Trump's DOJ brings Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador to face a slew of criminal charges it has cooked up against him in the interim since the Supremes ordered him returned in April

 

Watch out, Elon, you may be next.

 Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to face immigrant smuggling charges after wrongful deportation

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face criminal charges involving an alleged undocumented immigrant smuggling ring Friday, months after the Maryland resident was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador. ...

The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia and others from 2016 through 2025 “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.”

The grand jury that issued the indictment found that he made more than 100 trips smuggling thousands of immigrants. ...

In a post on X on Friday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele wrote, “As I said in the Oval Office:1. I would never smuggle a terrorist into the United States. 2. ⁠I would never release a gang member onto the streets of El Salvador.”

“That said, we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse,” Bukele wrote. ...

 

 

 

If ivermectin ever made a difference to COVID-19 outcomes in Africa, it sure didn't in Latin and South America

Wide distribution of ivermectin in Africa to combat river blindness does not appear to have had anything to do whatsoever with low death rates from COVID-19 in places like Angola (62 deaths per million of population), Kenya (120), and Nigeria (16).

It turns out that ivermectin was widely distributed in eight Latin and South American countries from June, August, and December 2020, but all of them had steeply higher death rates from the disease:

Peru 6,945

Brazil 3,396

Mexico 2,654

Panama 2,089

Bolivia 1,974

Guatemala 1,222

Honduras 1,165

El Salvador 652.

 

Exposure to fresh air and full spectrum sunlight with its infrared and ultraviolet radiation has been shown to speed recovery from the disease:

 

 

A Trump-appointed judge has ordered another Venezuelan wrongly deported to El Salvador returned to the United States

 ... U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Baltimore on Wednesday ruled that removing him without a chance to complete his asylum petition or challenge his deportation violated the settlement agreement. Cristian, and any other person who had been removed in violation of the settlement agreement, should be returned, she said. ...

More.

Looks like Trump & Co. blinked on Friday night after discovering the Supremes were getting involved in their latest Venezuelan deportation operation

 

As legal fight raged, ICE buses filled with Venezuelans heading toward airport turned around, video shows

 

Video from Friday night shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses full of Venezuelan migrants headed toward an airport in North Texas before abruptly turning around before the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must, for now, refrain from deporting Venezuelan men based in the state under the Alien Enemies Act. ...

As the motorcade was headed for the airport, a last-minute federal hearing on the matter was taking place in Washington.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who has been hearing a case related to the flights to El Salvador, scheduled an emergency hearing for Friday evening — just hours after a bus rolled up to Bluebonnet.

Shortly before that hearing kicked off, ACLU attorneys also asked the Supreme Court to step in.

“We hear they are on buses on the way to the airport,” said Lee Gelernt, the lawyer for the ACLU arguing on behalf of detainees on the verge of being deported under the Alien Enemies Act. ...

 

Supremes vote 7-2 to pause deportations of Venezuelans

The Trump administration has been bragging that the Supremes let them deport Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which of course is a half-truth. The April 7 decision 5-4 stipulates that due process be followed, which is why they ordered 9-0 the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who didn't get it, and the Supremes this morning aren't sure that's the case either with the latest group set to be deported.

 

 U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halts deportations of Venezuelan migrants under wartime law

The U.S. Supreme Court early on Saturday paused President Donald Trump’s administration from deporting Venezuelan men in immigration custody after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. ...

At issue is whether the Trump administration has met the Supreme Court’s standard for providing the detainees due process before sending them to another country - possibly to the notorious prison in El Salvador where others are jailed. ...

Their deportation would be the first since the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that allowed removals under the 1798 law while specifying that “the notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.” ...

On March 15, the Trump administration deported more than 130 alleged Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador. Many of the migrants’ lawyers and family members say they were not gang members and had no chance to dispute the government’s assertion that they were. 

 

 

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia told him that he was moved about nine days ago out of El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison

 From the story here:

... He told me, yesterday, that eight days ago—so nine days ago from today—he was moved to another detention center in Santa Ana, where the conditions are better. Despite the better conditions, he still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to communicate with anybody outside the prison. His conversation with me was the first communication he’d had with anyone outside a prison since he was abducted. ... 

