Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was wrong when she told far-left Democratic senators during a committee hearing that “there is no scenario where [Kilmar] Abrego Garcia” — the deported illegal-alien gang member and wife beater — “will be in the United States.”
But she might just be glad of it. The Salvadoran is in the United States, but not for the reason nor in the way his Democratic fangirls hoped.
A federal grand jury has indicted Garcia for human smuggling — transporting illegal aliens across the United States.
Worse for Garcia, law Professor Jonathan Turley predicts, he will be deported even if he isn’t convicted.
Deported March 15, Garcia has been the center of a court and political battle between a far-left judge and Democrats and the Trump administration. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of the district court in Maryland ordered the administration to return Garcia to the United States, a decision with which the U.S. Supreme Court imprudently agreed. It said the administration must “facilitate” his return. The administration argued that it cannot return him because he was not under federal jurisdiction. They also said that, in any event, he would be deported again immediately because of membership in the MS-13 terror gang.
Far-left Democrats and their Mainstream Media Megaphone insisted that he was “wrongly deported. That falsehood was corrected by White House aide Stephen Miller, but it had absolutely no effect on Garcia’s boosters.
As the debate raged, the federal government adduced evidence that belied his backers’ claim that Garcia is a wholesome “Maryland father and husband” who was unjustly “disappeared.” His wife twice filed petitions for protective orders, claiming that he was a brutal, out-of-control thug. Cops in Prince George’s County, Maryland, “validated” him as a member of MS-13.
In 2022, Tennessee Highway Patrol stopped him with a carload of illegals and suspected him of human trafficking. The Biden administration ordered his release. The owner of the vehicle, a convicted smuggler himself, told investigators that he hired Garcia to unlawfully transport illegals.
All that bad news did not dampen the ardor of pro-Garcia Democrats and his shills in the far-left Mainstream Media.
Now they must explain away a federal grand jury’s indictment of the Salvadoran goon.
From about 2016 through about 2025 the 10-page indictment alleges:
Garcia and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.
Garcia and his co-conspirators used cell phones and social media to conduct the operation, the indictment alleges. The illegals paid Garcia and his conspirators for the transportation. The indictment says that Garcia is an MS-13 member, and that he “used his status in MS-13 to further his criminal activity.” He and his conspirators “transported thousands” of illegal aliens, “many of whom were MS-13 members and associates.”
Garcia and his co-conspirators also teamed up with “transnational criminal organizations in Mexico” to bring in the illegals.
Garcia and a co-conspirator called CC-1 usually picked up the illegals in or around Houston, Texas, then packed them off to elsewhere in the United States. “During the course of the conspiracy, CC-1 was incarcerated for alien smuggling and was deported from the United States,” the indictment says. CC-1 then ordered another co-conspirator, CC-2, to work with Garcia.
CC-1 was deported but re-entered the country illegally to begin working with Garcia again, the indictment alleges:
Garcia, CC-1, and CC-2 “occasionally and simultaneously transported firearms illegally purchased in Texas for distribution and resale in Maryland. [Garcia also] occasionally and simultaneously transported undocumented aliens and narcotics purchased in Texas for distribution and resale in Maryland.
Aside from all that, the indictment notes that Garcia, CC-1, and CC-2 altered vehicles with unattached seating and “transported children on the floorboards of vehicles in order to maximize profits.” The three “routinely transported between six and ten undocumented aliens per trip to maximize efficiency and profits” in “more than 100 trips” from Texas to Maryland and elsewhere.
The two-count indictment charges Garcia with transporting illegals and conspiracy to transport them, violations of 8 U.S. Code 1324 — bringing in and harboring illegals.
Because Garcia was caught transporting illegals in Tennessee, the charges were filed in the U.S. District Court of the state’s Middle District.
Democrats inadvertently put Garcia in the hot seat by flying into a rage about his deportation and fighting it, Turley noted. “If Abrego Garcia had been removed, little attention would likely have been drawn to his prior conduct,” the George Washington University law professor wrote:
Indeed, as all the Democratic politicians, such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), arrived in El Salvador with an army of reporters, one has to wonder if Abrego Garcia was having second thoughts about his challenge.
After noting Garcia’s criminal past and indictment, Turley explained that, whatever happens at trial, Garcia will be deported.
“Ironically, in light of this indictment, any criminal defense attorney worth his salt would have opposed deportation to the United States from El Salvador,” Turley wrote:
Instead, Abrego Garcia will face a much longer possible criminal sentence. He will eventually then be deported to El Salvador regardless of the outcome of the criminal prosecution. Abrego Garcia never had a compelling basis for remaining in the United States. He gamed the system for years, a system that seems utterly incapable of dealing with this national emergency.
He will get due process, but make no mistake about it. Abrego Garcia is coming back, but he is not coming home.
White House aide Miller agreed, noting yet another “moronic headline” about Garcia’s being “wrongly deported.” After prison time, Miller wrote, “it is back home to El Salvador.”
Noem said that Democrats “have burnt to the ground” their credibility by defending the terror-gang member and wife beater. And now, “justice awaits” him.
H/T: The Washington Post