Tag Archives: MS-13 gang

Washington Post: ICE begins immigration crackdown in Massachusetts, DHS says

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The Trump administration has launched an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts, saying it would target what it called “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” in the state.

The Department of Homeland Security provided few details on the scale of the latest operation, called Patriot 2.0. But in a statement Saturday, the department said that it followed “the success of Operation Patriot in May.” The earlier ICE raids resulted in nearly 1,500 arrests across Massachusetts, including dozens of migrant workers on Martha’s Vineyard.

“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return,” the statement said.

The Massachusetts operation comes as the Trump administration has signaled it is preparing to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago — a move that local leaders have strongly opposed.

On Thursday, the administration sued Boston and its leaders for allegedly refusing to cooperate with immigration authorities, adding to a string of similar lawsuits against so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has defended the city’s laws, describing the lawsuit Thursday as an “unconstitutional attack on our city.” The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ICE operation Saturday.

In its statement Saturday, DHS said “sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens.”

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan vowed last week to increase immigration enforcement across sanctuary cities, saying the administration was planning to “flood the zone” with thousands of agents.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has repeatedly said that immigration officers are arresting the “worst of the worst.” But a Washington Post analysis of ICE data from June found the administration is increasingly targeting unauthorized immigrants with no criminal record as it ramps up arrests.

Federal authorities said the Massachusetts arrests in May included an alleged MS-13 gang member and someone described as a “child sex offender.” But according to community members, most of the migrants had no criminal record and were stopped on their way to work.

ICE begins immigration crackdown in Massachusetts, DHS says
The Trump administration has launched an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts days after it sued Boston over the city’s sanctuary policies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-begins-immigration-crackdown-in-massachusetts-dhs-says/ar-AA1M2kH7

Daily Beast: ‘Homie’: DHS Ridicules Dad They Plan to Deport to Tiny African Nation

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia has received a letter about where the DHS plans to send him next.

Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia has learned where the Department of Homeland Security has decided to deport him next.

In an email obtained by Fox News, lawyers for the DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Abrego Garcia’s legal team on Friday that his new intended destination is the tiny African nation of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland.

Ridiculing Abrego Garcia’s legal claim of fear of persecution or torture—a core asylum principle—in many of the nations the government has considered deporting him to, the DHS wrote on social media that “Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere”.

The derisory use of the term “homie” sparked outrage on social media.

Abrego Garcia, who is currently in ICE custody in Virginia, became the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in March after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

The government admitted to an “administrative error” following his return from the Central American nation, but is still intent on removing him from the U.S. over charges of human smuggling.

His lawyers claim such charges are a “preposterous and vindictive” punishment for challenging ICE policy.

Eswatini is the fourth potential destination for Abrego Garcia, who was taken into ICE custody for a second time on Aug. 25, and prepared for processing to Uganda.

A federal judge blocked the plan, accepting his lawyers’ concerns over fear of persecution or torture, ruling that it is “absolutely forbidden” to remove Abrego Garcia from the U.S. until further legal processing can be carried out. However, the DHS has stated it is not buying his legal defense.

“That claim of fear is hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries,” the legal letter reads.

“Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.”

The letter does not elaborate on how the DHS chose the country for Abrego Garcia’s intended removal.

The Daily Beast has contacted the DHS for comment.

DHS boss Kristi Noem has made it a personal mission to see Abrego Garcia deported. She has previously claimed her department is going after “the worst of the worst” and, in August, claimed the man is a “monster.”

“This illegal alien… is a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator,” Noem wrote on social media.

Abrego Garcia’s legal team has repeatedly denied all these allegations, including the often-trotted out line about his membership of the notorious MS-13 gang. Multiple judges have said there is no evidence to suggest he is gang-affiliated, while noting he has no prior criminal history.

In April, President Donald Trump insisted that Abrego Garcia had the gang name tattooed on his knuckles, challenging a reporter in an interview that an image of Abrego Garcia’s hand with “MS-13″ clearly superimposed over it was real.

