Trump admin accidentally sent Maryland father to Salvadorian mega-prison and says it can’t get him back

29 comments

1. > The Trump administration accidentally sent a Salvadorian immigrant to a notorious Salvadorian prison and says it can’t do anything to get him back.

   > That’s even though the man had protected immigration status in the U.S., specifically barring him from being sent back to that country for fear of persecution.

   > On Monday, in a filing in Maryland federal court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) admitted to mistakenly sending Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador’s notoriously brutal CECOT prison.

   > “On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the government wrote.

   > The admission came in a suit from Abrego Garcia’s family, who is seeking court orders barring the U.S. from paying El Salvador for the man’s detention and demanding that the federal government request the country return him to the United States.

   > The Trump administration argues that because the man is no longer in U.S. custody, a U.S. court lacks jurisdiction to issue orders regarding his detention and release.

   > Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without inspection sometime around 2011 from El Salvador and settled in Maryland, fleeing from gangs in his home country who allegedly stalked, assaulted, and threatened to kill and kidnap him as part of extortion efforts, according to court documents.

   > In 2019, he was given a notice to appear in removal proceedings, where ICE accused him of being a member of the Salvadorian criminal gang MS-13.

   > His attorneys maintain he has no criminal record, ties to the gang, or relation to any criminal group. They claim the accusation rests on a flimsy gang arrest when he was targeted by police for little more than wearing Chicago Bulls-branded clothing while seeking work outside a Home Depot. (ICE maintains that a confidential informant told the agency the man was a member of MS-13.)

   > During the removal proceedings, Abrego Garcia applied for asylum and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and a judge granted him withholding from removal. The government did not appeal the decision.

   > The Maryland man, a union sheet metal working apprentice and father to a 5-year-old, remained in the U.S. and continued regular mandated check-ins with ICE, according to court documents, appearing most recently in January.

   > “Instead, the government put Mr. Abrego Garcia on a plane to El Salvador, seemingly without any pretense of a legal basis whatsoever,” his attorneys wrote in their suit, filed on Friday. “Once in El Salvador, that country’s government immediately placed Mr. Abrego Garcia into a torture center — one that the U.S. government is reportedly paying the government of El Salvador to operate. This grotesque display of power without law is abhorrent to our entire system of justice, and must not be allowed to stand.”

2. The government’s argument isn’t that it *can’t* get him back, simply that they don’t want to, and that a court can’t force them to.

3. Nazis will continue to say that they’re doing the Lord’s work.

4. > “Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,”

   > U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.

   No, this can’t be brushed off as a mere mistake or “error” because for one, it can be better described as a tragic fucking failure and human rights violation, and two, It’s not a mistake when plenty of others like this man are being deliberately targeted in the same manner

   You sent an innocent person to one of the most dangerous prisons in the world, and he’s not the only one.

   This is what happens when you ignore judges, wipe your ass with the constitution, and assert your unilateral executive authority over other branches of government.

   This is part of a growing *pattern* of cruel and unlawful actions committed by the Trump administration.

   The ethical, legal and moral implications are not even dubious at best.

   We’re talking about mass deportation raids rounding up and arresting thousands of supposed immigrants, some of whom include veterans, U.S. citizens and hardworking, taxpaying individuals.

   Yes, there are even cases where citizens are being arrested and detained, Including one such incident involving a ten year old with brain cancer.

   While this incident with the Maryland man is not isolated either. The Trump administration is knowingly targeting immigrants who are in the U.S. *legally.*

   They’re violating civil rights, ignoring due process, destabilizing communities, harming local economies, spending tens of millions on shipping immigrants in and out of Guantanamo bay, including people with no criminal records. Don’t forget how some of these same facilities were once used to harbor members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups

   While many of these detention centers—even in the US—are lacking in things like basic amenities.

   And whether you want to believe it or not, under the U.S. constitution, even immigrants in the U.S. are afforded due process. How the hell else are you going to prove that these people are the criminals you make them out to be?

