DOJ tries to show Abrego Garcia is a part of MS-13: Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi has determined that as an alternative of working to facilitate the discharge of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Middle (CECOT) because the Supreme Court docket has ordered, she will instead take to X to launch paperwork from his 2019 arrest, during which a detective claimed he was an MS-13 member.
That is one method, I suppose.
These paperwork had already been publicly obtainable, when you cared to look by means of the prior courtroom proceedings. The Gang Discipline Interview Sheet, drafted up by Ivan Mendez, then an officer with the Prince George’s County Police Division, says Abrego Garcia was arrested with purported MS-13 members in a House Depot parking zone, that he was sporting clothes that they consider to be affiliated with MS-13 (“a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of cash overlaying the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations” which “officers know such clothes to be indicative of the Hispanic gang tradition”), and {that a} confidential informant stated he was a part of MS-13.
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Curiously, reporting by The New Republic notes that Mendez was suspended the subsequent month for “offering data to a business intercourse employee who he was paying in trade for sexual acts.” (“The data he supplied targeted on an on-going police investigation,” per the county’s information launch.)
Info has additionally come out about Abrego Garcia allegedly beating his spouse, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, stemming from a safety order she filed towards him in 2021: “At this level, I’m afraid to be near him,” she wrote within the safety order. “I’ve a number of photographs/movies of how violent he might be and all of the bruises he [has] left me.” She cites particular examples from August 2020 and November 2020 during which he was violent towards her. Vasquez Sura told CNN that “she sought a civil protecting order in 2021 after a disagreement with Abrego Garcia” and that “she had survived a earlier relationship that included home violence.” She says she didn’t seem at a courtroom listening to and pursue the matter additional: “We had been in a position to work by means of this case privately as a household, together with by going to counseling.”
Working by means of marital troubles—even when violence is concerned—seems to be one thing the vice chairman sorta…helps: “Culturally, one thing has clearly shifted. I believe it is simple but additionally in all probability true guilty the sexual revolution of the Nineteen Sixties,” J.D. Vance said in 2022. “My grandparents had an extremely chaotic marriage in numerous methods, however they by no means received divorced, proper? They had been collectively to the tip, ’til dying do us half. That was a very necessary factor to my grandmother and my grandfather. That was clearly not true by the 70s or 80s.” (Vance has written elsewhere about his grandparents’ marriage turning violent at occasions.)
“Primarily based on the sensationalism of most of the folks on this room, you’d assume we deported a candidate for Father of the 12 months,” snarked White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Leavitt commented from the rostrum that “it is appalling and unhappy that Sen. [Chris] Van Hollen [D–Md.] and the Democrats applauding his journey to El Salvador at this time are incapable of getting any shred of frequent sense or empathy for their very own constituents and our residents,” earlier than gesturing to Patty Morin, a lady whose daughter was brutally murdered by an unlawful immigrant in 2023. “No one is aware of this greater than the lady standing to my proper, Patty Morin,” added Leavitt.
Whether or not Rachel Morin or Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing pupil killed by an unlawful immigrant whereas jogging, the administration retains implying that you simply can’t each help due course of for Abrego Garcia and have empathy for the victims of violence from unlawful immigrants. (I believe folks can maintain a number of concepts of their heads directly.)
None of this actually issues when it comes to what the U.S. authorities is obligated to do: The Supreme Court docket has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. The administration continues to demur on this entrance, as an alternative selecting to launch, by way of X…the protecting order Vasquez Sura filed:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a historical past of violence and was not the upstanding “Maryland Man” the media has portrayed him as.
In accordance with courtroom filings, Garcia’s spouse sought a home violence restraining order towards him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt,… pic.twitter.com/FpSV0k3i90
— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) April 16, 2025
After all, most individuals are neither angels nor demons, and even very dangerous and violent folks—if that’s what Abrego Garcia is—deserve due course of. The punishment for wifebeating in Maryland, or getting into the nation illegally, isn’t indefinite confinement in a Salvadoran jail. He has not simply been deported, he has been locked up in CECOT. (“A jail the place there isn’t any schooling or remediation or recreation, as a result of it’s a jail that doesn’t intend to launch its inhabitants again out into the world,” writes The New York Occasions‘ Ezra Klein. “It’s a jail the place the one method out, within the phrases of El Salvador’s so-called justice minister, is a coffin.”)
Extra particularly, if the administration is making an attempt to deport the person underneath the Alien Enemies Act, he’s entitled to a habeas listening to to confront the fees that he is an MS-13 member (as Glenn Greenwald particulars under).