At roughly 120 miles long and 80 miles wide, Eswatini is one of the smallest nations in Africa. It is the last absolute monarchy on the continent, and has a population of 1.2 million people. The country, which is bordered by South Africa and Mozambique, changed its name from Swaziland in 2018 to avoid confusion with Switzerland.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, says the Trump administration is “weaponizing the immigration system in a manner that is completely unconstitutional.”

‘Homie’: DHS Ridicules Dad They Plan to Deport to Africa
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has received a letter about where the DHS plans to send him next.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dhs-ridicules-kilmar-abrego-garciawho-they-now-plan-to-deport-to-eswatini

News Nation: Noem accuses CBS of ‘deceptively’ editing interview on Kilmar Abrego Garcia

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused CBS News of selectively editing footage from her Sunday interview, cutting some of her remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who was mistakenly deported and returned to the U.S. to face separate charges.

In a statement on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security said CBS “deceptively” edited the secretary’s answers, cutting about four minutes from the nearly 17-minute interview when it aired on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“This morning, I joined CBS to report the facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” Noem said in a statement. “Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS-13 gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.”

CBS News, however, maintains that the interview was edited to fit its allotted time slot in the hourlong broadcast and that the full interview was published online.

“Secretary Noem’s ‘Face The Nation’ interview was edited for time and met all CBS News standards,” a spokesperson for CBS News said in a statement to NewsNation partner The Hill. “The entire interview is publicly available on YouTube, and the full transcript was posted early Sunday morning at CBSNews.com.”

Noem’s accusation is the latest example of the administration’s ongoing feud with CBS and its parent company, Paramount.

Earlier this summer, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump over claims the news outlet favorably edited a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the 2024 election.

In Noem’s Sunday interview, sections of her responses cut for the live broadcast include allegations against Abrego Garcia that have not been substantiated and which his lawyers deny.

Those include allegations that the Maryland resident “was a known human smuggler, MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors and even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off,” which Noem said in the section of the interview that DHS claims was removed from the live broadcast.

The DHS statement includes other sections of the CBS interview that reportedly did not air live on Sunday morning.

Earlier this week, attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge to issue a gag order against Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi to bar them from making “baseless public attacks” against their client, who faces human smuggling charges stemming from a traffic stop in 2022. 

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in a Thursday motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that administration officials have targeted their client since he was released from prison, leveling “highly prejudicial, inflammatory and false statements.” 

“To safeguard his right to a fair trial, Mr. Abrego respectfully renews his earlier requests that the Court order that all DOJ and DHS officials involved in this case, and all officials in their supervisory chain, including [Bondi and Noem], refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing this proceeding,” the attorneys said in a 15-page motion to U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw. 

A DHS official pushed back against the gag order request.

“If Kilmar Abrego Garcia did not want to be mentioned by the Secretary of Homeland Security, then he should have not entered our country illegally and committed heinous crimes,” a DHS official told The Hill on Friday morning. 

“Once again, the media is falling all over themselves to defend this criminal illegal MS-13 gang member who is an alleged human trafficker, domestic abuser, and child predator,” the DHS official continued. “The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal alien has completely fallen apart, yet they continue to peddle his sob story.”

“We hear far too much about gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims,” the official added.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys were told their client could be deported to Uganda, but a federal judge said Monday that the administration is “absolutely forbidden” from removing Abrego Garcia until a hearing is held.

Whine, bitch, whine!

https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/kristi-noem-cbs-interview-kilmar-abrego-garcia/?ipid=promo-link-block2

Guardian: Judge blocks Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Ábrego García again

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Federal judge says man wrongfully deported to El Salvador cannot be expelled until October as asylum case proceeds

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Kilmar Ábrego García, who was already wrongfully deported once, cannot be deported again until at least early October, according to multiple reports.

CNN reported that the US district judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, scheduled an evidentiary hearing for 6 October, and said that she intends to have Trump administration officials testify about the government’s efforts to re-deport Ábrego.

At the same hearing, Ábrego’s lawyers informed the court that he plans to seek asylum in the United States, according to the Associated Press.

Ábrego’s case has drawn national attention since he was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March.

