Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia a good person? I don’t know.
In 2021 his wife petitioned for, and received, an order of protection against him after she alleged domestic violence; she said last week that their marriage grew stronger after they worked through that low point and that Abrego Garcia “has always been a loving partner and father.”
The government has claimed that he is a member of a truly heinous criminal gang, MS-13. If that were true, given that he was in the United States illegally, I’d have no problem with deporting him, though perhaps not to a prison that our own State Department has condemned. We’ll get back to that.
The Trump administration, by its own admission, mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia in defiance of a court order to a Salvadoran prison. A judge had previously granted Abrego Garcia’s request not to be deported to his native El Salvador, because he feared for his safety. No one said he couldn’t be deported somewhere else.
On the other hand, is Abrego Garcia a terrorist or vicious criminal, as the administration claims? I don’t know that either. Is he even a member of MS-13? When the president sought to back up that claim, he posted a doctored image of Abrego Garcia’s hand tattoos, to which the characters “MS13” had been digitally added.