   And of course there’s Trump’s new partnership with a ruthless dictator in El Salvador, where immigrants who are often wrongfully detained or misidentified are being sent away be locked up inside of one of the most treacherous and violent places on earth without that assurance of due process.

   And despite this, when U.S. judges push back against these unconstitutional measures, Trump responds by asserting his unitary executive powers while him and his supporters attack all critics and label them as terrorist or gang sympathizers.

   Which calls our attention to the whole “Venezuelan gang members” fiasco.

   ICE agents, whether deliberately or not, are misidentifying tattoos as gang related, even looking for certain clothing to single out so-called gang members and immigrants.

   Here are just a few examples.

   – Immigration officials have tried to identify people wearing Chicago Bulls jerseys as immigrants or gang members. Some have been detained and face deportation despite any confirmation that they are, in fact, gang members.

   – Venezuelan immigrants deported to El Salvador were given no due process. And even though they were deemed criminals and gang members from the onset without the chance to prove otherwise, the government has used non-gang affiliated tattoos as evidence for their detainment and deportation.

   – An actual tattoo *artist* from Venezuela, who entered the U.S. legally mind you, was deported because his tattoos were misidentified.

   – A *teenager* from Dallas was deported after immigration officials labeled his tattoo as gang related, even though he is not associated with a gang, and neither was his tattoo. He only elected to get the tattoo because he thought it “looked cool.”

   – An LGBTQ asylum seeker was also detained and deported because immigration officials misidentified his tattoos as gang related. The tattoos had no gang affiliations.

   – The ACLU obtained a list from ICE of tattoos and clothing that immigration officers have been using to falsely identify gang members. The list includes tattoos that are *not* gang related, but were still used as grounds for deportation.

   – Friends, family and even legal representatives have provided sworn declarations that state how many of these targeted and deported individuals have no ties to gangs and have been falsely identified based on their tattoos.

   There are also many more examples of The Trump administration detaining or deporting immigrants who are in the U.S *legally*. So much for only going after the “criminals.”

   These cases include—but are not limited to—visa holders, green card holders, immigrants married to U.S. citizens, immigrants who have lived in the U.S for decades and foreign students.

   And yes, there are several cases where U.S. citizens have been wrongfully detained under the Trump administration. Some cases include native Americans, one case even involved a Trump supporter, and another included that ten year old girl with brain cancer who was detained and eventually deported with her undocumented family members despite her citizenship.

   For a lot of these people, the trauma doesn’t stop and end with their detainment or deportation.

   Many of them are deported to dangerous conditions, violent prisons, or unstable countries with high rates of crime and violence. Many are separated from their families, some have even lost their legal status, their rights, their access to the asylum seeking process, and/or their access to all other avenues for staying in the U.S.

   Not to mention that while these people are detained, they’re often held in detention centers that lack basic medical care, legal support and amenities…

   And on top of all of this, those wrongfully identified as gang members face discrimination and stigma, and perhaps for the rest of their lives.

   So yah, “mistake” doesn’t even begin to describe what’s happening. Even if you don’t sympathize with these people for whatever reason, you can at least acknowledge the exorbitant cost of this operation, the logistical nightmare it’s come to be, and the damage it’s doing to communities and the national economy.

   Don’t forget that immigrants add trillions of dollars to our GDP and work in sectors that are crucial to a functioning economy. Labor shortages in these sectors will lead to harmful consequences for the economy, which will only be exacerbated by Trump’s disastrous trade and tariff policies.

5. If they bring him back he might talk.

6. Jesus fucking Christ. Let me guess, no one is so much as losing their jobs over this, just like with the Signal episode.

   If I say what I really wanna say and how I feel about all this, I will be permabanned from this sub and three black suburbans will pull into my driveway

7. This is not a mistake. This is a trial balloon. Make no mistake, if he isn’t brought back, then the Trump goverment has the perfect way to get rid of anyone–because if El Salvador is not under our jurisdiction and we cannot bring anyone back… well, that applies to citizens too, doesn’t it?