Following widespread pressure, including from the supreme court, the Trump administration returned him to the US in June. Upon his return, however, he immediately faced criminal charges related to human smuggling, allegations that his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”.

Ábrego, who is 30 years old and a Salvadorian native, was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday while awaiting trial.

But over the weekend, the Trump administration announced new plans to deport him to Uganda.

Then on Monday, Ábrego was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during a scheduled immigration check-in in Baltimore, which was one of the conditions of his release.

He is currently being held in a detention center in Virginia.

Ábrego’s legal team swiftly filed a lawsuit on Monday, challenging both his current detention and his potential deportation to Uganda. In court filings, they argued that the government is retaliating against Ábrego for challenging his deportation to El Salvador.

“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”

Later on Monday, Xinis issued a ruling temporarily barring the government from deporting Ábrego until at least Friday. On Wednesday, she extended her order until Ábrego’s current deportation challenge in court is resolved, according to ABC News.

It added that Xinis said she would issue a ruling within 30 days of the 6 October hearing, and also ordered that Ábrego must remain in custody within a 200-mile (320km) radius of the court in Maryland.

She also reportedly said she would not order Ábrego released from immigration custody, leaving that decision for an immigration judge.

Ábrego entered the US without authorization around 2011 as a teenager. According to court documents, he was fleeing gang violence.

In 2019, a federal court granted him protection from deportation to El Salvador. Despite that ruling, in March, he was mistakenly deported there by the Trump administration.

In court documents in April, the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation had been due to an “administrative error”.

Since then, Trump administration officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family have denied.

Judge blocks Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Ábrego García again
Federal judge says man wrongfully deported to El Salvador cannot be expelled until October as asylum case proceeds

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/27/kilmar-abrego-garcia-deportation-trump-asylum

Newsweek: Trump admin identifies gang immigration “loophole”

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A new report from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has raised concerns over the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program, citing instances of identity fraud and gang affiliations among applicants approved for lawful permanent residency.

“The scale of criminality, gang involvement, and fraud described in this report is more extensive than in earlier public discussions of the Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) program,” Morgan Bailey, a partner at Mayer Brown and a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security, told Newsweek.

… which is followed by a lot of continuing fearmongering not worth quoting.

How hard is it to base each individual’s decision on his or her personal criminal history?

If they have no criminal history, let them be permanent residents.

If they commit crimes, deport them.

After 5 years of permanent residence, they can apply for citizenship, at which point their criminal history will be considered.

If they don’t apply for citizenship, they’ll have to apply to renew their permanent residence after another 5 years, at which point their criminal history will still be reviewed.

Focus on the INDIVIDUALS, not on superficial associations and characteristics.

Trump admin identifies gang immigration “loophole”
Criminal groups have exploited a program giving children legal status, USCIS said.

https://www.newsweek.com/special-immigrant-juvenile-visa-gang-exploitation-uscis-report-2104231

Fox News: ‘Lawless and insane’: Trump admin readies for fight after judges block Abrego Garcia removal for now

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In Nashville, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw on Wednesday ordered Abrego Garcia’s release from criminal custody pending trial, writing in a 37-page ruling that the federal government “fails to provide any evidence that there is something in Abrego’s history, or his exhibited characteristics, that warrants detention.” 

He also poured cold water on the dozens of allegations made by Trump officials, including by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in Nashville last week, that Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member.

“Based on the record before it, for the court to find that Abrego is member of or in affiliation with MS13, it would have to make so many inferences from the government’s proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful,” he said. 

King Donald’s pathetic band of idiots, suck-ups, and sycophants really needs to learn to quit when they’re behind, way behind in this case.

‘Lawless and insane’: Trump admin readies for fight after judges block Abrego Garcia removal for now
The Trump administration faces setbacks as judges in Tennessee and Maryland block the deportation of Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with officials suggesting they may violate court orders.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawless-insane-trump-admin-readies-fight-after-judges-block-abrego-garcia-removal-now

Kansas City Star: ‘Not on Our Watch’: ICE Announces Major Arrests

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ICE has reportedly arrested a suspected MS-13 gang member in Omaha, Nebraska, who is wanted for multiple murders in El Salvador. In addition, another suspected gang member was detained for ordering serious crimes such as murder and drug trafficking. ICE arrests are expected to further surge following a funding boost from $2 billion to $45 billion annually.

