Every day it becomes clearer that whether Kilmar Abrego García is guilty of human smuggling is irrelevant to the Department of Justice, which charged him with the crime. The case the DOJ set in motion has become just another obstacle for the feds to deport the Salvadoran man for the crime of embarrassing the Trump administration.
Whatever your politics, no person of good faith following this case would confuse it with justice.
Abrego García moved to the U.S. illegally in 2011 when he was a teen, reportedly to escape gangs. In 2019, he was apprehended at a Home Depot, where he was seeking day labor. A judge eventually ruled that he couldn’t be deported to his native El Salvador because of credible gang threats against his family.
Trump officials were aware of that order, but they nevertheless put Abrego García on a plane bound for El Salvador in March, along with dozens of other deportees shipped for incarceration in that country’s “terrorism confinement center.” The planes were flown to El Salvador in defiance of a judge’s order, but as to Abrego García, the feds admitted in court that he had been deported by mistake.
But instead of correcting that mistake, Trump officials dug in their heels. They argued that they were powerless to return Abrego García stateside, even though the Salvadoran president is an ally and agreed to hold deportees for pay.
Abrego García might still be in El Salvador’s notorious gang prison had he not become a symbol of the Trump administration’s overreach. As headlines about him persisted, federal officials brought the Salvadoran father back to the U.S. — after securing an indictment against him for smuggling.
As far as emblems go, Abrego García is a flawed one. He has consistently and adamantly denied gang affiliation, but he faced allegations of domestic violence from his wife, who later said the couple overcame their problems through counseling. According to news reports, a Tennessee state trooper pulled Abrego García over for speeding in 2022 and found he was driving eight passengers to Maryland, none of whom had luggage with them. This is the incident at the root of the federal human smuggling case against him.
If Abrego García really is a gang member or a smuggler, or both, let’s hear the evidence. Americans are better off prosecuting and punishing gang members here than they are deporting them to other countries where they might get away with their crimes. Abrego García turned down a guilty plea in exchange for being deported to Costa Rica, so now the Trump administration appears to want to strong-arm him by saying it will deport him to Uganda instead.
Abrego García, who had been released from federal custody while awaiting trial on the smuggling charges, was re-apprehended Monday during what was supposed to be a routine check-in with immigration authorities. A judge has temporarily blocked his deportation to Uganda.
It’s almost as if the Trump administration doesn’t want to go to court and do the hard work of proving its case. Its actions smack of vindictiveness, but justice and vengeance are not the same thing.
— The Dallas Morning News
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