OPINION:
After sipping margaritas with members of Congress during a comfortable stay in Central America, Democrats’ favorite illegal alien is back on U.S. soil. Left-wing federal judges compelled the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the administration obliged. It may not be the victory progressives expected.
This “Maryland Man” will stand before a federal judge in Tennessee on Friday, indicted for his participation in a human trafficking conspiracy. A magistrate signed an arrest warrant last month to guarantee Abrego Garcia never walks U.S. streets as a free man.
“Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Maryland Man gained worldwide fame after being flown to his home country of El Salvador as a purported member of the MS-13 gang. Initially, the feds didn’t do a great job of producing facts to back up the accusation. Leftists assumed the shortfall flowed from dishonesty, and they became obsessed with the supposed lack of due process that resulted in the man’s erroneous exile to the CECOT detention facility outside San Salvador.
This week, federal prosecutors unsealed an abundance of corroboration for their case against Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s most treasured “constituent.” According to the Justice Department, human smuggling was Abrego Garcia’s full-time occupation for 9 years.
Abrego Garcia served as the driver for over 100 journeys in a MS-13 operation, the government said. His duties involved stuffing as many paying passengers as possible into an SUV. To do so, this model non-citizen disregarded federal safety rules to conceal children in the floorboards “to maximize profits,” according to prosecutors.
Co-conspirators allege that Maryland Man also smuggled illegally purchased firearms and drugs into the Old Line State, wiring a share of the profits to gang members in Mexico and Guatemala. These snitches also said Abrego Garcia “abused some of the female undocumented aliens,” and they wanted him to stop because it was bad for business. They even provided a tale about Abrego Garcia soliciting child pornography.
If true, such testimony won’t go over well with a jury in central Tennessee, where the case is being held based on a traffic stop. In 2022, Tennessee Highway Patrol officers pulled Abrego Garcia over, believing they had uncovered an obvious trafficking scheme. No charges were filed at the time because federal officials under the previous administration ordered law enforcement to cut Abrego Garcia loose.
So, even though the judge assigned to this case was appointed by President Barack Obama, that’s not likely to help. Abrego Garcia can be found innocent of these charges and still be kicked out of the United States because he has no legal right to remain. The Democratic strategy of making this “Maryland dad” the poster child for their immigration agenda wasn’t a very bright move.
“Kilmar is all of us,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, wrote on X in April.
It’s a shame that the human trafficking rap won’t be taken up in state court, where high-profile cases are frequently televised. That would ensure the public hears the rest of the half-story that tried to paint this man in a sympathetic light.
The American people were lied to not only about this shady individual, but also about the effort to open our borders and flood the country with thousands of Abrego Garcia. Democrats should not be allowed to forget their complicity in this enterprise.
Correction: In a previous version of this column, the last name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was misspelled in one reference.
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