Democrats have been losing their minds the past two months over the deportation of “Maryland Man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Hundreds of screaming headlines have been bashing the Trump administration for deporting the Left’s darling — an illegal El Salvadorian immigrant with MS-13 gang membership and a track record that doesn’t speak kindly to his past.

Coverage on this issue is picking up once again as Attorney General Pam Bondi released newfound allegations from a sealed indictment by the Grand Jury in Tennessee’s middle district. The current charges laid out against Garcia are alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling in violation of Title 8 U.S.C. 1324.

Bondi listed several allegations at her press briefing on June 6, including allegations of involvement in a smuggling ring responsible for 50 migrant deaths in a tractor trailer overturn in Mexico in 2021, that he “made over 100 trips” smuggling people in and through the United States — including women and children, abused undocumented women, took nude photos and videos of a minor, and smuggled drugs and weapons into the U.S. via hollowed vehicle bottoms.

But who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Who was he before he became the “Democrat darling”? In March of 2012, Garcia illegally crossed the Mexican-American border near McAllen, Texas, supposedly fleeing from gang threats against he and his family by the Barrio 18 gang in his home town of San Salvador, El Salvador. Garcia then moved to Maryland to live with his brother, Cesar, who had already come to America and became a citizen. Garcia met his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, in 2016 and they had a child together, along with her own two children from a previous relationship.

Although the media will take these facts and create a falsely construed story of the “Maryland family man” who was a “loving father and husband,” that is not the truth of the matter.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Garcia was an abusive husband and father who, on multiple occasions, abused his wife to the point of involving local authorities. The first report, occurring in 2019, detailed, “In December 2019, [Vasquez] states Garcia grabbed her her hair in the car and dragged her out of the vehicle — abandoning her in the street.”

Further allegations came from Vasquez in August of 2020, disclosing that Garcia “has broken TVs, my son’s tablet, my car windshield, phones, walls. Me and my kids are afraid now. [He has] kicked me, pushed me, slapped me in the face, threaten me. [A]lso, I have a record[ing] [in which he] told my ex-mother-in-law that even if he kills me, no one can do anything to him.” The record also underscored his neglect and mental abuse of Vasquez’s children, claiming he locked them in rooms for long periods of time while preventing Vasquez from entering the home or leaving the property. The DHS released more paperwork on X and added, “According to court filings, Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm.”

Garcia’s domestic abuse charges were taken to court in May of 2021, receiving court orders stating he: “shall not abuse, shall not contact, shall not enter residence, shall stay away from, home of another family member, respondent shall vacate the home, custody, surrender firearms.” But the case was dismissed after Vasquez failed to appear at the final hearing.

Garcia clearly isn’t the family man the media is portraying him as.

On March 28, 2019, a Hyattsville City Police Officer stopped a group of four men loitering in a Home Depot parking lot — mong those men were Jose Guillermo Dominguez, Christhyan Hernandez-Romero, and Garcia. The officer reported that “[t]he subjects freely admitted being citizens and national of El Salvador by birth and that they were present in the United States illegally. The subjects were not in possession of any immigration documents that would allow them to be in or remain in the United States legally.” From information in the Gang Field Interview Sheet from the Prince George Police Department, the authorities were able to conclude “based on tattoos, clothing, as well as information from a source” that Garcia was a MS-13 gang member.

According to the Gang Field Review, “[The Detective] immediately recognized Christhyan Hernandez-Romero aka ‘Bimbo’ as a member of the MS-13 Sailors Clique.” It also recorded Dominguez’s tattoo of a devil, which only high-ranking MS-13 members can have. Dominguez’s gang involvement was then confirmed by a “proven and reliable source.” Garcia was also described wearing a Chicago Bulls hoodie, which commonly represents good standing with MS-13, according to the document. “Officers Contacted a past proven and reliable source of information, who advised Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia is an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique,” and that Garcia “is the rank of ‘Chequeo’ with the moniker of ‘Chele’” the document concluded.

An interview with a former MS-13 gang member revealed: “‘The chequeo is important, someone who is listened to. They have shown they can be trusted, and that they can kill. They are ready for action and to start earning for the gang. They have earned higher privileges, such as attending a miring (gang meetings). There are even exclusive meetings for chequeos, overseen by a homeboy (an official gang member).’” Chequeos are allowed to wear gang clothing, carry weapons, have a gang name, have authority to call the shots in their neighborhood, and is “essentially, a member of the MS13.” Once a chequeo has truly proven himself and higher-ups have assessed their abilities and assets, they can be moved up to “homeboy,” but less than 10% of MS-13 members have reached such a level of authority.

The next day, March 29, 2019, the DHS served Garcia a Notice to Appear (NTA) based on his illegal immigrant status, native El Salvadorian citizenship, his unknown arrival in the U.S., and not being “admitted or paroled after an inspection by an immigration officer.” He was then held in custody by the DHS and was refused bail due to his “lack of diligence in following up on his traffic court cases,” and evidence of MS-13 gang membership.

The DHS then “served him with a notice to appear for removal proceedings and detained him under 8 U.S.C. 1226(a),” which states he was subject to removal under Title 8 as an alien in the United Sates who was not admitted nor contained any legal records which would justify his presence in the country “and thus was here unlawfully.” But Garcia contended that he could not return to El Salvador for fear of his safety, as he was still being pursued by the Barrio 18 gang, who are rivals of MS-13. He was then granted a withholding of removal “to El Salvador alone.” Garcia was then “released from DHS custody under an order of supervision.”

