Donald Trump reign of deceit and cruelty against innocent migrants

 One man’s deportation highlights deceit and cruelty of the Trump administration (The Republican newspaper Editorials in Springfield, Massachusetts)

A single – and singularly shocking – immigration case best illustrates three core traits of the Trump administration in full operation: (a) indifference to the law, (b) lying about basic facts and (c) lethal cruelty for its own sake.

On March 12, Kilmar Abego Garcia was driving home from work at a construction job site in Maryland. He had just picked up his 5-year-old autistic son from his mother’s house. He then got pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

A native of El Salvador, he had won a U.S. court case in 2019 that protected him from being deported back to El Salvador.

That ruling was based on the fact that gangs in El Salvador had issued death threats to Garcia and his family if they refused to pay extortion money (“rent”) from the income earned by the family’s stuffed tortilla business. Eventually, Garcia fled to the U.S. and won the court victory protecting him from being sent back to El Salvador.

Today he is locked up in the notorious supermax prison in El Salvador because on March 15, ICE flew him off to El Salvador in spite of the 2019, court ruling that protected him from just such a fate.

That prison is something close to hell on earth, according to detailed reports from Human Rights Watch. The U.S. government is paying El Salvador to detain Mr. Garcia and others in that facility.

In court papers filed March 31, ICE admitted it was aware of the 2019, court ruling when it abducted Garcia from the U.S. on March 15.

But the Trump administration, in those same court papers filed March 31, argues that because Garcia is now outside the U.S. and in custody in El Salvador, the court can’t do anything to remedy the situation.

This heinous set of facts is now before U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland. Lawyers representing Garcia filed a motion asking the judge to tell the U.S. government to seek his return from the prison. Lawyers for the government have said to the court, in effect, we won’t do anything to remedy the miscarriage of justice because “we don’t have custody or control” of Garcia, which is a perversion of the first order, since ICE illegally removed him in the first instance.

From her podium at the White House, Trump’s press secretary (aka "3D Printer Barbie")- Karoline Leavitt on April 1 lied about Garcia by spuriously accusing him of ties to human trafficking and “vicious” gang violence. This is standard Trump operating procedure when confronted with inconvenient facts: deny, disparage and lie.

For her part, the woman in charge of ICE, Homeland Security (Halloween constumed) Secretary Kristi Noem, went to the supermax prison on March 28, for a hedious op in front of caged prisoners and praised El Salvador’s cooperation. Displaying a total indifference to the law, however, she did nothing to rescue the man – Garcia – that her agency illegally abducted from the U.S. on March 15.

For the sake of Garcia and his family, including his disabled son, and for the sake of the preservation of an independent court system to uphold the rule of law (including the 2019, court victory that Garcia obtained by playing by the rules and submitting his case to a neutral judge), we look forward to this man’s prompt and safe return to the U.S. 

A judge hearing the case in Maryland federal court instructed the U.S. government to bring Garcia back to the U.S. no later than Monday. In response, the Trump administration immediately filed a notice of appeal to fight the judge’s order.

So far, as of May 15, 2025,

 the Trumpzi administration has illegally ignored all court orders.