Wow! Pugsley Homan caught whole two real criminals. I’m impressed. Not!

…

[Todd] Lyons stated, “Our ICE officers and agents are protecting your neighborhoods, even when you don’t know the threat is there, so either support them, or get out of the way.”

Like hell you are. Your masked Gestapo thugs are terrorizing our neighborhoods, not protecting them.

‘Not on Our Watch’: ICE Announces Major Arrests

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/not-on-our-watch-ice-announces-major-arrests/ss-AA1ITaQn

Newsweek: Trump admin ordered to return man deported to El Salvador

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President Donald Trump‘s administration has been ordered to return a Salvadoran man who was deported minutes after a federal appeals court blocked his removal.

Jordin Melgar-Salmeron was deported to El Salvador on May 7 despite an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, New York, blocking it.

On Tuesday, the appeals court ordered the administration to “facilitate the return” of Melgar-Salmeron as soon as possible to “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

It also directed the government to return to court within one week to provide details on the current location of Melgar-Salmeron and how it planned to return him to the United States.

Trump admin ordered to return man deported to El Salvador
The Trump administration was ordered to return a Salvadoran man deported minutes after a federal appeals court blocked his removal.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-ordered-return-man-deported-el-salvador-2090058

Tampa Free Press: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Says ICE Is ‘Trump’s Modern-Day Gestapo’ In Commencement Speech

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Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel executing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda to the Gestapo in a Saturday commencement address at the University of Minnesota law school.

…

Walz, the failed Democratic nominee for vice president in 2024, suggested during the speech that Trump is using ICE to implement his immigration agenda in similar fashion to how Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler used the Gestapo secret police to target opponents, according to RealClearPolitics.

“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz claimed. “They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons—no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.”

“To be clear, there’s no way for us to know whether they were actually criminals or not, because they refused to give them a trial,” Walz continued. “We’re supposed to just take their word for it.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Says ICE Is ‘Trump’s Modern-Day Gestapo’ In Commencement Speech
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel executing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda to
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Says ICE Is ‘Trump’s Modern-Day Gestapo’ In Commencement Speech

CNN: Tennessee authorities release video of Abrego Garcia at a traffic stop that officials have used to paint him as a criminal

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US officials have argued the traffic stop in November 2022, during which Abrego Garcia was not detained, supports their claims that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 and involved in human trafficking. The stop resulted in no charges, and there was no mention of human trafficking in the parts of the redacted report that have been made available.

Yet the 2022 traffic stop now could play into the ongoing political debate and legal standoff over Abrego Garcia, who is still in El Salvador while a federal judge demands answers and more evidence from the Trump administration.

So far in the ongoing court proceeding over his custody, his attorneys have said that the US in his 2019 immigration proceedings offered little reason to believe Abrego Garcia was tied to a gang, other than the fact he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and that a confidential informant provided a tip to authorities.

…

“There is no known link or association between him and the MS-13 gang,” his lawyers told the federal judge last month.

In a statement provided to CNN regarding the bodycam footage, Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said, his client “has been denied the most basic protections of due process—no phone call to his lawyer, no call to his wife or child, and no opportunity to be heard.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg added that “I see no evidence of a crime in this footage. But the point is not the traffic stop — it’s that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court. Bring him back to the United States, return him before the same immigration judge who heard his case in 2019, and let him speak for himself.”

…

Earlier, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Highway Patrol told CNN that Abrego Garcia was flagged to federal law enforcement, “who made the decision not to detain him.”

According to a Department of Homeland Security statement released last month about the incident, federal officials released Abrego Garcia with a warning for driving with an expired license.

And today Trump’s minions are desperately grasping at straws to deport anyone and everyone they can so as to increase their deportation counts.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tennessee-authorities-release-video-of-abrego-garcia-at-a-traffic-stop-that-officials-have-used-to-paint-him-as-a-criminal/ar-AA1E3SOn