Trump Admin Still Going After Kilmar Abrego Garcia [Op-Ed]

You gotta give it to the Trump administration, man, because once its officials find a person to target, they just can’t stop going at that person, no matter how many unsuccessful legal actions the administration attempts. Especially if said target is a non-white immigrant whom the administration has publicly tried its best to demonize; just ask Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Last year, Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian migrant, made headlines after he was wrongly deported to a detention center in El Salvador before finally being returned to the U.S., despite fierce opposition by the President Donald Trump and his administration of fellow xenophobic bigots, who then indicted Abrego Garcia on federal smuggling charges, which, in May, were thrown out by a lower court that found them to be vindictive in nature. Now, Trump’s DOJ is asking a federal appeals court to reinstate the charges, because, well — I mean, do Trump and his MAGA stooges ever really need a reason?

From CBS News:

In a filing Monday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, the Justice Department denied that the prosecution was vindictive, arguing it had “multiple legitimate bases to prosecute” Abrego Garcia.

“The decision to seek an indictment against Abrego Garcia for human smuggling was made by career prosecutors based on the evidence, the law, and their firm belief that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Abrego Garcia had committed the offenses charged,” the Justice Department said in a news release. 

The Justice Department argued that the court order from May “marks a dramatic expansion of the power of courts to dismiss serious criminal charges based on subjective assessments of a prosecutor’s motivations.” 

For the record, this is generally the same response the administration always gives when judges, including federal judges, rule against it. All the federal judges who blocked his National Guard deployments were “rogue judges” or “Democrat judges,” including the ones Trump appointed himself. When the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs, Trump accused the conservative justices of being “disloyal,” as if it’s their duty to answer to him. The same brand of allegations have been flung at judges who ruled the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics were out of control, the ones who ruled he can’t withhold federal funding allocated by Congress, and the many judges, including Supreme Court justices, who wouldn’t allow him to further victimize his rape victim, E. Jean Carroll.

As for Abrego Garcia, the administration’s latest attempt at criminalizing him comes after Trump and his white nationalist propagandists spent significant time trying to convince the world and the courts that he’s an MS-13 gang member.

Here’s what I wrote about that previously:

President Donald Trump and his administration violated a court order barring the removal of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador due to credible fears of gang persecution based on credible evidence that MS-13 gang members had already targeted him and his family. Instead of simply admitting their mistake, Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi have been on a campaign to portray Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 member himself. Trump even went as far as to present an image of the tattoos on Abrego Garcia’s fingers with the letters and numbers “M,” “S,” “1” and “3” photoshopped over each knuckle. (Trump, our “stable genius” of a president, didn’t seem to understand that the letters and numbers were, indeed, photoshopped.) Experts on gang membership have consistently reported that the tattoos on Abrego Garcia’s hand are largely unremarkable and that there is no evidence that they are gang-affiliated.

Nah, but seriously, y’all’s president is stupid stupid.

Anyway, in a statement to CBS, Abrego Garcia’s defense team said the DOJ is “flat-out wrong” and that it is lying when it says it’s persecuting their target is about the rule of law, not just plain, old, Trumpian vindictiveness.

“The indictment and prosecution of Abrego Garcia was, in fact, vindictive; the evidence before the district court established just that; and the proof was clear notwithstanding the DOJ’s refusal to call the actual decision makers, including AG [Todd] Blanche, to testify under oath,” the statement said. “This case was initiated vindictively and on instructions from the White House after our client successfully won his Supreme Court case.”

Aside from this case, Abrego Garcia is also involved in a separate federal court case in Maryland. That case involves the administration’s ongoing efforts to deport him to countries where he is not from. In fact, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have said the agency is seeking to deport him to Liberia, because, if they can’t send him back home, any foreign nation of non-white people will do, apparently. For now, that effort has also been blocked by a federal judge, according to CBS.

SEE ALSO:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia Says He Was Beaten, Tortured And Terrorized In El Salvadorian Prison

Kilmar Abrego Garcia Returned To Face Human Smuggling Charges

The Trump Administration Is Still Going After Kilmar Abrego Garcia [Op-Ed] was originally published on newsone.com