trump administration’s refusal to get him back by alleging he was “involved in human trafficking” and a “leader” of MS-13.
“The error that you are referring to was based on a clerical error, it was an administrative error. 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,” she said.
“We also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking,” she added. “This individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang, which this president has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.”
Neither of those allegations were raised in court.
Nevertheless, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News on April 14 that Abrego Garcia has “trafficking in his background” and is a “very dangerous person.”
“The media would love for you to believe that this is a media darling, that he is just a Maryland father,” McLaughlin said on The Will Cain Show on Fox News that same day. “Osama Bin Laden was also a father, and yet, he was not a good guy, and they actually are both terrorists.”
“It is pretty crazy that you’re so worried about this gang member and not his victims,” McLaughlin told ABC News one day later.
“He’s a public safety threat, he’s a gang member, and he’s a designated terrorist,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told Fox News.
Leavitt also derided reporters at the White House for what she called “despicable” and “mind-boggling” coverage of the administration’s refusal to return him from a prison where he faces the prospect of indefinite detention.
“You would think we deported a candidate for father of the year,” she said.
Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal apprentice in Maryland, had just picked up his five-year-old autistic son from his grandmother’s house when he was stopped by federal agents. They then told his wife that she had 10 minutes to pick him up before he would be turned over to child protective services, according to court records.
He is also helping raise two other children from a previous relationship.
Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally when he was 16 years old, but in 2019, a judge granted a withholding order that prevents his removal from the country for humanitarian reasons. On March 15, he was put on a plane bound for El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, described by human rights groups as a “tropical gulag.”
The White House and government attorneys have repeatedly admitted that his removal was due to an “administrative error.” But the administration has refused to seek his return and instead are fighting in court to continue his imprisonment as a member of a “foreign terrorist organization,” which administration officials argue supersedes any court order against his removal.
Rather than try to right its admitted wrong, administration officials have described him, for the first time, as a “verified” and “ranking” “leader” of MS-13 — and thus a “foreign terrorist” the administration claims can be summarily deported.
The recently raised allegations appear to stem from his arrest in 2019 alongside three other immigrants outside a Home Depot.
Following his arrest, local police officers asked whether he was a gang member and for information about other gang members, according to court documents. He repeatedly explained “that he did not have any information to give because he did not know anything.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers then detained him and brought removal proceedings against him under the sole charge of an “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.”
After one month in custody, ICE claimed he was a “verified” active gang member, based on a local police report.
The officer who formally attested to Abrego Garcia’s alleged gang affiliations was suspended from the force shortly after he arrested him. He was accused of providing confidential information about an ongoing police investigation to a sex worker whom he paid for sex one year earlier.
ICE allegations at the time appear to come from two documents, one of which was based on information contained in the other. ICE’s “Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien” form contained information from a Prince George’s Police Department report. Neither documents were introduced in the administration’s latest attempts to remove him.
An immigration judge noted that the documents were at odds with one another – one stated they were in connection with a murder investigation, while the other said he was arrested for loitering outside of a Home Depot.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney at the time objected to the inclusion of the materials and sought to cross examine the detective whose accusations seemed to undercut the allegations. The immigration court judge ultimately determined the documents were “sufficient” to deny him bail.
But “the only reason to believe Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was a gang member was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique,” according to Abrego Garcia’s attorney.
The “Westerns” clique, however, operates in Brentwood, Long Island, in New York, where Abrego Garcia has never lived.
Denied bail, Abrego Garcia remained in detention and applied for asylum to prevent his removal to El Salvador, where he feared persecution by a gang that extorted and threatened him and his family.
A judge granted his “withholding of removal” request based on his “well-founded” fear of persecution. The government did not appeal.
He has since been required to regularly check in with ICE agents as a condition of his release. His most recent check in was in January, according to court documents.