 

 

Trump lets the president of El Salvador do his defying of the Supreme Court for him, won't return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States

 El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says he won’t return Abrego Garcia to U.S.

... [Trump] also said he wants Bukele to accept as many criminals as possible. ...

Supremes order Trump administration to work to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador to the United States

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday. 

 “The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents. ...

More.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia will have to wait in an El Salvador prison for the US Supreme Court to decide what to do with him

 

... Roberts issued a terse administrative order indefinitely lifting the deadline of 11:59 EDT to return Abrego Garcia set by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. The Trump administration had said that deadline was “impossible” to meet. ...

More.

Federal judge orders US authorities to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador by April 7

 A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States after he was accidentally sent to a notorious megajail in El Salvador.

U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the government must return Garcia by April 7 at 11:59 pm.

Garcia, a protected legal resident who has been living in Maryland since 2011 and is originally from El Salvador, was sent back to El Salvador on March 15 because of what the Trump administration called an “administrative error” in court filings Monday. ...

More.

Judge Boasberg was correct to order the flights to El Salvador to turn around, Trump administration now admits it made a mistake deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

-- Fifth Amendment

Due process exists to prevent such mistakes. Dictator Trump didn't care about following it.

Who will be his next victim?

From the story here:

 ...  The Trump administration acknowledged late Monday that it had inadvertently deported a man to El Salvador last month despite a court’s determination that he had a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country.

“This removal was an error,” a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote in a statement to a federal judge.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran, was on one of three deportation flights to his home country on March 15 amid a frantic legal fight over President Donald Trump’s decision to invoke war powers to hasten the deportation of more than 100 Venezuela nationals to El Salvador. In addition to the Venezuelans subject to Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act were other deportees with purported gang ties. ...

He was arrested by ICE on March 12 and sent to El Salvador on March 15, where his wife recognized him in a video showing the shackled and shaven prisoners being arrayed by Salvadoran authorities.

The Trump administration now says there’s nothing it can do to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to U.S. custody. ...

Why do the UniParty's bitches feel they must flaunt their expensive bling from Tiffany and Rolex at the southern border and in El Salvador?

 

Did VP Harris develop a long-term strategy to stem the tide of migration?

 

Biden taps VP Harris to lead response to border challenges

---

... Harris is tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as pressing them to strengthen enforcement on their own borders, administration officials said. She’s also tasked with developing and implementing a long-term strategy that gets at the root causes of migration from those countries. ...

For Harris, the assignment gives her the first big opportunity to step to the front of the stage on a matter of enormous consequence for the administration. As the first Black woman elected vice president, Harris arrived on the job as a trailblazer. It has remained opaque how Biden would utilize her.

LOL POLITICO January 2016: Opponents of family deportations under Obama leaked raid info to WaPo

Obama administration kicks off family deportation raids:

 

Johnson said the batch of deportees were among immigrants who crossed the southern U.S. border illegally since May 2014. That's when the U.S. began experiencing a surge of families and unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Officials say such crossings decreased by early last year, but began to pick up again in recent months. ...

The proposals to increase deportations appear to have stirred some dissent within the Obama administration. Just before Christmas, unnamed "people familiar with the operation" disclosed the plans to the Washington Post — a highly unusual leak about planned law enforcement actions. ...

Both Earnest and Johnson said DHS remains focused on deporting "felons, not families" — a curious talking point given that families were the targets of the weekend sweep. ...

Democrats in Congress — which is currently in recess — have been mostly quiet on the raids.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, GOP poll leader Donald Trump — whose candidacy has been characterized by hardline rhetoric against immigrants here illegally — took credit for the raids in his typical flair.

“Wow, because of the pressure put on by me, ICE TO LAUNCH LARGE SCALE DEPORTATION RAIDS,” Trump tweeted when news of the planned raids broke. “It's about time!”

The fact that Trump was proudly taking credit for the raids wasn’t lost on advocates, who used that point to draw comparisons between the real estate billionaire and Obama’s immigration policies."The president's actions are far more harmful than Trump's demagoguery,” said Pablo Alvarado, the executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “While Trump's dangerous rhetoric stigmatizes our loved ones, President Obama actually deports them.”

