Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a career criminal playing for time. So when Homeland Security offers a “one-way” ticket to Uganda, he treats the deal like a deportation notice not to be taken seriously. He doesn’t even speak the official main language: English. And he won’t be packing his bags anytime soon.
Why would he? His phalanx of attorneys have packed his calendar with legal hearings and an upcoming court trial on charges of human smuggling in Tennessee dragging the case into January 2026: As part of the legal flip-flopping, Garcia was recently sprung from a jail in Tennessee, but will return to the state for the trial in 2026. (His frequent flyer miles we’ll get to later.)
Garcia is no longer just a client for his legal time, because now he’s become a cause célèbre: In a sleight of legal hand, the attorneys are focusing on procedural black holes to thwart Homeland Security at every turn. All the while -- saving (for another conversation) Garcia’s 14-year crime spree as a wife-beater, MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, and child-porn solicitor.
His legal team isn’t just filing motions -- they’re staging a full-blown media makeover. Forget about the image of a gangbanger, his attorneys have portrayed their client as a “victim” (yes -- that’s correct) of social injustice.
Leading the charge is Rina Gandhi, who is making the rounds on media-friendly outlets, which (naturally) includes politically sympathetic PBS.
With cameras rolling, Gandhi offers the public a tearful empathic view of the “Maryland dad” who suffered “immeasurably” while incarcerated in a prison in El Salvador. (Thanks to his legal team -- he’s now back on American soil.)
“His family has suffered immeasurably (as well),” Gandhi said during the PBS interview.
Yet the pièce de resistance was to come with Gandhi declaring, without a hint of irony for Garcia’s victims: “I think it will take many years, including therapy, for him to move past what he suffered,” while incarcerated in El Salvador.
True enough, but Gandhi sidestepped one narrative which would have shattered the image of her cause célèbre. The police recordings of Garcia’s own wife, describing in excruciating detail, the beatings she endured at the hands of Abrego Garcia.
She’s now on board with the political activists, advocating for her husband’s return to the family.
Life, as they say, can be cruel.
Perhaps, crueler still for Garcia’s victims who have watched him -- backed by well-financed political groups -- undergo an image transformation as a wrongly deported illegal alien.
Cherry-picking the facts is crucial for Garcia’s legal team to make their case: They’ve relied on a corrupt media to support their legal wranglings, but will cherry-picking the facts prove effective when their case inevitably makes its way to the Supreme Court?
Ignoring the Terrorist Deportation Act of 2021 -- especially written for the Abrego Garcias, and other criminals who had been pouring over the border, could be the unexploded bomb ready to go off in the highest court proceedings.
Nonetheless, Gandhi is still holding fast to her interpretation of the law: “We are challenging the legality and fairness of (his treatment) under U.S. immigration law,” she says.
Where would the case be without ongoing financing? Gandhi, and her team, are being bankrolled by recognizable leftist groups and chief among them include: ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union); CASA, a Maryland-based immigration rights organization, and even several Democratic Legislators, using taxpayer funds to campaign for Garcia.
But the truly creative touch can be traced to Garcia’s GoFundMe page that reads: “Bring Kilmar Home: Husband. Father. Disappeared.”
Disappeared?
Obviously, he’s not hard to find. ICE agents are part of the “monitoring” campaign, now that a federal judge has ruled to remove Garcia from a federal Tennessee jail and place him with his family.
Still -- one has to wonder: how many more “traumatized” MS-13 gang members are now busy drafting therapy notes for their next court appearance?
If Kamala Harris had ever made it to the White House, taxpayers may have found themselves footing the bill for group counseling sessions -- for every Garcia waiting in the wings.
Image: Chat GPT