Just a few info no matter what facet of the due course of/deportation debate you are on raised by Vance:
1) Solely purpose Abrego Garcia case is an argument is an immigration courtroom blocked his deportation, and Trump Admin admitted he was “mistakenly” picked up by ICE.
2) SCOTUS… https://t.co/b4QF2axiVu
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 16, 2025
Even when the concept Abrego Garcia deserves due course of is uncompelling to you, zoom out for a second and think about the various different individuals who have been despatched to CECOT with out the flexibility to contest the fees towards them, not sure if they’ll ever be launched. This is not deportation. That is cruelty to make a political level (as some resistance types would declare throughout Trump 1.0): Do not come right here. In the event you’re already right here illegally, be afraid. In spite of everything, home-growns are subsequent.
The Miami Herald revealed an awesome article about one man who utilized for refugee standing, acquired it, and was seized on the airport and despatched to CECOT for no purpose: https://t.co/YQoM4UVbn5 I posted it and everybody went “yeah that appears dangerous”. Garcia, although, we are able to argue over.
— Kelsey Piper (@KelseyTuoc) April 16, 2025
Israel had wished to strike Iran’s nuclear websites: Over the previous couple of weeks, Trump administration officers apparently dissuaded Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear websites. “Israeli officers had not too long ago developed plans to assault Iranian nuclear websites in Could,” reports The New York Occasions. “They had been ready to hold them out, and at occasions had been optimistic that the US would log out. The purpose of the proposals, in line with officers briefed on them, was to set again Tehran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon by a 12 months or extra.”
Primarily, President Donald Trump communicated to Israel that the U.S. wouldn’t help them of their plans, whereas opening up higher traces of communication with Iran presumably to barter a brand new deal associated to its nuclear program (the previous nuclear deal, negotiated by President Barack Obama, was shredded by Trump throughout his first time period in 2018, but it surely seems a bit like second-term Trump would possibly settle for something that appears fairly comparable). Checked out a technique, you possibly can say Trump’s method is a bit schizophrenic, with administration officers not completely aligned on which objectives they’re really pursuing. Checked out one other, you possibly can say the less-hawkish forces are exerting important affect behind the scenes, which bodes effectively.
Scenes from New York: Mayoral candidate (and present state consultant) Zohran Mamdani plans to extend company taxes by 4.5 p.c, which he predicts would add $5.4 billion to metropolis coffers. “One other $4 billion would come from the elevated taxes on the rich, with further revenue flowing in by beefing up town’s tax assortment company,” adds The New York Publish. Mamdani advocates city-run grocery shops, expanded free childcare, fare-free buses, and hire freezes. He additionally appears to consider which you can simply levy infinite taxes on the rich with out them ever wising up, shifting their cash elsewhere, or fleeing town altogether.
QUICK HITS
- “SpaceX is main a bid to construct Golden Dome with startups Anduril and Palantir, six folks stated,” reports Reuters, which would come with “a constellation of 400 to greater than 1,000 missile protection satellites.”
- “A staff of researchers is providing what it contends is the strongest indication but of extraterrestrial life, not in our photo voltaic system however on a large planet, generally known as K2-18b, that orbits a star 120 light-years from Earth,” reports The New York Occasions. “A repeated evaluation of the exoplanet’s ambiance suggests an abundance of a molecule that on Earth has just one recognized supply: residing organisms similar to marine algae. ‘It’s in nobody’s curiosity to say prematurely that we now have detected life,’ stated Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer on the College of Cambridge and an writer of the new study, at a information convention on Tuesday. Nonetheless, he stated, the most effective clarification for his group’s observations is that K2-18b is roofed with a heat ocean, brimming with life. ‘This can be a revolutionary second,’ Dr. Madhusudhan stated. ‘It is the primary time humanity has seen potential biosignatures on a liveable planet.'”
- That is actually disturbing:
I am livid.
We have gotten official phrase that “a number of” college students at my faculty have had their visas pulled (among the many tons of reported throughout the nation). No causes given. My faculty is about as activist as a jar of peanut butter.
My different worldwide college students are nervous.…
— Carl (@HistoryBoomer) April 15, 2025
I believe it must be larger information {that a} home terrorist tried to homicide a Jewish governor and his household on the primary night time of Passover as a result of the perp was made about “the Palestinians.” That is what “globalizing the intifada” means in follow, and all those that have been…
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) April 16, 2025
Reporting at this time fairly constant that this was a simple try and assassinate a Jewish governor and his household on Passover out of revenge for the Palestinians. We’ll see what else emerges clearly, but when that is the place that is headed it is a dangerous, dangerous place. pic.twitter.com/zuJJWGNYh4
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) April 16, 2025