 

El Salvadorans in the US remit so much money back home it amounts to 20% of El Salvadoran GDP

2017 GDP was nearly $25 billion, so $5 billion.

Border Patrol in Rio Grande Valley has apprehended illegals from 44 countries, on track for 60, not like before when it was the same people over and over again

Border Patrol: 25,000 Illegal Aliens Evaded Capture in Southeast Texas:

"So far, here in south Texas, we’ve apprehended folks from 44 different countries. These are from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, you name it.” Although most illegal aliens hail from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, Ortiz estimates that by the end of the year, Border Patrol will have apprehended people from 60 different countries. ... Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said that although Border Patrol apprehended more than 1 million people in the early- to mid-2000s, it was often the same people, from Mexico, and it was easy to return them. ... “But now, that’s not what we’re dealing with. We’re on pace to have about 900,000 arrests, but that’s 900,000 people that we’re dealing with. Whereas back in the early-2000s, we were dealing with somewhere around 500,000, 600,000 people. We were just arresting the same person over and over and over again. So we’re dealing with something that’s just never been dealt with before. And if we don’t get the support from Congress, we’re going to fail. Period.”

Ehhhh ... puto! In the race for most fines for anti-gay slurs, Hispanic soccer fans have everyone else beat

Well, Spain was ruled by Muslims from 711 to 1492 AD.

From the story here:

Homophobia and homophobic chants are not exclusive to Mexico fans. Fifa issued 51 disciplinary actions over homophobia during 2018 World Cup qualifiers. Of these, 11 were handed to the Mexican federation, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Peru also receiving multiple fines. Fifa additionally cited Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Greece, Hungary and Serbia once each for homophobic chants.

But there is no doubt the chant is most prominent among Mexico fans. “To call your opponent homosexual is definitely along a spectrum of machismo, whereby your opponent is weaker – less masculine,” says Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America.

Reunite all the detained illegal aliens with their families

Back in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua . . ..

They have to go back.

I knew there was something I didn't like about R. R. Reno

Once a radical, always a radical.

He admits to nostalgia for his former radicalism, here:

Jacobin, founded in 2010, is a Marxist quarterly that has gotten notice as the voice of youngish radicals. I took a subscription last year, wanting to know the thinking of the anti-establishment left. As a college student in the early 1980s, I was for a brief period the campus organizer of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. I’ll leave it to the historians to determine whether CISPES was a front organization under Soviet control, but I can report that my participation in meetings put me in touch with hard-core communists. So I enjoy a certain nostalgic pleasure when I read the occasional essay that speaks of “objective conditions” and “a working-class vanguard.”

Illegal immigrant flood is Bush's fault, and Mexico's: W's 2008 anti-human trafficking law prohibiting immediate deportation is the magnet

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports here that Mexico just sends their problem north to us, and Bush's law requires us to waste time and resources tracking down the traffickers, all while it's in Obama's political interests to be lenient:

Fleeing punishing poverty and brutal gangs, tens of thousands of people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras started surging across the border in 2014. Their numbers fell toward the end of that year and stayed lower in early 2015 before rising sharply again. Between October of 2015 and January of this year, apprehensions on the southwest border were more than double the number from the same period the year before. Most of those who were caught are from Central America. Some are from Mexico. ...

A 2008 anti-human trafficking law — signed by President George W. Bush — prevents the government from immediately deporting them. Instead, the government is required to feed, shelter and provide medical care to them until they can be released to the care of sponsors, who are usually relatives. Meanwhile, the children undergo deportation proceedings in federal immigration courts in Georgia and other states where they can seek relief to stay in the U.S. ...

[T]he government is in a better position to respond to the surges this year because it has opened several processing centers — converted warehouses — for the apprehended immigrants in McAllen, Texas. At those centers, authorities try to identify their smugglers and the routes they took to get into the U.S.

One impediment to building a decent wall to stop this flood is that much of the border land is privately owned.

Now you understand why Trump is talking up eminent domain. Talking about taking land to build a pipeline from Canada to the Gulf is simply preparation for taking land to build the Great Wall of Trump.

Trump is serious, folks.