   This is a rehersal for [“Nacht und Nebel” (night and fog).](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacht_und_Nebel) If this goes through, nobody, literally nobody in the US is safe. Being a citizen Will. Not. Matter.

8. So who can get him back then? Because somebody needs to. This cannot be allowed to happen. 

9. This needs to be brought up every single day at the Press briefing, and every single day on the news.

   An innocent man was sent to a concentration camp by the Trump administration. Every. Single. Day.

10. If everybody doesn’t have access to due process, nobody does.

11. There has got to be some judges in this country willing to tell this administration to bring these people back immediately to satisfy due process, or they will start issuing bench warrants to anyone they can who are involved in their deportation until they are returned. Start arresting some of the people just following their boss’ orders until you find some people who would prefer not to sit in jail for them.

12. Every fucking maga hat deserves the treatment this man is suffering and worse.

13. Theres a very real chance he may have already been gassed to death. You know Stephen Miller wants to if he hasn’t been able to yet.

14. it’s very sad, but in other dictatorships, when they “won’t return” someone, is bc they already killed that person, so they also can’t bring that person back for obvious reasons. i do hope it’s not the case here.

15. >Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday conceded that the Venezuelans were not all necessarily members of Tren de Aragua, either. He called the group a “combination of people” whose presence is “not productive to the United States” and who were “removable” by law.

    We’re sending people to a torture site because they’re not “productive to the United States”. Jesus Fucking Christ.

16. It is known that no one locked up in that prison gets out alive. How can they let an American sent to that prison return when they will probably go to the media to talk about all the vile stuff happening there? No one should have been sent there in the first place. It’s a gross human rights violation.

17. To be clear, for all the stuff Republicans have claimed over the years, this is actually the state violating people’s rights

18. So if they had decided to detain influentior/dog-killer Kristi Noem for acting like a Nazi and modelling $50,000 watches in front of innocent detainees there’s nothing this administration could do to release her?

19. Never going to the US ever again, or for a long time at least

20. Disgraceful, yes

    But sending ANYONE there, citizen or not, is equally disgraceful. This is genuinely a “first they came for” situation.

21. If anyone thinks this is an accident, they are deluded. This is only the beginning, rest assured there will be 1000’s of “accidents” to come.

22. How long until they start doing this to their political enemies under the pretense that “their presence is not productive to the United States”?

23. There is a reason that “due process” is so important for everyone. How else do you know that you have the right person?

24. Not surprising in the slightest.

    In America a PhD students get detained and kidnapped, a 10 year old girl with cancer under treatment, who is a US citizen gets brutally deported and innocent people with legal status and no criminal record gets deported to El Salvador prison for having a football (soccer) logo or autism awareness tattoo, while literal Nazis and terrorists get a free pass or even rewarded

25. An order specifically not to send him exactly where they sent him?

    This was no accident. I bet the Salvadorans asked for him by name.

26. There is no chance in hell that they did this accidentally.

    What I’m confident happened is the Trump admin made a deal with El Salvador and a part of that deal is that certain individuals of interest to El Salvador were “oopsie-daisied” onto the planes.

27. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday conceded that the Venezuelans were not all necessarily members of Tren de Aragua, either. He called the group a “combination of people” whose presence is “not productive to the United States” and who were “removable” by law.

    … what the fuck?

28. Dems should find a list of missing American citizens and accuse Trump of sending them to El Salvador. He can’t prove otherwise, and it might actually be true. We have no idea who he sent to that concentration camp.

29. Anyone who knowingly supports this administration is evil. Evil even, capital E. You are supporting literally the worst, most heinous totalitarian behaviors for…whatever reason you do support him. This isn’t even a situation where we have to say “It will get worse”. This is already on the trail of Nazi Germany. We have crossed the moral event horizon and authoritarian event horizons already. We are sending people who are in the country legally to foreign prisons without a trial and knowing the information is faulty. This is literally fascism. If you support this, you are a fucking fascist, you never get to whine about being called a Nazi again.

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