It is important to note that “The Respondent testified that he entered the U.S. in 2012. However, he did not file his application for asylum until after he was detained in August 2019, seven years after his entry into the U.S. and well-beyond the one-year filing deadline.”

A few years later, on December 1, 2022, Garcia was pulled over by a Tennessee Highway Trooper for speeding. In the report, it was observed that Garcia had eight other passengers in the vehicle, which was clearly reconstructed to fit more people than it was designed to hold. Garcia claimed he had been driving from Houston, Texas, to Temple Hills, Maryland, to transport people for construction work. The report stated, “There was no luggage in the vehicle, leading the encountering officer to suspect this was a human trafficking incident,” and that all the passengers gave the officer the same home address as the driver, Garcia.

But in February of 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found “that MS-13 engages in ‘terrorist activity’ or ‘terrorism’ — or ‘retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism’” that “threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States,” all defined under 8 U.S.C. 1189 (a)(1)(B) and (C). This led to the government’s identification and removal of known MS-13 gang members, including Garcia. As a threat to national security, these operations were carried out swiftly and “expeditiously as possible.”

On March 15, Garcia was arrested by immigration authorities and deported to El Salvador along with 200 others. Garcia then sued the Trump administration for his removal to El Salvador on the grounds that he had a withholding of removal to El Salvador given in 2019.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem noted that Garcia did not ask for an injunction ordering his return to the U.S. but only requested “an order directing federal officials ‘to immediately stop paying’ the Government of El Salvador ‘compensation’ for detaining Abrego Garcia” and “an order directing federal officials ‘to request that the Government of El Salvador return Plaintiff Abrego Garcia to their custody.’” Emergency relief was not asked for by Garcia, but was nonetheless ordered by a district court that had — at the very least — no jurisdiction over the legal proceedings of a foreign nation. Interestingly, Garcia’s lawyers are not arguing against the validity of his removal from the United States, but only his removal to El Salvador specifically. Even Garcia recognizes that the United States has the grounds to deport him. But the media consistently neglects this fact.

The Left still protests Garcia’s deportation on the basis of family separation. First, Garcia doesn’t seem to be much of a family man after the allegations brought forward by his wife in 2019 and 2020. Second, Garcia himself is not arguing on those grounds: “Because respondents take issue only with where, not whether Abrego Garcia was removed, the harm that they claim from family separation is not implicated or properly redressable here.”

The district court makes an egregious overstep in its authority by “ordering” the return of Garcia by April 7, giving the government only three days to facilitate his return to the U.S. Garcia was already in the custody of El Salvador, the country he is from, and the U.S. “cannot guarantee success in sensitive international negotiations in advance, least of all when a court imposes an absurdly compressed, mandatory deadline that vastly complicates the give-and-take of foreign-relations negotiations.”

The president is vested with the constitutional power under Article II to handle foreign relations so the United States “speaks with one voice,” and has the abilities under 603 U.S. 593, 607 to manage “important foreign relations responsibilities” and “matters related to terrorism, trade, and immigration.” District courts do not have extraterritorial jurisdiction, but if this precedent holds, that will become a dangerous reality. This injunction from the district court undermines the authority of El Salvador and “gravely offends the separation of powers, under which the Executive, not the Judiciary, conducts relations with foreign sovereigns and protects the Nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal.”

The injunction in this case surpasses “facilitating” the return of an alien as the ICE directive defines. Instead of merely providing transport, the court is requiring that the United States “secure an alien’s release from a foreign sovereign.” Section 1252(g) deprives the district court of jurisdiction over this issue, as they can only raise “pure questions of law,” not challenge an administrative error. The order granting withholding was also given prior to MS-13’s designation as a foreign terrorist group “whose members cannot invoke withholding of removal.” Although Garcia was under a withholding of removal order allowing him to “be removed anywhere else in the world” this order seems to no longer hold up, as “MS-13 members such as Abrego Garcia have since been designated members of a foreign terrorist organization, they are no longer eligible for withholding of removal under 8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(3)(B).”

The Left also tries to misconstrue the conditions of Garcia’s imprisonment in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), claiming he is being unrightfully tortured and abused. But they fail to mention that the United States has been party to the Convention Against Torture since 1994 and would be violating their obligations under the treaty and be subject to several consequences if they allowed any inmates to be tortured.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration acknowledged the “administrative error” in removing him to El Salvador with the aliens being removed under the INA, but the report still claims that removing Garcia from the United States was not an error.

The Trump administration continued putting off this issue — even after multiple court hearings and a ruling by the Supreme Court for Garcia’s return to the U.S. — until June 6, when Garcia was brought back to the U.S. by an arrest warrant for allegedly smuggling illegal immigrants and narcotics across the border, as well as transporting minors.

This story continues to develop as Garcia’s lawyers fight for his release and “due process,” as they await his next court hearing.

Rare stories such as this often expose the lack of organization and understanding of our justice system. After all this research, many of us are still left wondering why an illegal immigrant has an entire country discussing his “right” to due process as a person who was never once an American citizen. Especially when this non-citizen has records of abusing his wife and children and is a member of a terrorist group known for trafficking and abusing women, children, and narcotics. All I have to say is: get better heroes.

Caily Shriver serves as an intern at Family Research Council.